Sweden Considering Sexism Labels For Video Games

[Benedict Saunders]

Huh i can't help thinking that people aren't actually talking about the actual issue here.

It would be helpful for parents to know what kind of game they are giving to there child or just for personal enjoyment, an 18 rating in England does come with a vague description of what to expect in the game of course, BUT knowing that a game contains racism, depictions of rape or misogyny can't be a bad thing to have on game label surely?

I doesn't appear that they are planning to ban any games, just to stick a label on it so people know. I would be interested in seeing what they come up with in the end.

 

[jabrwock]

Oh my goodness the butthurt.

Next thing you know people will be complaining that they have to label their games for containing adult themes, or foul language.

Oh wait...

It's a label people. Calm down. Nobody's stopping the game from being sold, they just want to provide more info on the contents.

As for the Jack Thompson vs. Anita comparisons... Anita is discussing sexism in games. Jack tried to get certain vague game themes banned from being sold. See the difference?

 

[Something Amyss]

My post was meant to show that there can be valid, legitimate arguments for both sides on an issue such as sexism in order to explain my stance on these proposed labels.

That's nice. Now demonstrate how it applies to media representation, which is a lot harder to square.

Arguing by analogy only works if there's an analogue.

 

[Something Amyss]

I see you're not cutting back on the rudeness or sensationalism.
Stick to what you know I guess.

The thing you did first.

Ironic.

Well, have fun with that, I guess.

 

[DeepReaver]

*slams head on table* oh god why... OK here is the big issue with this. Unlike say Violence or Drug Use which are easy to label, sexism is so fucking subjective to the observer... i just... This is only going to end badly. This is only going to end badly cause it is not going to represent anything about sexism from an equality standpoint, I can almost guarantee that this is going to be skewed as hell based on whoever is judging the game at the time.

 

[Darth_Skroob]

What hath Charles XII, by the Grace of God King of Sweden, the Goths and the Vends, Grand Prince of Finland, Duke of Scania, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, Lord of Ingria, Duke of Bremen, Verden and Pomerania, Prince of Rügen and Lord of Wismar, and also Count Palatine by the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Count of Zweibrücken?Kleeburg, as well as Duke of Jülich, Cleve and Berg, Count of Veldenz, Spanheim and Ravensberg and Lord of Ravenstein, wrought? His military adventuring and imperial overreach has led to Sweden having possibly the most neutered men on earth. Swedes need to recapture some of that Viking spirit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zgkySBTUIw

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

My post was meant to show that there can be valid, legitimate arguments for both sides on an issue such as sexism in order to explain my stance on these proposed labels.

That's nice. Now demonstrate how it applies to media representation, which is a lot harder to square.

Arguing by analogy only works if there's an analogue.

My example applies to the idea of "labelling products for levels of sexism", as stated in the first line of the article. The article states that:

Dataspelsbranchen, a Swedish games industry organization, has been given a 272,000 kronor (roughly $36,672) grant by the state-funded "Innovation Agency" Vinnova to study and create a system that would provide ratings for games released in Sweden indicating the level of sexism and/or whether or not the game promotes gender equality.

This sounds like a really well-intentioned idea, and I would totally be behind it, if the system does not fail under certain circumstances. As I said, "levels of sexism" is completely subjective; you cannot apply such a label to a game in any objective, meaningful capacity by giving a label with a rating or judgement that says "sexist" or "not sexist", or anything on the spectrum in-between.

As for media representation, I'm all for it. As I said, the people behind this idea mean well. If we attempt to account for "good" or "bad" media representation, however, then we run into the same issue. Hopefully, that won't be the case.

 

[Lunar Templar]

yay! another thing that's not gonna do a god damned thing and smacks heavily of 'band wagon hopping.'

 

[DrOswald]

Not exactly a bad idea in theory. I like the idea of a rating system that gets more granular than our current set (violence and sexual content, sure, but what kind of violence and sexual content?), but I really doubt that something so subjective as gender representation can reliably be measured.

Also, I don't believe that Swedish movies and TV are giving ratings to individual movies based on the Bechdel test. They can't really be that moronic. I am not believing that one until I get a more credible source than Movie Bob.

 

[Rattja]

What I want to know is how all this sexism relates to realistic graphics in games. It' may be because I was young then, but I don't really recall anyone calling a pixel beating the shit out of another pixel sexist, even it it was sexy woman sprite.

Im starting to think that there is a different angle to all this. Why should it matter what form a bunch of 1's and 0's take on a screen?
It's not people you see there, but it seems many seem to think they are at this point.
And it is not so strange when you get to play games which try to mimic reality to such an extent as they do. It just gets easier to mix them up.

It's like, nobody ran around and jumped on people or ate random muchroms after playing Mario, but they are supposedly robbing cars and beating women because of GTA.

Just saying that this focus on realistic looking and feeling games might be a bigger part of the problem than we think.

 

[Callate]

Huh.

I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea, but I'd much sooner see it brought up as a "stamp of approval" thing than part of an actual rating. It's also a little uncomfortable to have a government agency telling you something is sexist; is there an appeal system?

I'll point out here that I also thought up-rating things for tobacco use was kind of on the silly side. (Still do, honestly.)

 

[Skeleon]

Considering media has marks for stuff like...
Crude humour.
Drugs.
Alcohol.
Violence.
Partial nudity.
Nudity.
Mature themes.
...and whatever else, I can hardly see this as anything ground-shaking. Just like you might not want your kid to play Gut-Blood-Drencher XTREME Gore Edition or whatever, parents might want to avoid other themes including gender issues as well. This will, of course, be perceived by many as another vicious attack on games or whatever, but I'm of the opinion that more information for consumers is better than less. To take a completely different example, it's also why I'm absolutely in favour of marking GMO food as such despite not having any personal qualms with it.

 

[silverleaf81]

If you make a rating for sexism, racism, etc, do you differentiate between depictions of it and possible encouragement of it?

 

[Mikeyfell]

What happened to you Sweeden! You used to be cool.

So, ignoring the fact that there are only like 9 video games that have any 'real' sexism in them, who is this for?
I mean besides Anita.

How would this work? Are they going to have literary scholars pawing over every scene to determine which characters were placed in the game as cultural mirrors for an entire gender, and the relevant implications of their portrayals versus the portrayals of other characters in the same work.

Or are they just going to CTRL-R "Suggestive Themes" with "Sexism"

 

[rgrekejin]

This sounds well-intentioned, and I respect that, but there are a number of things that can go wrong with this. How can one objectively judge sexism in games?

Uhh no, sorry.
You can't measure "sexism", we can't even come to a consensus whether bayonetta is sexist or empowering and it'll be even greater arbitrary nonsense than age ratings.

Well, thank God there's no measure for sexism proposed, rather one on gender bias.

I wonder if they're going to apply this same system to films, books and music.

You mean like the setup they already have that's mentioned for film in the article itself?

I really do get the impression that nobody reads the articles.

One would think that someone who complains that other people seem to never read the article might themselves, in fact, read the article, but whatevs. Foolish consistency and hobgoblins and all that.

Now, that same attention is being turned to the games industry. Dataspelsbranchen, a Swedish games industry organization, has been given a 272,000 kronor (roughly $36,672) grant by the state-funded "Innovation Agency" Vinnova to study and create a system that would provide ratings for games released in Sweden indicating the level of sexism and/or whether or not the game promotes gender equality. At this time, Dataspelsbranchen had not yet determined whether they would recommend these labels be applied to retail games in the manner of the ESRB ratings [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/esrb] or as a "stamp of approval" that game publishers could use in their marketing.

 

[Something Amyss]

One would think that someone who complains that other people seem to never read the article might themselves, in fact, read the article, but whatevs. Foolish consistency and hobgoblins and all that.

Ummm..yay keyword skimming? Kind of proving my point there, but okay.

 

[lionsprey]

people its mistranslated the thing isn't about sexism

looking at the original Swedish article the damn thing isn't even about sexism! here look

Ett exempel är dataspelsbranschens förering som ska ta fram ett märkningssystem som gör det möjligt för kunder att hitta och premiera normkritiska spel, något som på sikt kan påverka spelutvecklingen.

it basicly means they have recieved funding to make a system that allows customers to find and buy games with "normativ criticism" (only translation of the word i could find) meaning games that examine or critic norms.
this thread is based on a translation error