Sweden Considering Sexism Labels For Video Games

[thewatergamer]

Oh yeah this is a great idea... This will totally make everybody happy. the extremists will totally be able to agree on a middle ground as to what is sexist and what isn't!

Seriously? I'm so sick of this political bullshit on both sides of "the spectrum", on one side you have the insane feminazis screaming "ALL MEN ARE EVIL KILL THEM ALL"
and then you have the other extreme of lazy twat's claiming "WOMEN ARE THE PROBLEM, SEND THEM BACK TO THE KITCHEN AND ALL WILL BE WELL WITH THE WORLD" I'm so sick of this crap... and people trying to "fix it" isn't going to help, the way to take care of the extremists is to ignore them, because you aren't going to be able to appease either of them, no matter what you do neither of them will be happy, one will claim that you aren't going far enough, and the other will claim that your discriminating and being sexist against men/women depending on which extreme they are...

*slow clapping* well done Sweden, you are close to the perfect encapsulation of everything stupid in the human race... You would be "the" encapsulation but Ubisoft already beat you to that title

 

[Dagda Mor]

Personally, I think this is an appalling idea, there is absolute no way, to my mind, the state should be the moral arbiter of culture in anyway,

From the article:

Dataspelsbranchen (which is an association of the Swedish games industry, not a government agency)

So it's not the state, but the games industry. I don't see the issue in adding additional tags to existing ESRB type descriptions. This game contains: Alcohol use; Language; Women as quest rewards; Graphic Violence. Seems like a reasonably simple step, and if it is kept specific, less liable to be up for debate.

That way, it's not less an arbiter of culture and more an impartial reporting of cultural elements in a game.

But it was given a grant by the government. The government is involved.

 

[Mrkillhappy]

I just love how there are people freaking out as though this means all that much. Seriously unless it is like the AO rating is to the ESRB then this sexism label doesn't amount to anymore then another set of words in the rating description that WILL be ignored. Also on the bright side of things maybe people who are offended by the sexism in games won't buy said game & as such stop complaining. The only way it would result in censorship is if people still complain about sexism & demand the games be taken off the market though I see it as just creating a buffer even though to me it is a non issue as I don't believe there is sufficient evidence that sexism in games leads to sexism IRL thus making the addition of this silly.

 

[TomWiley]

As I swede, I was surprised to read this. I'll look into it and report back to you.

 

[Darkmantle]

Welcome to the 21st century where limiting freedom is for your own good!

Welcome to the 21st century, where saying something is sexist is the exact same thing as banning it from existing. Or, where a depressing amount of people just think it is because they're too busy whining about how horrible things are to think honestly for five seconds.

Considering bad labels can result in lower sales of a game, then yes, it's at the very least encouraging it from existing. Nevermind that "sexism" is completely objective and just about anything can be considered sexist if you show it in a certain light, even if it doesn't have women in it.

And discouraging through a label is a far fucking cry from limiting free speech. Tell me, are you opposed to every single thing from criticism to low review scores to customer recommendations to those little boxes on the back of games that say what kind of content is inside on the basis that they might result in lower sales? If not, what makes this so special that it is said to be limiting free speech?

And gender equality is not really that subjective (I assume you meant subjective, since objective doesn't really fit with what you were saying). Are men and women treated equally in the game, or are they not? It's really not that hard of a criteria to understand if you bother to actually try and not just cry out about oppression.

Well the ext time I'm told that these video game feminists "aren't coming for our games" or "arent trying to stop them from being made", I hope you are there to correct them for me.

 

[Dogstile]

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.

The difference being that if a game contains foul language or adult themes, you can't argue it. It's pretty well established.

Sexism? People still try and use the argument that showing all men as hulking behemoths isn't sexist because they don't find it sexy. People are broken when it comes to sexism.

Not surprised this is getting considered in Sweden though, according to the people I talk to their the politicians are so comically left that if they drew them in a political comic you'd think it was a massive overexaggeration for comic effect.

 

[Muspelheim]

As always, people are having far too much fun being angry to take the time to consider what it means; absolutely bugger-all.

Isn't that the thing SJW's are usually guilty of? Reading the broad generalisation, take offense to it and then complain?

EDIT: All that said, I suppose it's what the poor Yanks go through all the bloody time some idiot preacher without any real power says something particularly silly.

people its mistranslated the thing isn't about sexism

(Jag är rädd för att det är hopplöst, kompis. Somliga letar bara efter något att gnälla om, så de får mer vatten på sin pratkvarn.)

 

[Grizzly_Bear_1]

Digital sales say hello to these proposed regulations, they are already obsolete.

The progressive left is sounding more and more like the religious right with throwing labels around so easily. It's beyond annoying and becoming a worry at the spread of their intolerance. These people who get offended by everything intentionally won't be happy until the force everyone who even questions them to live underground in the sewers like in the movie Demolition Man.

 

[Aeshi]

Anyone remember the days where this site was about Video Games? Man, those were some good times.

 

[Muspelheim]

Right, I translated the damn thing as best I could (Not very well, but it was hardly informative) and I'm passing it around like the easter bunny. Admittadly, it's mainly to the benefit of people who have already decided what to think and won't read it, but still.

(Translated material: http://www.dataspelsbranschen.se/nyheter/2014/11/13/foerstudie-kring-normkritisk-maerkning.aspx )

---

Dataspelsbranchen ("The Videogame Branch"), together with the research company Praxikon receives monetary support by Vinnova to investigate the basis for norm critique and diversity.

A number of news websites have brought to attention that Dataspelsbranschen, in association with Praxikon, will be given funding to investigate how a norm critical labeling system could look like. The project is a feasibility study that will investigate the possibilities for a norm cricial labeling system in the video game branch.

Many have expressed wanting a label, but initially there is several questions for the investigation to answer. What type of "labeling" is requested - is it a consumer label, such as KRAV (food and grocery related quality lable), a processlabeling such as ISO, or something else entirely? If the game's content is not in focus, how does the diversity initiative look like in the production of games that does not have characters, lines or narrative?

This and much else will be looked at by the prestudy, where one of the goals are creating process support that gives concrete aid to game developers with their diversity initiatives. Thus, there is not a complete lable that will be introduced, but a study that will lay the foundation to support companies in future ventures. This to help the video game branch both directly and indirectly to grow and develop.

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

---

Oh, our forefathers are surely rolling in their graves with shame at this latest act of tyranny by the new feminist world order.

 

[Creator002]

I support this.

At least, people can read the label and avoid being potentially offended and then starting a century's worth of "discussion"[footnote]complaints[/footnote] in a month.
At most, companies will do their best to avoid the label and virtually snuff out sexism in their games.
In reality, people will purposely purchase games with the label just to "discuss"[footnote]complain about[/footnote] the sexism present in the game.

Final thoughts: The fuck do I care? I'm not sexist and I do what I can to discourage sexism when I see or hear it. On the other hand, being a straight male, I like seeing a little eye candy in games now and then. If that makes me a misogynistic pig, fine. Don't interact with me.

(I do believe sexism is a real issue, but it seems like a lot of the discussion around it leads to people simply complaining one way or the other. The most people can do is discourage it and not do it themselves. Logically debating sexism with a sexist is just going to be pointless. Sexism is ignorance at best and arrogance at worst. The arrogant and ignorant tend to be invinicible to logic. Sort of like some mentally ill.)

 

[Zerotwo]

So.... This wasn't a very pleasant read at all.

Let's put things into perspective. An industry organization is researching the possibility for a new product labeling for games, in Sweden. This label could indicate either if the game promotes gender equality or if it's regarded as sexist by the rating board. Exactly what and to what extent these labels could be applied is not known, since it is as stated just now being researched (actually not starting until January 2015 according to their website). "Sweden Considering Sexism Labels For Video Games" is an article title, made to look interesting, and in this case quite erroneous.

Dataspelsbranschen is an industry organization, not tied to any political party or movements. It is a private for profit organization with partners including (as stated on their website): Activision Blizzard, Bergsala, Disney, Electronic Arts, Game Outlet, Koch Media, Microsoft, Namco Bandai Partners, Nordisk Film Distribution, Pan Vision, Ubisoft och Warner Bros.

Furthermore the political climate in Sweden is, as evidenced by the recent election, not suprisingly moving in a steady rightward direction with strong rising support for the major nationalistic, anti-immigration and anti-left party. Similarly to what we have seen previously in Greece, France, Norway, Denmark and other European countries. Commenting on Swedens politics through the perspective of old stereotypes still being run by many media outlets today ad verbatim today (the Escapist not excused) is misleading and naive.

In just a few pages of comments here I find a humongous lot of hate directed against my country, its government and "the apparent feminist leftist conspiracy" behind it all. I would urge many of you to stop and at least actually consider the situation a little before going all up in arms over a petty thing like this. This judgemental attitude and borderline paranoic obsession with the perceived "threath to video games/gaming culture" is juvenile and hiding behind intellectualizing arguments of "objectivity" doesn't help.

If you need to find a rational reason for why this is even happening in the first place (i.e. other than "the war" against the male sex -.-) you have to look no further than the comments on this article. With an ounce of self-reflection and general knowledge that should not be hard to see.

 

[PDugna]

tired and this was probably gone over, but why the fucking hell does sweden even use the Bechdel test? I mean freaking the most fanservice moe slice of life animes and all girl fanservice anime shows with girls with huge tits and tons of panty shots passes that stupid "test". What's the point of even using it?

 

[Halla Burrica]

I'm feeling very sceptical towards this. Like, how do you even decide if a game is sexist or not? Do they gather some people in a room and have a vote between yes/no? Because in that case, it's gonna be very hard to be objective on that front. You can look at a game and see if it meets the criteria for what's considered bloody and violent, and then you can label it with an age rating, depending on the level and detail of the violence etc. Same goes with swearing, nudity, fear, drugs, sex, all those can be objectively measured. The importance, emphasis or weight of those themes are entirely subjective, but the validation of whether they are present or not and to what extent is universal. But sexism? That's a tough one. There is of course an objective definition for what sexism is, it is (taken from the Oxford Dictionary): "prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex". Unfortunately, that line becomes very blurry when placed in the real world. Same would go if there was going to be a racism, homophobia or xenophobia tag, because those things are very open to interpretation.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

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

What? You mean I spent all day soaking my torch in oil and polishing my pitchfork for nothing?

 

[RicoADF]

I call bullshit on any such thing actually going through. There's not an ounce of logic in trying to implement any such system.

So you'll have a bunch of people deciding for everyone else how racist/sexist something is...and it will achieve what exactly?

Sweden already has this system in place for movies, it makes sense that they are extending it to other media. This isn't targeting games as an easy scape goat but rather including them into the existent system.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

In Sweden Big Sister is watching you. And judging you apparently.

 

[Crazycat690]

Doesn't sound doable, it's very hard to determine if something's sexist or not. I mean, if we looked at racism the same way, take the movie Django Unchained, was that movie racist because it featured black slaves? Or maybe it was racist because every single white person was the biggest piece of shit you could ever meet (except Waltz)? Maybe, just maybe it was a work of art that just happened to depict racism without actually being racist itself. This is something that the likes of Sarkeesian completely ignores when looking at games like Gta or the recent Watch Dogs that was said to be sexist because it showed sex trade. Those games just depict a real thing, go out there and look, people sell sex in many different forms. To just shy away from the subject, and never feature bad stuff in art because it's "offensive" is probably the worst crime we could commit.

I understand that there are examples of games that are truly offensive but I dunno, I think there wouldn't be much time spent on making sure such a label really fits certain games. Does it feature prostitutes? You get a sexist label! It features a female hero who slaughters thousands of male cannon fodder? Completely fine, female empowerment and whatnot!