Sweden Considering Sexism Labels For Video Games

[oreso]

*ring ring*

Hey! Liberal left-wing Europe? How's it going? Yeah? Awesome.

Well, uh... the religious right-wing called, they want their moral policing back. Yeah. Turns out, telling people what they should like is kinda their thing. Yeah. You're kinda in people's front rooms telling them to be ashamed and that... Yeah. I think they're totally just jealous.

Are you sure that's actually a new catchphrase? "Won't somebody think of the women" does sound a lot like you just swapped 'children' for... Okey. I heard that too; some people are just so hateful that they enjoy sexy stuff without... Yeah. I know it was a big barrier to me too, that's why I played Mario, because I couldn't identify with a blue hedgehog.

I know, right? I know it's not -censorship-, I mean, no one wants -that-. You're just uh, just making sure that the deviants know that they're being judged by... right-thinking society? Or something?

Yeah. They did ask what standard you're gonna be judging them on, I mean... You know, religious folk usually claim some moral authority when they say what is deviant, and since you're mostly godless... Right.

Yeah, okey, that makes sense. No, no, I mean, maybe Tumblr could be a canon, right? Maybe not. But that test, wasn't it from a webcomic?

Well. I just think... Sorry. I wasn't really... No.. I'm uh, I'm checking it right now. Sorry, I didn't mean anything about 'menz'! Um, I'll try and think about women more. Yeah, all the time. No, no! Not in that way! ... I'm so sorry. Yeah... Sorry. So so sorry.

I'll try to do better. Buhbye... *click*

*exhales*

Sheesh...

 

[silversnake4133]

If Sweden keeps this up, they won't be able to understand the concept of sex and gender, and shall thus become:

 

[Obama's Dad 420]

how would they do that? just slap a label on all the games with a big ass " YES THI SIS SEXIST"? because they are?

 

[sumanoskae]

This... actually doesn't sound that bad. I'm not getting the sense that I usually do when I see games getting the attention of a government; that they're being singled out and disrespected; that the flaws that are ignored in other media are being exaggerated in games.

What stands out to me is that Sweeden isn't just calling out for gender equality in games and ignoring all the other sexist shit that exists in society as a whole, as is the case so much in the U.S; politicians and celebrities heaping disrespect onto the artists if the game industry by treating the works they spend their lives on like a dangerous controlled substance, assuming danger and poor quality until proven otherwise.

This could be a positive thing if we look forward rather than backward; don't punish developers for what they may or may not have done in the past, instead reward them for moving in a progressive direction.

Of course, the system could be poorly implemented or abused; I wouldn't use the Bechdel test to gauge whether a film illustrates gender equality, and it's easy to imagine that this rating system will focus entirely on the superficial elements of sexism ("Her tits are too big; if she wasn't hot she would be a well written character") and ignore the core of the issue ("How much of this character is being predetermined by their gender?"). People may also become over focused on the less than progressive aspects of otherwise excellent games; Shadow of the Colossus comes to mind.

This might turn out to be a good thing... MIGHT.

 

[Darkmantle]

It's social engineering and moral policing. You might not be able to do it in the same way it was done in the past, but the intent is still there. If you had your way. games with that label wouldn't exist.

Pretty much all forms of law, policy, and social interaction are social engineering and moral policing. It's only bad when you personally would prefer things stay the same. And, if I had my way, these games would simply be a smaller part of the market than they are now, because the amount of it now is pathetic.

Good, now next time someone tells me people like you aren't "coming for your games" I hope you will be there to correct them.

At least you're honest.

And, once again, you'd be wrong to base your hope on your inability to understand things. If wanting the amount of games I dislike to become a smaller portion of the entire market (IE, I want other things to be proportionally larger) than everyone is "coming for your games." Going by your logic, wanting more RPGs would be coming for your shooters, which is an argument I doubt you'd support.

I didn't realize wanting more things that I like was so horrible nowadays, but I probably shouldn't be surprised after these past few months.

If your main method of doing so is complaining about existing games and trying to get existing games art design changed, I'd say you're not looking to grow the other markets larger, no, you;re looking to shrink the market you're attacking.

And here I was hoping you would be honest.

 

[Homey C-Dawg]

I will be amused if this causes games with the "Sexist" tag to start selling better than their "Not sexist" counterparts.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Now things are getting stupid, what next, a cruelty to animals warning labels on Pokemon games?

 

[AgedGrunt]

Having it labelled on the game doesn't prevent you from buying the game, so the people who don't mind or who actively enjoy the sort of content this affects can have their game same as ever - rather than pushing to change the content of the game, this would just declare that it's the sort of game that has stuff like that - if anything, it somewhat legitimizes it as an artistic choice to have it there next to violence and drug use, other bad things which some people nevertheless enjoy in their games.

You're missing the problem with the rating, which probably wouldn't influence consumers much; it would be a major influence on developers.

If you release a sexist game, do you expect it to have more or less mass appeal? If you are in the video game industry, do you want to put down on your resume that you were responsible for creating sexist games? How do you expect your career prospects to look with those projects in your portfolio? Would you be more or less likely to work on a sexist game?

What about a violent game? Nobody could question whether working on a violent game suggests you're a violent person. But if this rating happens, you watch how fast devs who get games tagged with an "S" start facing accusations of sexism. That's the risk they will face, and there will be aversion to it. That's not helping gaming, that's straight-up intimidation. An "M" rating clearly covers mature themes, and sexism should be no exception.

and it draws attention to the issue on a large scale - if there's a lot of games getting this rating, that's a valuable statistic and an easy to find red flag, developers may become more aware of it as an issue in their games if they have to consider whether they want their game to have this rating. More awareness of an issue like this is a good thing.

The main problem with this is if the ratings agency becomes overzealous in assigning a new rating like this. Stuff that's borderline, hard to make out, should probably be given the benefit of the doubt because it's not going to read the same to everyone. I think if they can get specific, hard guidelines into place, it could probably work well.

So you understand the aversion it will create, and that the idea really depends on a strong system with clear, common sense parameters for sexism. You realize that the latest outrage in the feminist universe is a scientist's shirt, right?

I'd ask what kind of gamer wants a body police for fictional characters, but I'm in a place where gamers literally body police fictional characters.

 

[Pikeperch]

People seem to be under the impression that games in Sweden are suddenly going to be slapped with a label that tells you whether a game is sexist or not. While I suppose that is technically a possibility, I would say that is very unlikely. What is going here is basically that some guys at Dataspelsbranchen asked themselves "You know what, there seems to be a lot of stuff going on in our industry that maybe isn't very constructive. Could we do something about that?" to which some other guys replied "Fuck if I know, maybe we could think about it?". Then they asked Vinnova for a bit of money to do a small study. My guess is that ultimately not much will come of it.

Or, to take their words (freely translated, see http://www.dataspelsbranschen.se/nyheter/2014/11/13/foerstudie-kring-normkritisk-maerkning.aspx for original text)

Dataspelsbranchen, together with the research company Praxikon, receives support from Vinnova to examine the conditions for norm critique and diversity.

A number of news sites have brought to attention that Dataspelsbranchen together with Praxikon will be given support to examine how a norm critical labelling system might look. The project is a preliminary examination to examine the conditions for a norm critical labelling system in the video game industry.

Many have expressed desires for a labelling, but there are initially a number of questions for the study to answer. What kind of "labelling" is requested - is it a consumer labelling like, for example, KRAV, a process labelling like ISO, or something completely different? If not the content of the games is the focus, how does the work with diversity in the production of games that do not have characters, lines, or narrative look?

This and many other things are being looked at by the study, where one of the goals is to create process support to game developers in their diversity work. There is no completed labelling that will be put in place, but a study that will provide a basis to support companies in future investments. This in order to help the video game industry both directly and indirectly to continue to grow and develop.

The study starts in January 2015 and is planned to be completed in August.

 

[Darkmantle]

If your main method of doing so is complaining about existing games and trying to get existing games art design changed, I'd say you're not looking to grow the other markets larger, no, you;re looking to shrink the market you're attacking.

And here I was hoping you would be honest.

So your problem is that my main method of trying to get more games that I like is vocally saying that I don't like certain games (and why) and saying how much I'd like something else (and why)? Is expressing your likes and dislikes not allowed anymore?

Harassing devs about their design choices and trying to make them change via shame is another category all together from expressing likes and dislikes.

 

[Darkmantle]

Harassing devs about their design choices and trying to make them change via shame is another category all together from expressing likes and dislikes.

If you want to call stating why I don't like something "harassing" and "shaming" you go right ahead. I'll be over here, recognizing that you can't just disallow criticism you don't like by calling it harassment and shaming.

Is this the road you want to head down? Alright then.

You also can't disallow criticism just because the target of criticism is a woman (Anita, Quinn) either. Nor should Anita's decision to close down her comments be applauded by the same type of people who vehemently claim that all they are doing is a little minor criticism.

WHat I'm looking for is some ideological and/or intellectual consistency and I cannot find it here.

 

[Darkmantle]

You also can't disallow criticism just because the target of criticism is a woman (Anita, Quinn) either. Nor should Anita's decision to close down her comments be applauded by the same type of people who vehemently claim that all they are doing is a little minor criticism.

Maybe it's because this conversation's been going on for awhile, but I don't remember doing either of those things. And, from what I've seen around the Escapist at least, no one has disallowed criticism of someone just because they were a woman. As for closing down comments, again, I haven't seen anyone "applauding" it, just people understanding the reason why she did it and not just screaming about how she's an evil censorship harpy who wants to murder discussion.

What I'm looking for is some ideological and/or intellectual consistency and I cannot find it here.

It'd be easier to find if you limited your search to what's actually happened instead of including your fantasies, because I can't control what I do or say in there.

Yes, the escapist hasn't disallowed said criticism, but many places have. On the very basis that they called it harassment, and they "don't tolerate harassment".

And I find it hard to believe you don't hear people applauding it, must not hang around tumblr and twitter as much as I do, or at least the scummier parts of it.