Aaron Sylvester said:
mfeff said:
It's incredible, I have been saying the same thing since the very beginning - but sadly I wasn't able to properly word my stuff and was constantly bashed by females
The discussions went something like this:
Allow me to chime in on some of your bullet points here if ya don't mind.
> Me: Something like 80-95% of game development teams consist of males, therefore they make what they know best - the male mindset.
> Females: Because corporations don't want women in their teams, society normals discourage women from taking interest in programming and game design. Males need to stop being sexist jerks.
That is true, though to be fair on any large production staff there are maybe... 10 percent at best of those people on the project with any real "creative" input as to the narrative, art assets, themes... what have you... the rest is grunt work.
So in a sense what your saying is true, it is likely that on any given day that the themes and direction will be of the type targeted at some particular male demographic, but it is demonstrably an economic decision more than it is a ludic/playful/play-style one.
The issue with the female rebuttal is that it has failed to address the economic burden or "risk assessment" of employing all these people at some great cost to produce a product that may not have much of a market.
That is one of the notions of the hypoagency, that of risk mitigation by shifting the economic problem onto someone else.
Who takes the economic risk?
> Me: Women are often treated harshly when they enter male-dominated areas (such as an eSports event) because it's human tendency for the strong to prey on the weak, for the majority to pick on the minority.
> Females: So what? Males need to stop being sexist jerks and be more welcoming and accepting to females, females shouldn't have to "prove" how good they are at gaming to enter gaming circles.
There are a couple solid videos on the Youtube on this topic... gaming from the arcade level was always competitive, it's simply grown from there. Interestingly a parallel is that of organized martial arts. I have sparred with plenty of women but we do not compete in a desegregated format.
To go a step further women are statistically more likely to use physical violence before a male in a dispute. However, women are less likely to want to engage a male in a contest in which violence is a part of the cultural operating system from the very beginning.
Hypoagency here is dictating that the environment should change in a way that the risk of violence is mitigated away from the person, not that the violence is in any way, or the competition is in any way, inherently wrong. It's simply wrong when it is openly accepted to be against the agent.
This introduces a double standard which is contrary to the spirit of the competition.
My question is then, do you want to compete or don't you? Competition implies a commitment to the subject matter.
Maybe at the pro level it needs to be segregated? But let's be real... most of the planet sucks at gaming in general.
It's (to me) a non-issue.
My philosophy on this is "learn on your own time". Mind you the only woman I play games with is the wife... so she gets an "exception".
> Me: Women need to drive themselves into game development, women need to drive themselves to attend gaming conventions/events/tournaments (which consist of pretty much nothing but males aged 15-35) and prove to the industry that they exist, that they make up a big chunk of the consumer base.
> Females: Women don't attend gaming conventions/events/tournaments because males are always sexist jerks towards them. And we don't need to prove anything. Males just need to stop being such dicks, and then everything will be alright.
Well maybe so maybe no. I've known plenty of extremely capable women in the sciences that "could of" become grade A software engineers and designers... but most of the most academically studied females that I have known simply know better than to get involved in the game industry. Most are scholastically above it, or interested in other fields such as bio-medical research or straight engineering.
The games industry as far as a career goes has traditionally been a dumping ground for people who didn't fit in more traditional industries. It's also a magnet for the artistically minded set, conversely there are not that many artist who are also good technical designers.
It's almost a "love it" thing, where you love it, cause every other aspect of the industry is garbage compared to more matured industrial productions.
My conclusion, most women that would be great at it, are above it. Leaving a lot of liberal arts people behind to sort of piddle through it.
It's a "piddle party", you can quote me on that!
> Me: But that's not a SOLUTION, it will never happen! Guys in Call of Duty won't stop being dicks to the rare girl player who shows up on her own, it's all about harsh competition and trash-talking! They KNOW you'll get offended when they make sexist jokes towards you, that's why they're doing it, to demoralize you.
> Females: Yeah, and they need to stop that. They need to stop acting so immature.
> Me: So what's your solution?
> Females: You guys need to stop being dicks.
> Me: ...........
Video games by tradition have been and likely will continue to be targeted and designed with an immature audience in mind. That includes both men and women demographics. Keep in mind hypoagency is not gender exclusive, and is synonymous with both self centered, lazy, emotionally immature folk.
That is that video games are Toys, for children. I mean, that is how it is in the (strong finger quote) "real world".
Personally the solution is no solution, one simply grows up and grows out of gaming in general, or sort of migrates to a particular genre or style of title. Mind you when I think of a top tier player base, I am specifically referring to less than 1 percent of the population that plays games. Everything else is 50 shades of grey of casual.
Even if a person is top drawer at one game, they are very likely Mario party casual at everything else... just how it goes.
And the argument just keeps going back and forth endlessly until the females just say "Tippy, you're just a sexist jerk." And I try to say "but I'm on your side, I WANT to see more women drive themselves forward into game development and gaming circles! I'm just saying that instead of asking males to roll out the red carpet for you, it's YOU who needs to do the work!"
But it's too late, I have now been dismissed as a "dick who feels sexism is right".
Whoa I took this way off topic.
It's a relevant topic, at least by escapist forum standards.
I just wouldn't take it very seriously... maybe if someone is really drilling a particular game and is trying to be top shelf... then sure... but most this talk is just talk. The controller don't give a shit if you have an innie or an outie...
If ya suck, I care cause your wasting my time. I don't argue about it, I just kick-ban. I tend not to play or allow women to join my guilds... so I segregate. That's my prerogative. Being an adult is a two way street.
Wanna be alpha; it's simple.
Make a game, make a mod, or learn to beat ass.
Everything else is everything else... piddle party. Makin or doin... bitchin ain't a high value commodity... not in my arcade anyways...
Anyway, I personally liked Sucker Punch. No, not for it's mind-blowing depth (as claimed by Bob) but...well, because it's about girls smashing monsters. I felt the story/plot was shallow, but that was my first time watching it. Maybe it's something you need to watch a few more times to "get" it
I watched it once... with the wife... I thought it was boring...
Now in retrospect I find that it is A LOT like the audio book
Dear Esther which is an experiment at creating a plot-less narrative... some folks call it art... I call it an experiment but whatever...
That is that Sucker Punch's narrative never commits to it's own narrative and as such is "by design" encouraging the audience to draw it's own conclusions.
It's not my cup of tea, neither was Dear Esther, I don't consider it art... just narrative experimentation and post modern existential wank/angst.
We see this in productions that rely heavily on metaphor, cause metaphor means... you guessed it,
no commitment.
As far as Sucker Punch goes... I said it was possibly a female with daddy issues that was sleeping around with different guys, and each guy she took on a different "persona", or chameleon aspect to sort of "suit him" which in turn suits herself but is ultimately a reflexive prison emotionally.
The other girls are friends or aspects of her psyche that are "like" friends in her mind, each one just another fragmented self, or some kind of hero's journey analog.
She meets or imagines or subverts the high roller, who basically calls bullshit on her manipulative sex nonsense (he is an ideal - explicitly), the film never commits whether he is actually real or her making it up. Simply the notion or idea of the high roller in turn shatters her own reflexive manipulation and grows her up... ie. it's the lobotomy and purging of all her "chameleon faces".
I think we never see the actual narrator, sweat pea is just another chameleon face sort of "last man standing". The rape is all metaphor for sex she has engaged in but didn't "really" want to engage in with the various men she was manipulating. Necessary evil, which is sold to the audience as a rape, film never commits so we don't have to as an audience. It's all part n' parcel of the unreliable narrator trope.
I find it just as likely that the old man is the narrator embellishing some romp he had with some girl... heck it could be a grand-dad talking about how he met your grandma.
Like I said, the film never commits, I think the film is designed that way intentionally, just like Dear Esther... and maybe Ridley Scott's Prometheus... which is another... "meh" film to me.
Nice convo guy!
