The Most Dangerous Woman in Videogames - Anita Sarkeesian

[Hover Hand Mode]

Sadly we can't lock Featured Content/News Threads

Any reason as to WHY?

Because this thread is pretty bad. In fact it's one of the worst I've ever seen.
Had this thread been made by any ordinary user, it would've been locked within the first 3-5 pages.

One of the favorite anti-sarkeesian arguments is that by disabling comments on her youtube videos she's censoring her critics and shutting down debate, and I'm sure people would complain here if they weren't allowed to weigh in on the discussion as such.

They talk about it as if she did it completely out of the blue just to spite her critics. The death/rape threats and posting of her personal information in the comments had NOTHING to do with it, I'm sure.

Hey, I agree with you. I'm just making the point if people get told they can't spew their bile, they use it as 'evidence' their being oppressed and their target is automatically in the wrong, and its potentially something the escapist wanted to avoid.

I agree as well. Maybe it was my tone :/ Sorry
Watching the fallout resulting from an anti-Sarkeesian thread closure would be kinda fun though.

 

[soulblade06]

Wow, a lot of responses generated here. Which is somewhat of a testament to Sarkeesian's notoriety more than anything else. I mean, are we really surprised about any of this article? Is there anything new here? Bob has been on this stint about equality in new media for quite a while (to the point where he is the most outspoken male feminist I know of, but to be fair I know very little on the subject), and regardless of what Sarkeesian's presentation actually contained he would have portrayed her positively. I very honestly doubt that she's a sinister, selfish, or in any way bad person, but I hold that belief about people until proven otherwise, and this article didn't really contain much information to push me one way or the other.

The article itself does call attention to some good topics, but the stereotypes and objectification it talks about aren't really that hard to find or understand. If you are at all intelligent, you have probably noticed them. So, if the article doesn't say anything revolutionary about the content of games, does it say anything revolutionary about Anita? Besides the bit about her trying to get a Gameboy, I don't feel like I learned anything. I mean, if she wasn't dedicated to gaming would she really have endured all of this?

I'm glad to hear that she is better at presenting in-person than online, because online she falls flat. The problem is that she makes her videos in a vacuum. She isn't talking to developers and game studios to find out WHY stereotypes are persisting (in addition to and even beyond the obvious "we are selling to 14-year-olds"). She isn't talking to big figures in the industry to support her view that sex appeal isn't the sole selling factor of a game. Her videos do confirm that stereotypes exist, but I could get on my webcam right now and make a 20-minute series of clips of racially-biased characterizations in movies or another media. I don't need a kickstarter for that. If she wants to make a change, she needs to expose why developers and studios perpetuate the problems, which ones are the big trouble-makers, and what would change their minds. We can all pat ourselves on the back and say "We're such good people! We know there are stereotypes and they're bad!", but does that really accomplish anything?

Anita has definitely received unreasonable hate and harassment solely on the basis of her gender, and I don't condemn her for exposing the problems with portrayals of women in videogames. I just wish she would do more than state the obvious.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

-snip-

No, I don't think it is lack of people wanting to talk about the issue at all. Hell, Jim and Moviebob around here talk about the issues and do them more justice. The guys over at Extra Credits do too, and did long before Anita. Hell, even many letsplayers end up having discussion on the topic in a way that at least addresses and acknowledges the industry failings and encourages actual discussion on the topic far more then Anita. It is sad when the GameGrumps offers better insight and topic of civilized discussion then a woman who's sole aspect of fame is that very topic.

Yeah, they talk about it, but they certainly don't seem as dedicated to it as Anita. As much as they talk about it, I'm not at all sure people know about it all that much, and this is the largest problem. Anita's a big name. She gets out there, she talks about it, she makes herself known, apparently.
As great as Jim Sterling (who I'm more familiar with) and Movie Bob (Who I don't watch as often) are in talking about it, they need greater exposure.

Gamegrumps talks about women's representation? And I think I'm subscribed to them, and I hadn't noticed. No slight to them, it's just kinda my point. They aren't even on my radar.

And keep in mind, that this is the only topic Anita talks about, where as all the otherso n the list address or at least try to, the complex web of issues and topics relating to gaming. Anita specialized in feminist ideology and presses that onto everything else. And doing so makes her a one note ideologue and creates controversy instead of discussion. No, much like when someone tries to claim the same about her political themed alternatives of O'Riley or Jones or 'insert fox news pundit here', her popularity has nothing to do with a lack of alternative and everything to do with the controversy around her. People talk about her because she is controversial (no, this is no because of the topic itself, otherwise every example I mentioned would have been just as big and just as prominent, but of method and shit stirring).

I've been to Anita's site. While she talks about representation almost exclusively, she also discusses other things like the evoluton of Legos from a gender neutral product to what we see recently. 2 worlds.
One largely aimed at boys with violence, weapons, and jobs like cops, pilots, and firefighters.
Another? extremely pink, with the rest pastel. The figures are minifigs, largely incompatible with Lego City proper.
But that's off topic. Point is she does do more than just talk about videogames.

You dismiss the others unfairly as well and it highlights another issue as to why anita is presumed the face of the issue when she actually does nothing to help. Jim is volatile and satirical. Extra Credits use cartoons. Moviebob is short and to the point. All of them are designed, intentionally, for the gaming audience itself. Say what you will about their opinions, all of them make the product that is suppose to reach, and therefore influence, the gaming community.

As towards audience, I was thinking that it's needed to go after more than the gamers themselves, but the developers, and producers as well. And thus you have to talk to people that'd likely call themselves professional adults, in denial over enjoying anything other than live, straightfaced news with the occassional shouting. There's a reason that when people talk seriously on tv, they talk seriously for the most part.
Part of the audience is a lot of people who'll never admit to watching cartoons, and probably not even youtube. Real hard ass types.

They also touch on many issues, showing an understanding of how there is more then one issue and even touch on how various issues relate and can feed each other, as well as often offering both sides to an argument. And even if done sometimes superficially, they still acknowledge that the other side has actual arguments and address them. It is easy to see that they care, and even when people disagree with them, the amount of reaction they get, even when making completely controversial topics, is still worlds less then the flack Anita brags about getting on the only video she had open oh sorry, I remember trying to post on that video, it wasn't open, it was authorized only comments.

Honestly, I love Jim Sterling. I watch every vid, and went back, and watched everything on Escapist. He's practically my hero as far as people that talk about videogames.
I've watched more than a few Movie Bobs, but mostly when he talked comics, and that vid about the old nerd generation being unable to let go of how they were treated, and should be better.
I, by far, do not hate them, or their opinions. All I'm saying is how well known are they outside of the Escapist?

And I am subscribed to Gamegrumps, though I don't watch them as heavily.

My point is, Anita's known all over the place, in many places, ven if it is partly, or even mostly through the controvercy.
See, I was very very very late to the party as far as Anita's concerned. I didn't know who she was for, I'd say a few years after she started? How long was she talking about games? I honestly don't know. And when her name did come up, I didn't really care until fairly recently. That said, she's made a bigger apparent impact than Jim, Bob, and Gamegrumps combined to me.

She just doesn't have competition, IMO, for being the name mentioned first when these topics start. Being the first name mentioned is the most important thing. It can set the tone for everything, IMO. People can talk a great game, but if people aren't around to listen, tehy aren't going to have the impact.

It's really really really optimistic to think youtube+Anita=civilized discussion. Especially with the really limited amount of space for typing comments... at least for long winded folk like me.
Further, keep in mind there's no real moderation in youtube, comments go a mile a second, so it'll likely be flooded by people saying a lot of uncivil things, and ad hominem stuff, drowning out the people that are trying to have a civil discussion, and unlucky sap (likely more than 1.) would have to filter through all of that dung to get the "civil" stuff out. The comments would likely be never ending. Then Anita needs to make a reply video.
The Escapist would be a really really bad expectation to have for Youtube comments.

Anita on the other hand, has shown no interest in any of that. From the combative personality to the inability to separate the individuals from the group, to the perpetual push of her ideology onto everything, she is a political demagogue. She is a false face that is suppose to pretend to be a representative of the community or issue in the same way that O'riley doesn't represent all conservatives, nor cares about conservative issues so much as his personal ideological drive and painting the world as black and white.

Separate individuals from a group? Not that I'm a fan of Anita, or trying to defend her as I'd like to think 'm pretty neutral towards her, but care to expand on that?

The rest I can't comment on. I don't talk government type politics.

You dismiss the rest when they are the ones gamers would actually give a shit about and listen to. They are entertaining, they understand how gamers (or I suppose larger geek culture) think and they want to address the problem in a way that gamers can influence things. Anita wants to blame people and ***** about the issue, and while you'd think that would raise awareness, the issues are not unknown to gamers. She is the fox media pundit. Her fame is from controversy, her audience is not gamers per-say but ideologists or those ignorant of the topic or gaming itself. As others have made note of before, she is very comparable to the religious preacher type condemning games for causing violence. She is another Jack Thomson and no one would ever have accused him as representing the discussion so much as representing everything wrong in it.

I'm not trying to dismiss as opposed to be honest here.
I appreciate their points of view. I'm just saying they don't seem to be as well known.

Believe me, I'd be thrilled if Movie Bob, or Jim, or Extra Credits got Anita's level of recognition. I agree they make the points better. But like I said, would the hardass professionals listen to them, and take them seriously?
Through Jim's crass nature?
Through Extra credit's cartoon nature?
Mobie bob might have a shot at being taken seriously by them.

I mean, I hear EA's gotten Anita in on Mirror's Edge 2, for better or worse. She's being taken seriously if true, I'd imagine.

You dismiss the others and I can't see why except as arbitrarily. I can understand you may dislike them or they may not jump on the issue the way you like, that is fine, but lets be honest here, they are more highly respected by a larger segment of the community then Anita will ever be, and they never overshadow the topics they discuss. When talked about in relation to the issue, the discussion is still about the issue. How much of the back and forth in these threads since Anita have been more about her then the topic itself? People were having the right discussions on the topic before Anita, now there is just a hell of a lot more noise to deal with about her.

I can't say it often enough, I live Jim.
Bob's pretty cool.
Extra Credits is all right with me. I have absolutely nothing against them, personally.
In fact I prefer them over Anita.

I do admit they don't jump on the issue as often as I'd like, but heck, Anita seems to take forever to make a video, so it kinda balances it out some, but Anita has that whole dedication thing going for her, and she seems to go out into the world and have talks on the matter as Bob attended one.

I gotta wonder, outside of the Escapist, does Jim, or Bob get mentioned in talks like these? Extra Credits I could see, maybe.
Word of mouth is definitely going to be important if they are going to become the go to name for videos on the matter.

Your solution is, sadly, a risk. And when you remember that the industry is made of individual companies not very willing to make risks, you realize how hard it is to get change. Hell, they half-ass those attempts in order to mitigate the huge risks as it is. Hell, they do that to their largest games, sacrificing story or gameplay for "broader appeal" as it is, expecting them to do a female character based game any real justice is like finding a diamond in the rough.

That's a hell fo a catch 22.
If they don't take the chance, women won't be the playable stars of games, they'll never see them as viable, wash, rinse, repeat.
What other solutions are there?
I mean I'd love to say "indie games!" but I think it'll be a miracle for an indie game with a female protagonist, nevermind most games, to make the kind of bank that the larger industry would take notice. I mean, lets look at the indie darlings. Then lets look at all the rest that haven't made it there. The percentage of indie games that gfot noticed seems intensely small.

Your ideas are, quite simply, awesome. I know I would enjoy playing a game like those, and they already have a lot of the potential art assets and issues made they could recycle for the batman one. It is unfortunatet though that the cost of making the game by a triple A company would mean that it would be the bean counters in charge of if it goes through, and the first question they will ask will be "why do it with second stringers, when Batman is the big name?" And that will be the end of that dream. Hell, look what happened to Arkham Origins alone. A batman game that lost a lot of appeal and polish because the company wanted to save a buck but still wanted to market off the popular name. And that is before we get going into backlash territory, where any game with a female protagonist will instantly be controversial, and not just because of the disgruntled fan, but because you can not make a game with a female protagonist without a shit ton of scrutiny about the character. Does she represent women well? Is she too sexualize? Why is she being hurt, that is misogynist and promotes violence against women. Why isn't she being hurt, that is treating her different then a male protagonist so it is misogynist. What about the villains, what are their gender. Why is the villain also female, that is misogynist and says women can't fight men. Why is it a male, that is misogynist because they aren't representing women enough.

Sounds like you're suggesting I give up on wanting female protagonists, honestly considering what I quoted before this, and this part.
I mean, it's a huge risk, and people are gunna hate playing as women, and so forth. Lots of excuses as to why what I want will never happen, which can't be a good thing, can it? I mean I can't accept that I should stop talking about the issue.

One thing about using pre-made assets, though, it it cuts through a lot of development costs. It's why stand alone games like Undead nightmare, Libery City Stories, and Blood Dragon aren't sold at 59.99 like the parent game.

Like I said, we're going to need a lot of women out there. No one person is a good representative of anything but themselves, I think. I mean, meeting one person out of a group is just one impression. Meeting a lot of people will make many impressions. You may not like one, or two of them, but there's bound to be some you'll like.

Do I have to go on? I can understand the frustration, but a female protagonist especially in story based games being rare has as much to do with avoiding a negative backlash from media ideologues as it does with worry about male gamers being turned away, hell, given how most gamers don't care too much about the gender they play as(as seen by portal, L4D, metroid, Borderlands, and sections of games with female characters for shorter portions (batman for instance), I would wager that avoiding the extra undo bullshit that comes with a female protagonist would be even more so. And that is it's own self-feeding cycle, as female protagonists are rare so those that use them get extra bullshit to put up with, making them less likely to be used which feeds back to them being rare. This is one of the reasons I end up calling Anita cancerous as well, as she breeds that sort of mentality, the same that ultimately makes developers choose to not use female protagonists much, and instead go under the radar by doing the same as others. Hell, look at what happened with Lara Croft, how many shitstorms were raised on that alone, for what was ultimately a mediocre but harmless game. First the worry about it being more of the dumb boobs with guns chick, then a fit about the remodel still being to sexualized for reminiscing the iconic clothing, then the "protect" complaint, then the "rape scene" complaint, then the complaint that the game didn't do well because it wasn't advertised well enough, then the excuse that the female protagonist was what made people avoid the game (when by that point it was the media hype that made me, and I am sure a number of others, just pass on the game). And that is not even getting into the complaints by the other side of the crowd upset that the iconic character was changed in design and game style. And the same happens all the time now when a female character is used. Female character's proportions are exaggerated in a game that does it to every character? Female character is the companion and main character of the story (while the player character is the "action" and plot on tracks aspect)? Female child is main point of redemption of the protagonist? Every one of this ended up in drama and shitstorms because they were female characters by people who keep complaining there is not enough good female characters. Of course not when every attempt by wary publishers and developers are shot down for not being the perfect example and failures are not tolerated without calls of misogyny and a week or two of bad publicity to contend with. What is saddest about this all is that the characters are scrutinized like that solely because they are female.
Unfortuantely that extra scrutiny, especially when so often molehills, just decreases the odds of a game like you wants. Now I am not saying people shouldn't examine and argue about female characters, and I am not saying people need to shut up about the lack of them or the patterns they often fall into, but what happens now, the rapid, controversial seeking drama-fests about them that pop up over stupid shit, that is not healthy for the cause. It is just another roadblock, this one made by the very people who actively claim to want more female protagonists, in a long list of excuses companies have to not use them as it is. Hell, comics are known for sexy character designs, especially in female characters. Assuming the company making the game decided to choose the Bird of Prey instead of the Dark Knight for a title character and game, can you honestly tell me that how the characters look and how that relates to feminism and sexism would not be brought out, and that knowing that they would still wouldn't influence company decisions? When it is solely an argument of demand and market demographics, a female protagonist has a bit of an uphill battle to be used in games of certain genre. When you have these other aspects compounding on top of it, it is exponentially less likely.

It sounds simple, just add more female protagonists. Make half decent games. Done. And when you put it like that, yeah, it leaves you scratching your head why they can't just do it, but that question should have been the first point of warning that you were missing something. If the answer is so simple, why haven't they just done it? No reason not to if it will earn them a larger audience and more money. Well, because it isn't so simple. The corporations are run by the conservative and greedy, renown for dogmatic business policies and excess. Game design is more and more products of committee and demographic targeting decisions. Things that increase the odds of the target demographic choosing the game are chosen over alternatives, and things that cause excess controversy are avoided as much as possible or spun to deflect it. Look at some of the latest controversies with female characters. The Puppeteer guy and the Dragon's Dogma drama both were from game makers being passionate about what they wanted their games to be like. You think that next time they will be so lenient to pet projects after those mishaps? Or the recent Heavy Rain guy stuff? Every time there is such drama, the developers close ranks a little more and creative freedom is replaced with corporate pandering.
Whenever someone tries to make what you ask, everyone flocks to it, criticizing and smothering the thing and projecting their own ideals or grievances onto it. Such games are no longer their own projects, but considered cogs in a greater debate, and for all the discussion they may cause, dismissed and forgotten afterwords. And if they make no money in the end, they failed to the company and are less likely to be risked again. People love Beyond Good and Evil. Critics loved it. Feminists loved it even. But it didn't make coin, so it is regarded as a failure to the creators.

So, what is the solution? I mean I've given mine, but I'm not really seeing one from you.
I mean I can guess "Stop criticising" but I really don't see that happening. That seems to go against human nature. Hate is like a litteral drug.

It sounds repeditive, but the only way I see to combat the criticism is to give people more to love than they hate.

Also I think you typoed Dragon's Crown by typing Dragon's Dogma.

As for computers, I have found my $400 dollar desktop still holds strong enough to play whatever games I wish after 6 years, albeit on lower settings sometimes. The amount of value I have gotten out of it though compared to a PS3 or Xbone though is massive. Steam sales alone has gotten me a library of games for a combined price still probably less then a 360 and a game woulda got me at launch, to say nothing of live cost for the free online play I enjoy. Not had any real issues with maintenance or upgrade yet, with the worst being a 50 dollar virus purge. When I do upgrade it, it will still probably cost less then a next gen system and I wont lose my library of games to boot.

I paid less than 400 for my laptop, a compaq persario cq56 a few years ago. It dun hold up.
But like I said, 'll prolly get a new PC over anything, and keep my laptop open for the social stuff I do while gaming.

Minecraft did inspire the industry though. Yeah, we have dozens of games from indie publishers from terraria to cubeworld, to the space-themed ones and so on. In the triple A world, we have the push for "open world" and "destructible environments". Hell, don't we have an MMO coming out in a while that has that ability to shape the environment as a big gimmick? And do note that because they are indie, they can be bought and used in a way a little different then a first party title by a major competitor can. If God of War was an indie title, the companies would have hosted it as well instead of making copy cats, at least right away.

I don't think Minecraft did much for open world destruction short for helping the push. I think the push predates minecraft a bit with games like Red Faction, and some military shooter I can't remember the name of. Bad Company, or something? Military shooters kinda bleed together a lot.

As for investment into the indie stuff, yeah, they are just giving them space, but that is sort of the point I was making. They are acknowledging them and even selling their consoles based on them. It is great for them because there is no overhead cost for the games to be made, and any one could be the next castle crashers or minecraft. It is actually funny in a way, because this set up was what made the consoles of the late 80's and early 90's so flush with great games and ideas, that you didn't need a monster budget to make them and you had the freedom to be creative instead of following corporate strategy. It is a reason I love the indie scene and growth, as I see it as a return to what made gaming great in the first place. And because of that freedom, and the lack of publicity many games get until after they are made, it cuts a lot of the issues lowering the odds of using a female protagonist down. No corporate suit saying to use a male because it has a 5.4% chance of improved reaction in play-testing, no controversy every step of the way, no compromising gameplay or story to chase a fickle audience, and much much more creators making what they want to make. Yeah the CoD and Skyrim out there are nice and pretty, but I prefer the fun of TF2 and the gameplay of Dark Souls so much more. Neither are "indie" by any means, but rather a result of a different culture of game making then the creators of the first two. Hell, maybe I am just bias for the indie scene lack of reliance of grey-brown fps bullshit.

You have a point in indie games resembling the old exploratory time in videogames where budgets weren't as huge.
Still, even if there was the next castle crashers, or minecraft, how could it hope to stack up to what the industry's after? The CoDs, the MWs, the GTAs, and big names that people go after to try and squeeze money out of the people that already likely bought the games they're trying to emulate?
Money talks, unfortunately, and until indies generate enough of it, I don't think the main industry'll care.

I don't blame you for any bias for the indies.

The mario idea though, that sounds really cool. I mean, the world is made of bricks and mushroom as it is, and being they are plat-formers, you could just make the game to be reliant on user generated content similar to the sackboys. Hmm...

Heck, lets go a step further and add a "siege mode" where you craft a castle and let Peach to try and repel Bowser for once instead of getting kidnapped and lending credence that Peach likes being kidnapped, and boinks Bowser. <.<

Maybe make a village of defenses.

While I do appreciate this thread that will never die, I think the majority of our topic is moving more and more away from Anita itself and onto actual issue and understanding of the topic of women in gaming. Maybe we should start a sister thread based solely on the issue (and leave the most polarizing aspect of the thread, Anita herself, here).

Sounds like a plan to me.
I'm gunna have to get sleep now, though. rar.

If you don't mind some constructive criticism, I suggest a bit more use of paragraphs to break up the large amounts of text bundles.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

We're just going to have to agree to disagree on points 1, and 2, then since you find it unreasonable to balance the fact that there's dozens of games per year that are guy only.

Yeah I do. Certain trends within fiction will be more popular than others, certain trends will make more money than others. I don't think it's right to arbitrarily balance the genders of protagonists in video games regardless of demand (well not in the way you suggest).

Well, I'm open to you interpretation of how to balance things. I'm just offering what I see as a solution.

If Citra was a man, the whole pregnancy arc would be to try an impregnate the main character, probably. I think that's quite a large change. The levels of creepiness could vary a lot. Heck it was creepy the way it is.

Practically it's a slight change but it would serve the same narrative purpose. It would be disturbing, it would give the player pause to think "who the hell am I teaming up with here?". In fact.....

Spoiler

The end of the game would make more sense. If the player decided to stay with male Citra to have the "royal baby" then the player character could be killed in some brutal ritualistic birthing ritual instead of for no reason whatsoever. Although admittedly that would require a "9 months later" screen or it presents more problems than it solves.

Still, the themes and events of the game would remain unchanged. Any differences would be purely in the eyes of the consumer.

And that's kinda why I push for female representation. You said it yourself. A change of narrative. Something that might make more sense.

Well, in my eyes, representation is immensely important. Even if gender is a slight change, it is incredibly meaningful to me.

It doesn't have to make a ton of sense to me that I'm playing a female. Just makes me feel more welcome in the game, and makes it easier to immerse myself when I'm not being referred to as a dude all the time.

I wouldn't complain if it were Jane Marston or Michelle De-Santa as main characters, but R* seems adverse to female leads. They hadn't utlized one since Oni, and that was a joint game with Bungie.

Probably because it's more difficult to pull of and would be ever more difficult in a typical Rockstar game.
And when you consider Rockstar seem to be trying to tell interesting stories these days, well I can imagine how easily a female protagonist in GTA 5 would have become a cartoon.

I'm not typing the following in an angry mentality, rather curiousity. Why would it be a cartoon? Is it difficult to take a woman seriously in a criminal role? Why?

The point is, it could happen, but it doesn't. Just because it could happen doesn't make things better. It doesn't raise the amount of playable female protagonists.

No but the fact that it doesn't happen doesn't necessarily make things worse. If gender of the protagonist simply doesn't matter then it makes no sense to go with anything but male, the same way that if the race of the protagonist doesn't matter it makes no sense but to go with anything but white. At the end of the day potentially narrowing the audience for no narrative purpose, no artistic purpose, no aesthetic or continuity based purpose simply isn't going to happen in productions that have had large amounts of money put into them.

Don't get me wrong, it would be nice if there weren't a status quo. It would be nice if a white male with short brown hair wasn't considered to be the archtype of internationally-friendly, but it is. This is an issue that is much larger than video games and demanding an arbitrary balance in video game protagonist's race and gender wont do anything but cause financial losses.

Oh, I gotta disagree. The more rare the games are that let me play as a female character from start to finish without having to unlock them, the worse things get. It keeps me talking about the matter, it makes it even easier to talk about it, and it ensures any woman we do get to play as is put under a microscope as, well, who else is going to be talked about?

You make it sound like I'm seeking a checklist, and a quota. I'm not. It's the other way around, kinda. I want them to have the artistic freedom to make a character of what ever gender, or race they want.
Sticking to "White straight male" sounds more like a check list, honestly. "Is your character White? yes? Straight? Yes?Is your character male? Yes? Good to go!" and "Wait, your character doesn't meet the white straight male idea? No, that doesn't meet anything we want! Redo!"

Gender Neutral games where you can play as both genders are pretty limited in scope of story as everyhing has sync because there's a single script, romances aside,

If they're doing it well then it shouldn't be limited. Most situations wont see different responses from different genders though.

The thing is I'm hard pressed to think of a game that does it well. Gender select games are going to have almost every scrap of the game the sort of situation that people won't see differently which is going to limit the game immensely.

I mean it's nice that the genders are treated equal, but that kind of neutrality is not always fulfilling. One gender often treats the other differently than they would their own. Experiencing that in a game is an interesting prospect to me because odds are no 2 developers will really see it the same way.

and living off those, and those alone is a pretty unreasonable thing to suggest. They don't even come out all that frequently, and they do vary in quality, but are largely RPGs.
Don't get me wrong, they're nice to play once, or twice, and that there's some LGBT options is really nice, but pretending a handful of games over the span of a few years repairs the problem is stretching it.

Well as somebody who spends 90% of their gaming time replaying DA:O, the Mass Effect series and the like, perhaps I'm just used to it.

Yeah, I'd say you're used to it. As much as I love Bioware games, I can't keep playing the same game forever. I need a break with another game now and then if I go back to the game at all.

Nah, I haven't crossed the line. Putting out a very small amount of games that provide 1, and 2 on my list is under representation. It just gives ammo for people complaining about the lack of representation as the few playable women in games get overscrutinized because they're so prominent, and NPCs are, well, they're NPCs. NPCs are nice, but they're no replacement for playable characters.
Those handful of games don't always cover genres well, either.

Well I think there's a big difference between asking for more games where you play as a woman and asking for more games where you can only play as a woman, where the game is told from an exclusively female perspective that is essential to the narrative and the characterisation of the protagonist.
And as far as I'm concerned that crosses the line from ethical issue to personal preference.

So I can't ask for both?
I mean if I get pressed for specefics, I'm going to get into my specefic wants, and those are going to get less reasonable, I guess because there's more to it. I still don't see my personal preference as unreasonable, though. Not something to mass produce. It's not the standard I'm wanting, it's just something I'd like a game or two. Not every game has to be that way.

I'd still likely be happy with my vague want for games where you play female characters. Some progress is better than none at all.

I must've been more tired than I thought last night as people are misunderstnading.
I do have NBA Jam.

There is no WNBA Jam. WNBA doesn't even piggyback on NBA games. Infact there's not much in th way of sports games with female athletes, is there?
If you wanna pretend there's no problems with the lack of female representation in sports games, that's up to you.

Your average NBA game attracts one and half million viewers. Your average WNBA game attracts under five hundred thousand.
No ask yourself this, bearing those figures in mind, why on earth would somebody make a WNBA game when it would be functionally exactly the same as an NBA game? Very few people will buy two near-identical games, and there is a large amount of overlap with fans of the NBA and the WNBA.
Also bear in mind that over the past couple of years we've had one NBA game a year. Compare that to half a decade ago and it seems that basketball games aren't as profitable as they once were.
I might say it would be feasible to do a small budget, non-AAA WNBA game. But the license would probably cost millions in itself.
Sports games will always reflect real life sports trends and I think it's unfair to blame them for that.

I'm not saying there has to be a WNBA game only. Would be nice, but why not have a WNBA mode in an NBA game, or something? Or make one off an existing game? Yeah, it'd largely be the same because, well, Basketball's kinda simple aside from making people move more realistically, and look realistic.
Then again you're right in that the liscence for the WNBA would probably cost too much. Maybe the notion that the WNBA would get more recognition could hepl lower the price? I mean it might be beneficial.
Then again, I look at WWE game forums, and people complain that the Divas just take up space that could be used for guys, and are useless, and every other complaint under the sun.
The Divas are pretty polarizing. Either people don't mind them (though I personally enjoy having them), or they hate their existance. If that's how sports games will end up, geez.

Yeah, and I'm not a fan of being around nasty people. I enjoy civility.

I enjoy it too, I wouldn't frequent this website otherwise.
But nasty people and heated competition have their merits too.

Sure, but I think I'll have that on my own terms if at all possible, and not their terms.

 

[runic knight]

Yeah, they talk about it, but they certainly don't seem as dedicated to it as Anita. As much as they talk about it, I'm not at all sure people know about it all that much, and this is the largest problem. Anita's a big name. She gets out there, she talks about it, she makes herself known, apparently.
As great as Jim Sterling (who I'm more familiar with) and Movie Bob (Who I don't watch as often) are in talking about it, they need greater exposure.

Gamegrumps talks about women's representation? And I think I'm subscribed to them, and I hadn't noticed. No slight to them, it's just kinda my point. They aren't even on my radar.

I can't help but think back to the Black Panthers during the civil rights era. Granted that was a much more important topic, but the idea that a controversial figurehead or group helps a cause seems to be what you are saying here. Sadly, it doesn't. There is a reason that all progress in civil rights and women's rights is associated to peaceful and compassionate people and not the loud, volatile, dishonest or divisive after all, and it does relate a lot to how the issue is tackled. Anita is divisive, dishonest and lacks the respect of many of the people who would follow the movement she seems to be the poster child for now. And as the examples I mention showed, the topic was still being tackled and discussed along with the various others. Though it may not have been getting change as fast as you would wish, I would attribute that much more to the complexity of the issue and the ties to far more rigid and over looked aspects of business and corporate culture, laziness and that unlike civil rights, the lack of actual oppression or segregation(that in, by design or outside force, as opposed to game's trend on gender being based on personal decision to not participate).

I've been to Anita's site. While she talks about representation almost exclusively, she also discusses other things like the evoluton of Legos from a gender neutral product to what we see recently. 2 worlds.
One largely aimed at boys with violence, weapons, and jobs like cops, pilots, and firefighters.
Another? extremely pink, with the rest pastel. The figures are minifigs, largely incompatible with Lego City proper.
But that's off topic. Point is she does do more than just talk about videogames.

I was saying that all she talks about IS representation and feminism.In fact, I would argue that because her motivation is so blatantly based in her ideology first, it is part of the reason she is such an "outsider" when it comes to gaming, and so often associated with other ideologically driven critics of video games, such as Jack Thomson, or the rest of the "violence in games causes school shootings crowd".
As for legos, similar to video games or most toys, the advertising and product is designed to target the audience paying most reliably and often. Pink and pastel sells better to little girls and cops and primaries to little boys. Also notice the change in figurine design, with the standard being more common in boy sets and the larger, doll sized ones being more common in female marketed sets. Lego changed things up in order to appeal to a market that was buying the hell out of barbie and bratz as it was, but even still the largest appeal of lego, being able to make your own stuff, means that the targeted market is not at all discouraged from buying one set or the other to use for parts or play with as they see fit. Hell, I would argue that because of cultural pressures, boys are less likely to buy the pastels then girls would of any of the sets targeting males. And when one looks in to the sets and still finds a good number of female minifigs, the full neutral brick sets are still there as well, and the universal inter-connectivity of the sets, I can't see lego as sexist any more then I would see the maker of T-shirts as sexist for having some pink shirts marketed to girls and some blue with skulls towards boys. Nothing stops anyone from enjoying the other side except personal choice and cultural pressures that have been weakening every year.
Besides, if I am any example of a norm, I bought some of the female sets because they often had pieces I wanted that I couldn't find in other sets, and the sets themselves were nothing but resources to cannibalize for my own stuff. I know my nieces love my lego collection as well, even if most of it was "boy" themed cops, cowboys, space and medieval sets.

As towards audience, I was thinking that it's needed to go after more than the gamers themselves, but the developers, and producers as well. And thus you have to talk to people that'd likely call themselves professional adults, in denial over enjoying anything other than live, straightfaced news with the occassional shouting. There's a reason that when people talk seriously on tv, they talk seriously for the most part.
Part of the audience is a lot of people who'll never admit to watching cartoons, and probably not even youtube. Real hard ass types.

Have you sat and watched the news lately? Any time there is a "discussion" going on, all I see is a bunch of grown up children screaming at each other. Yeah, they look all official when they are telling the news as facts or when they have free rein to preach at the audience, that is a given. That is how they work, the illusion they weave. Not many keep that when challenged and it is sad that often it is the "joke" news sites that end up more trusted then the news networks. Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart are a more trusted source of news for a lot of people, and all they do is openly mock events going on.

I do understand that getting developers and producers to listen is important, but that really sort of supports why targeting gamers is the best course as it is. The developers of this generation of games were impassioned gamers of the previous. Hell, the industry has horrible conditions for many working as developers (as noted from Extra Credits in a separate episode then the female one, and Jim at least once) and it is often only because the people love what they do that they put up with it. It is unfortunate though that the ones with the most power to force change are the ones who are least likely to listen to any of it though. There is a reason the business side of things is such difficult wall to breach, and that is because it comes from a money-first perspective and while we may both agree that a change would do well, a conservative business strategy would look at the countless failed attempts and decide no, it wouldn't, or wouldn't invest enough to make it viable. The suits at the highest level may listen to market demand if they see a profit already in action. They may listen to developer push for an idea if the developer is trusted with giving returns on a project. I highly doubt any sane manager or CEO will listen to fox news about how to run their company, and that is where Anita rests. I would sooner expect the greater scientific community at large to listen to a creationist ranting on Fox.

Honestly, I love Jim Sterling. I watch every vid, and went back, and watched everything on Escapist. He's practically my hero as far as people that talk about videogames.
I've watched more than a few Movie Bobs, but mostly when he talked comics, and that vid about the old nerd generation being unable to let go of how they were treated, and should be better.
I, by far, do not hate them, or their opinions. All I'm saying is how well known are they outside of the Escapist?

And I am subscribed to Gamegrumps, though I don't watch them as heavily.

My point is, Anita's known all over the place, in many places, even if it is partly, or even mostly through the controvercy.
See, I was very very very late to the party as far as Anita's concerned. I didn't know who she was for, I'd say a few years after she started? How long was she talking about games? I honestly don't know. And when her name did come up, I didn't really care until fairly recently. That said, she's made a bigger apparent impact than Jim, Bob, and Gamegrumps combined to me.

The first are known well enough inside the gaming community. Hey have some reach even to Developers, with Jim often having back and forths with them, and the Extra Credit team having connections to various teams. They fueled the discussions within the community and among developers. They are the sort of ones who will ultimately be the enacters of positive change because people listen, people respect them, and they are not bigger then the issue they talk about.

She just doesn't have competition, IMO, for being the name mentioned first when these topics start. Being the first name mentioned is the most important thing. It can set the tone for everything, IMO. People can talk a great game, but if people aren't around to listen, tehy aren't going to have the impact.

It's really really really optimistic to think youtube+Anita=civilized discussion. Especially with the really limited amount of space for typing comments... at least for long winded folk like me.
Further, keep in mind there's no real moderation in youtube, comments go a mile a second, so it'll likely be flooded by people saying a lot of uncivil things, and ad hominem stuff, drowning out the people that are trying to have a civil discussion, and unlucky sap (likely more than 1.) would have to filter through all of that dung to get the "civil" stuff out. The comments would likely be never ending. Then Anita needs to make a reply video.
The Escapist would be a really really bad expectation to have for Youtube comments.

Anita is no more well known outside gaming then Jack Thomson was in his prime. Within gaming, she is seen as a toxic topic that causes flame wars and who over shadows the actual discussion. You are very right that the first name can set the tone for the discussion. That is why people who wish to talk civil rights do not start with divisive movements like the Black Panthers. That is why people who wish to discuss politics do not starts with Ann Coulter. And it is why I truly hate that Anita is the current face of this discussion, but all her presence does is make ignoring the discussion so much easier for people. Who cares if anything changes, when we can complain about this controversial figure. Why discuss the topic when we can instead have shouting matches about who is being misogynist and what is or is not sexist. you feel she has done more good by being more well known, I feel she has done excessively more harm for that same reason. I don't have to go any farther then the forums here for evidence of the negative impact towards the discussion she has. How many discussions that Jim has are locked down because people prefer to argue about him instead of the topic?

Separate individuals from a group? Not that I'm a fan of Anita, or trying to defend her as I'd like to think 'm pretty neutral towards her, but care to expand on that?

The rest I can't comment on. I don't talk government type politics.

In this case, individuals are the individual companies and the games they make. When one talks trends, as she does to back most of her points, she has to ignore the individual for the collective she is commenting on (that part is not so bad) however, she has a large problem of then trying to apply the trait she was arguing about in the trend back into the individual pieces that make up the trend (thereby showing she does not see them as individual entities but rather a single collective). For instance, every trope she discusses is a trope because it is a trend in the first place. The popularity of the trope helps set up the trends of "more male protagonists" or "less female ones" because popular tropes are more likely to be used. Unfortunately, Anita then uses these trends to support insinuations of sexism or sexist motivations for the decisions of individuals who end up points of data in the trend. When she covered Star Fox, for instance, she touched on how Krystal was bumped down from a protagonist (she was one of two) and the second protagonist was replaced by Fox. She then uses the trend of less female protagonist in all games as a mark of sexist motivation and applies that to the decision of using fox as the new main character. To put it another way, one may be able to argue that if 90% of games with a main character have that character be male, the trend reveals a sexist bias (I wouldn't, but it could be argued depending on how one defines sexism in this case). Now, it is important to remember that it is the trend here that is sexist, as it is the pattern revealed that shows the disparity. The individual games that reveal the trend are simply points of the data. That Game A has a male protagonist says nothing more then game B having a female when one does not look at the overall trend. The game (assuming no other aspect is looked at here) is no more or less sexist for the protagonist choice then the next for the opposite choice. Anita attempts to take her interpretation of the trend and apply that to the individual points of data, which is actually a logical fallacy. It would be akin to taking the atoms that make up water and saying that because water is wet, hydrogen or oxygen on their own are as well.

I'm not trying to dismiss as opposed to be honest here.
I appreciate their points of view. I'm just saying they don't seem to be as well known.

Believe me, I'd be thrilled if Movie Bob, or Jim, or Extra Credits got Anita's level of recognition. I agree they make the points better. But like I said, would the hardass professionals listen to them, and take them seriously?
Through Jim's crass nature?
Through Extra credit's cartoon nature?
Mobie bob might have a shot at being taken seriously by them.

I mean, I hear EA's gotten Anita in on Mirror's Edge 2, for better or worse. She's being taken seriously if true, I'd imagine.

Well, if I recall, Jim has mentioned a few times he talks with, and is heard from by, management in the developer side of things.
The Extra Credit team work with developers, even teaching courses for them, so they obviously has some pull. No clue about bob. I know the game grumps have gotten custom demos and the like, so obviously developers do listen to them somewhat. Hell, the angriest most unprofessional reviewer I can think of, TheSpoonyOne, is doing a developer interview with the man behind a huge franchise, and one that is currently working on a new title.
For mirror's edge, that was the first I heard of that, though I would temper my optimism. The first game wasn't exactly hailed as a roaring success, and knowing EA, I don't think they will be giving anywhere near, say, Madden levels of funding to the project as it is. I will admit it saddens me to no end to hear that EA is humoring her, as it only feeds the beast, with plenty of backlash and chaos to come from it.

I can't say it often enough, I live Jim.
Bob's pretty cool.
Extra Credits is all right with me. I have absolutely nothing against them, personally.
In fact I prefer them over Anita.

I do admit they don't jump on the issue as often as I'd like, but heck, Anita seems to take forever to make a video, so it kinda balances it out some, but Anita has that whole dedication thing going for her, and she seems to go out into the world and have talks on the matter as Bob attended one.

I gotta wonder, outside of the Escapist, does Jim, or Bob get mentioned in talks like these? Extra Credits I could see, maybe.
Word of mouth is definitely going to be important if they are going to become the go to name for videos on the matter.

Word of mouth is a very powerful advertising tool, but so often people forget it is a double edges sword. You are right, none of them have the renown of Anita, though they have aspects she does not. For one, consistency. Her video view count has shrank a lot and instead she seems to be more riding her fame then making content or contributing to the conversation. Hell, it often seems she has had more work relating to her being a victim of online bullying then about the actual topic of the videos themselves.

I've mentioned it before, not sure here or elsewhere, but it is worth repeating that Anita is sort of a symptom of an overall issue within gaming and the news media itself. There has been a major shift towards sensationalism and bias with the boom of instant communication, and that is not a good thing for journalism. Anita seems to follow a lot of that MO, so it does make sense that she is more widely known of then more traditional journalists, especially once the controversy around her is also added in.

That's a hell fo a catch 22.
If they don't take the chance, women won't be the playable stars of games, they'll never see them as viable, wash, rinse, repeat.
What other solutions are there?
I mean I'd love to say "indie games!" but I think it'll be a miracle for an indie game with a female protagonist, nevermind most games, to make the kind of bank that the larger industry would take notice. I mean, lets look at the indie darlings. Then lets look at all the rest that haven't made it there. The percentage of indie games that gfot noticed seems intensely small.

Very true. Indie games don't advertise well and countless gems lay buried and forgotten. And it is a hard nut to crack when it comes to the industry. Still, back when I had the thread trying to come up with solutions, we did come up with a couple ideas.
Main one seemed to be setting up a game resource of great games, especially affordable, small and computer friendly ones so that people who were curious didn't have to, say, risk a half a grand to get a system and game. Most people have computers, or at least a smart phone, so some sort of list or even better community designed around promoting the best or most beloved games on platforms people could try the games on seemed like a good way to drive up and reveal demand for good stuff, while at the same time widening the audience being reached and marketed to (since it would be word of mouth advertising and, essentially, act like an indie gaming version of youtube). Tack on some basic social media stuff, and not pull-a-goole by screwing up commenting and handicapping self moderation, and it is a start.

Another idea was to go into game company backlogs and with some organization, buy the crap out of old games that represented what you wanted. A massive boom of demand would be noticed by the industry and the motivation for that demand would be sought out simply because of the anomaly aspect of it. A large enough burst that manages to last a while might get more games like that made to cash in on it.

Neither are silver bullets, to be sure, but they represent what we as gamers and member of this community can do ourselves to try to enact change instead of hoping the developers listen or the publishers even care.

Sounds like you're suggesting I give up on wanting female protagonists, honestly considering what I quoted before this, and this part.
I mean, it's a huge risk, and people are gunna hate playing as women, and so forth. Lots of excuses as to why what I want will never happen, which can't be a good thing, can it? I mean I can't accept that I should stop talking about the issue.

One thing about using pre-made assets, though, it it cuts through a lot of development costs. It's why stand alone games like Undead nightmare, Libery City Stories, and Blood Dragon aren't sold at 59.99 like the parent game.

Like I said, we're going to need a lot of women out there. No one person is a good representative of anything but themselves, I think. I mean, meeting one person out of a group is just one impression. Meeting a lot of people will make many impressions. You may not like one, or two of them, but there's bound to be some you'll like.

I am not trying to say not talk about the issue, but we do need to somehow channel it better or just drop the massive drama so often associated with the topic whenever something new pops up. It never does any good when a shitstorm rolls through, even less when it can be so easily associated with a trait you actively want to see more of. And the ease of which the topic can be abused for controversy, where there is no right answer in the eyes of someone looking for something to complain about, only makes the matter all the worse. The tale of the boy who cried wolf, where the villagers rewarded him every time, regardless if there was a wolf or not.

The idea of DLC and the like is admirable, and certainly a more viable alternative, though again it does sort of run into all the other walls of before. Still, it would be something to try to follow up on by having someone with at least an ear of people in the industry presenting the idea. This seems less something the average gamer could pull off and more like something someone like Jim, or James from the EC team might get rolling.

So, what is the solution? I mean I've given mine, but I'm not really seeing one from you.
I mean I can guess "Stop criticising" but I really don't see that happening. That seems to go against human nature. Hate is like a litteral drug.

It sounds repeditive, but the only way I see to combat the criticism is to give people more to love than they hate.

Also I think you typoed Dragon's Crown by typing Dragon's Dogma.

Yeah, Crown, not dogma there lol.

I mentioned a couple above for solutions, and I did like the idea you touched on for DLC, even if I think it is not that viable with how developers and publishers are a little hard of hearing as it is. I don't have a lot of solutions to offer I am afraid, and I have spent more of my time trying to understand why things are the way they are and convince others why they are then I have been able to worry about solving that Gordian Knot. I said before and I stand behind it that understanding the reasons why things are the way they were is the best path to finding solutions. Figuring out how to influence the factors that make it so will help in order to fix things. What sucks is that so many refuse to even discuss that rationally (one of the reasons I dislike Anita so much is how she influences what people perceive is the cause, or how she oversimplifies everything, literally undermining efforts to figure things out and therefore harming the efforts of finding solutions from understanding). I do want to make another monster thread on the causes for why things are and fielding for ideas and solutions like before, but it takes a lot of effort to try to keep it on topic and it is so quickly overlooked when the next "Anita is terrible/Anita is the best" inevitably thread pops up.

You will never give people more to love then hate, one can only hope that you give enough to love that the majority voice the hate cautiously. A critic of a well-received game knows they have an uphill battle, so does so carefully (unless they trying for controversy, then all bets are off), Critics of a despised game often end up in a game of one-upsmanship in how hard they can bash it.

I paid less than 400 for my laptop, a compaq persario cq56 a few years ago. It dun hold up.
But like I said, 'll prolly get a new PC over anything, and keep my laptop open for the social stuff I do while gaming.

That is one way to do it. I have found laptops are not that great for gaming anyways. Overheat real fast.

I don't think Minecraft did much for open world destruction short for helping the push. I think the push predates minecraft a bit with games like Red Faction, and some military shooter I can't remember the name of. Bad Company, or something? Military shooters kinda bleed together a lot.

I suppose. I never saw it as anything but a rare gimmick until Minecraft hit big, now it seems to be a marketing point for a number of games, either on the "explore generated open world" sort or the destructive environment. Still, my mind fuzzy about the exact dates, so I may be mistaken there.

You have a point in indie games resembling the old exploratory time in videogames where budgets weren't as huge.
Still, even if there was the next castle crashers, or minecraft, how could it hope to stack up to what the industry's after? The CoDs, the MWs, the GTAs, and big names that people go after to try and squeeze money out of the people that already likely bought the games they're trying to emulate?
Money talks, unfortunately, and until indies generate enough of it, I don't think the main industry'll care.

I don't blame you for any bias for the indies.

Do keep in mind, that there is cost involved too. Dark souls made less money then Tomb Raider overall, yet was considered a massive success while Tomb Raider was considered a failure. Indie games have something the big names don't, and that is much lower upfront cost. That influences how much profit the company makes in the end, and that in turn balances the scales more then you would think. Yeah, a triple A game making 300 million is great, but if it was in development for 2 years and cost 250 million to make, it is not as great as a game that made only 75 million but only took a year and 10 million to make. Plus indies have a less tangible benefit then large scale games, that of improvability. Games in the AAA have hit a bit of a wall. Graphics don't improve as noticeably and gameplay is less likely to change. Hell, the cash cows you mention have changed very little. But indie games start low. They have the ability to improve drastically over the following iterations. They are potential franchise starters, and at a fraction of the cost of in-house attempts at the same. They are also cut more slack when criticized and (probably due to less interference from above) retain enough soul that people are not as hung up about smaller negative criticism (though when it comes to complete failures, indie title saves you not at all).

Heck, lets go a step further and add a "siege mode" where you craft a castle and let Peach to try and repel Bowser for once instead of getting kidnapped and lending credence that Peach likes being kidnapped, and boinks Bowser. <.<

Maybe make a village of defenses.

Hmm, well, nintendo has the mario robot things from Mario v. DK. Or could work in strategy aspects of teams, by toads and koopas with different skills. This could be a really cool idea, mixing the creativity of building defenses the way you want them while utilizing defenders to the best of their ability.

Sounds like a plan to me.
I'm gunna have to get sleep now, though. rar.

If you don't mind some constructive criticism, I suggest a bit more use of paragraphs to break up the large amounts of text bundles.

I was thinking so before, but was just being lazy. Makes it easier to read when broken up like this though, so I have to agree.

 

[Pat Hulse]

I don't believe curbing sexism would have negative effects, but what I do believe is the current approach taken by Anita and her ilk isn't going to provide the end they're looking for, and is more likely to make gaming more male oriented.

When designers receive constant "criticism" over something "sexist" or "misogynistic" without the critic bothering to consider the intent of the designer I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to pack up their toys and go home.

You don't bite the hand that feeds you. We want games to be more inclusive, then we need to prove that more inclusive games will sell.

I think intention is important, but only to a certain extent. I believe that there is nothing wrong with pointing out something as sexist or misogynistic as a valid criticism of a product just as it would be valid to say that a game is boring. Neither might have been the intention of the developer, but it is inarguably the result. However, making a game that is perceived as sexist does not suggest the developer is sexist any more than making a boring game suggests the developer lacks the ability to make a good game.

However, the way a developer and the industry at large responds to criticism is a great way of demonstrating intent. If a developer makes a boring game and is blasted in criticism for it, the proper response would be to accept that criticism and try to do better next time. If they fail to take any of the criticism into account and produce a game with all of the same problems, then it can be safe to assume that the developer either doesn't care or is just particularly inept.

Similarly, if a developer's creation is perceived as sexist and they respond by making a public statement dismissing the suggestion and then proceeding to make games that continue the behavior considered sexist for reasons such as sales, perception of their audience, or general apathy, then I have no problem with that developer getting called to the mat for being shitty.

In other words, if a person makes a sexist game truly unintentionally -- that is to say they did not intend to do so -- then their response should probably be to do better in the future. Perhaps also apologize, but I don't think that's necessarily a requirement unless it's particularly egregious.

But I think that this approach works. I mean, do you really think that Nintendo decided to finally make Peach a playable character again in their multiplayer Mario games because they just felt like it? If I may quote Miyamoto himself:
"With New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the only character you could play as besides Mario and Luigi was Toad, and we did get requests from female players for some other character they could play as. I suppose that, to many women, controlling a guy with a mustache isn?t really their first choice! So we thought of a few candidates, and we decide that if we had a Peach like she was in Super Mario Bros. 2 that was able to float a bit, that?d be easy to control for beginners."

People (including Anita) voiced their criticism that there was no female playable character (just Toad and Different Toad), Nintendo heard it, and they decided to change things for the next game. And this is Nintendo here. They're pretty much infamous for being the guys who "pack up their toys and go home".

That's what this is about. I mean, sure, there will always be some feminists who are more interested in voicing their general frustration than actually trying to catalyze change, but I honestly think (at least from the videos she's presented thus far) Anita has done more or less what she ought to have done. She's pointed out dozens of sexist examples in video games, prefaced every video by saying that all of these games and games in general can still be enjoyed while simultaneously acknowledging that they have problems and that people who enjoy these games aren't necessarily sexist, and then offering constructive criticism by offering a potential alternative and providing positive counter-examples where they exist. The hope is that people will be more educated about these tropes and thus instinctively avoid them, affecting some amount of progress towards more inclusivity.

Think of it this way. "Mass Effect 2" is an excellent game. A really excellent game. Like, I love that game to pieces. But that resource collection mini-game is terrible. Me saying that that mini-game is terrible doesn't change the fact that I love and enjoy that game. It doesn't make BioWare terrible game designers. It doesn't make people who enjoy that mini-game wrong. But if a large number of people all agree that that aspect of the game is bothersome, it's not surprising that BioWare decided to get rid of it in ME3. However, no one would suggest that the criticism towards that aspect of the game was harsh or vindictive. No one would suggest that the criticism would discourage BioWare from making another "Mass Effect" game. No one would assume that anyone criticizing that aspect of the game is in turn suggesting that the entire game is terrible because of it.

But if BioWare thought that that aspect of the game really worked or they really liked it... well, that's fine. They can keep it. It's their game, they don't have to change it to appeal to more people. But if they instead start suggesting that their "true" fans really love the mini-game and that the people who criticize it are just being petty... well, that makes them seem unnecessarily defensive and willfully ignorant.

And tragically, that's generally what a lot of developers do when faced with criticisms regarding sexism. They either try to suggest that it's what their audience wants or they say that the criticisms are overblown and not to be taken seriously.

It's every artist's right to ignore criticism, but you don't argue against a criticism of your work. You never suggest that a criticism about your work is wrong. If you are the creator, you can't decide how your work is to be interpreted. You simply decide whether or not you want to take the criticism into account moving forward.

Is the team that made "Dragon's Crown" allowed to make the majority of their female character designs cheesecake-y? Absolutely. And people are allowed to enjoy it. But they have to accept that when they do, a fair number of people won't enjoy it, just as if BioWare decided to keep the resource mini-game, there would be a fair number of people that wouldn't enjoy that.

That's all Anita is doing, at least as far as I've seen. Saying what bothers her, why it bothers her, hypothesizing on its potential societal effects, and suggesting a potential alternative blueprint for subverting it.

I don't think every single example she's given is necessarily problematic for the reasons she cites and I may not necessarily agree with how she feels some of the examples might come across in the larger zeitgeist, but I still feel that all she's done is within the realm of reasoned criticism.

 

[wulf3n]

I think intention is important, but only to a certain extent. I believe that there is nothing wrong with pointing out something as sexist or misogynistic as a valid criticism of a product just as it would be valid to say that a game is boring. Neither might have been the intention of the developer, but it is inarguably the result. However, making a game that is perceived as sexist does not suggest the developer is sexist any more than making a boring game suggests the developer lacks the ability to make a good game.

That's fine, when the word sexist/misogynist is used appropriately, and not at as a knee jerk reaction to a perceived slight.

However, the way a developer and the industry at large responds to criticism is a great way of demonstrating intent. If a developer makes a boring game and is blasted in criticism for it, the proper response would be to accept that criticism and try to do better next time. If they fail to take any of the criticism into account and produce a game with all of the same problems, then it can be safe to assume that the developer either doesn't care or is just particularly inept.

It really depends on the "criticism" we're talking about.

Similarly, if a developer's creation is perceived as sexist and they respond by making a public statement dismissing the suggestion and then proceeding to make games that continue the behavior considered sexist for reasons such as sales, perception of their audience, or general apathy, then I have no problem with that developer getting called to the mat for being shitty.

Developers that do that aren't worth the effort to criticise. This is where it gets confusing. Are you trying to get more games that appeal to women or are you trying stop those who make games you dislike from making games. If a developer/publisher makes games that you disagree with and has ignored your "criticism" in the past then odds are they aren't going to take it now, continuing to waste time on them comes off as an attempt at social justice than any desire for positive change.

And it's essentially the action that causes people to say their games are being stolen.

In other words, if a person makes a sexist game truly unintentionally -- that is to say they did not intend to do so -- then their response should probably be to do better in the future. Perhaps also apologize, but I don't think that's necessarily a requirement unless it's particularly egregious.

I guess. I don't necessarily like this position, as the interpretation of a few can override the interpretation of everyone else, just look at the Stanley Parable [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/128976-The-Stanley-Parable-Maker-Promises-to-Change-Racist-Image] debacle. Though I guess that one falls on the creator to have more faith in their abilities.

But I think that this approach works. I mean, do you really think that Nintendo decided to finally make Peach a playable character again in their multiplayer Mario games because they just felt like it? If I may quote Miyamoto himself:
"With New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the only character you could play as besides Mario and Luigi was Toad, and we did get requests from female players for some other character they could play as. I suppose that, to many women, controlling a guy with a mustache isn?t really their first choice! So we thought of a few candidates, and we decide that if we had a Peach like she was in Super Mario Bros. 2 that was able to float a bit, that?d be easy to control for beginners."

If the quote from Shigeru Miyamoto is to be believed then it was requests from the consumer base, not accusations that the character is sexist that saw Peach included in the new game.

People (including Anita) voiced their criticism that there was no female playable character (just Toad and Different Toad), Nintendo heard it, and they decided to change things for the next game. And this is Nintendo here. They're pretty much infamous for being the guys who "pack up their toys and go home".

That's a pretty big assumption. We have no idea where these "requests" came from. What we have here is a case of the bear repellent rock.

That's what this is about. I mean, sure, there will always be some feminists who are more interested in voicing their general frustration than actually trying to catalyze change, but I honestly think (at least from the videos she's presented thus far) Anita has done more or less what she ought to have done. She's pointed out dozens of sexist examples in video games, prefaced every video by saying that all of these games and games in general can still be enjoyed while simultaneously acknowledging that they have problems and that people who enjoy these games aren't necessarily sexist, and then offering constructive criticism by offering a potential alternative and providing positive counter-examples where they exist. The hope is that people will be more educated about these tropes and thus instinctively avoid them, affecting some amount of progress towards more inclusivity.

Think of it this way. "Mass Effect 2" is an excellent game. A really excellent game. Like, I love that game to pieces. But that resource collection mini-game is terrible. Me saying that that mini-game is terrible doesn't change the fact that I love and enjoy that game. It doesn't make BioWare terrible game designers. It doesn't make people who enjoy that mini-game wrong. But if a large number of people all agree that that aspect of the game is bothersome, it's not surprising that BioWare decided to get rid of it in ME3. However, no one would suggest that the criticism towards that aspect of the game was harsh or vindictive. No one would suggest that the criticism would discourage BioWare from making another "Mass Effect" game. No one would assume that anyone criticizing that aspect of the game is in turn suggesting that the entire game is terrible because of it.

But if BioWare thought that that aspect of the game really worked or they really liked it... well, that's fine. They can keep it. It's their game, they don't have to change it to appeal to more people. But if they instead start suggesting that their "true" fans really love the mini-game and that the people who criticize it are just being petty... well, that makes them seem unnecessarily defensive and willfully ignorant.

And tragically, that's generally what a lot of developers do when faced with criticisms regarding sexism. They either try to suggest that it's what their audience wants or they say that the criticisms are overblown and not to be taken seriously.

It's every artist's right to ignore criticism, but you don't argue against a criticism of your work. You never suggest that a criticism about your work is wrong. If you are the creator, you can't decide how your work is to be interpreted. You simply decide whether or not you want to take the criticism into account moving forward.

Is the team that made "Dragon's Crown" allowed to make the majority of their female character designs cheesecake-y? Absolutely. And people are allowed to enjoy it. But they have to accept that when they do, a fair number of people won't enjoy it, just as if BioWare decided to keep the resource mini-game, there would be a fair number of people that wouldn't enjoy that.

That's all Anita is doing, at least as far as I've seen. Saying what bothers her, why it bothers her, hypothesizing on its potential societal effects, and suggesting a potential alternative blueprint for subverting it.

I don't think every single example she's given is necessarily problematic for the reasons she cites and I may not necessarily agree with how she feels some of the examples might come across in the larger zeitgeist, but I still feel that all she's done is within the realm of reasoned criticism.

I disagree with the Hypothesize part, but the rest yeah I guess.

I think the Dragons Crown Issue [http://hokutoandy.kinja.com/dragons-crown-creator-george-kamitani-responds-to-kota-477592374] is a good example as it shows how easily criticism can turn to insult. If there was ever a chance George Kamitani would have listened to criticism it was gone after that.

The way I see it if a Publisher/Developer receives a bunch of requests from its consumer base asking for something to be added they'll think

"Hey, a large portion of our consumer base wants x, there could be some financial benefit to adding it"

, whereas if they were to recieve a bunch of criticism telling them their work is sexist and offensive they'll think

"Well sales weren't that bad, either those offended weren't offended enough to not buy it, or them not buying it makes no difference to our sales figures and we don't have to worry about appealing to them".

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Yeah, they talk about it, but they certainly don't seem as dedicated to it as Anita. As much as they talk about it, I'm not at all sure people know about it all that much, and this is the largest problem. Anita's a big name. She gets out there, she talks about it, she makes herself known, apparently.
As great as Jim Sterling (who I'm more familiar with) and Movie Bob (Who I don't watch as often) are in talking about it, they need greater exposure.

Gamegrumps talks about women's representation? And I think I'm subscribed to them, and I hadn't noticed. No slight to them, it's just kinda my point. They aren't even on my radar.

I can't help but think back to the Black Panthers during the civil rights era. Granted that was a much more important topic, but the idea that a controversial figurehead or group helps a cause seems to be what you are saying here. Sadly, it doesn't. There is a reason that all progress in civil rights and women's rights is associated to peaceful and compassionate people and not the loud, volatile, dishonest or divisive after all, and it does relate a lot to how the issue is tackled. Anita is divisive, dishonest and lacks the respect of many of the people who would follow the movement she seems to be the poster child for now. And as the examples I mention showed, the topic was still being tackled and discussed along with the various others. Though it may not have been getting change as fast as you would wish, I would attribute that much more to the complexity of the issue and the ties to far more rigid and over looked aspects of business and corporate culture, laziness and that unlike civil rights, the lack of actual oppression or segregation(that in, by design or outside force, as opposed to game's trend on gender being based on personal decision to not participate).

It certainly is pretty clear you don't like Anita.

Well, I gotta wonder if people weren't ticked off before Anita, enough to try the gentle ways. What if those ways you spoke of were tried, and just hadn't worked? I mean with the way the industry's been getting, money woes, and all, I feel like people have been voting with their wallets, and it's already had it's impact.

I mean, it's plainly obvious it doesn't matter how you go about it, we'll have the immature people that give gamers a bad name up in the faces of any woman that tries, trying to make them back down, and win. They don't respect women regardless. The internet, and anonymity make it even easier for these people to arise. Without them being policed, attempts at civility are pretty screwed.

Thing is Anita's going to remain the figurehead until we have another figurehead. When people talk about this topic, they think Anita, and mention Anita. Doesn't matter if Jim's speaking, or Bob's speaking, pretty much.
Even if we did drop Anita, somehow, and stopped talking about her (unlikely. People love to hate.) we'd still need a figurehead to replace her. Without that, what do we have?
Basically, we'd have to use my suggestion to get someone else to lead the cause, regardless.

See, the thing is, I pretty much understand the business side of it. People love making sure they rely on that information. Thing is, despite it all, we're losing companies left, and right, so I can't really take their excuses for the status quo as seriously as they'd like, honestly. It's like we can't go a few months without hearing about another company closing it's doors, being bought out, or the game industry just shrinking in general. If people can't do what they want, and have to brace for the worst, then there's a problem... and the problem is probably the developer's inability to do what they want. It's going to boil down to only the bulletproof companies left, eventually, it feels like.

I've been to Anita's site. While she talks about representation almost exclusively, she also discusses other things like the evoluton of Legos from a gender neutral product to what we see recently. 2 worlds.
One largely aimed at boys with violence, weapons, and jobs like cops, pilots, and firefighters.
Another? extremely pink, with the rest pastel. The figures are minifigs, largely incompatible with Lego City proper.
But that's off topic. Point is she does do more than just talk about videogames.

I was saying that all she talks about IS representation and feminism.In fact, I would argue that because her motivation is so blatantly based in her ideology first, it is part of the reason she is such an "outsider" when it comes to gaming, and so often associated with other ideologically driven critics of video games, such as Jack Thomson, or the rest of the "violence in games causes school shootings crowd".
As for legos, similar to video games or most toys, the advertising and product is designed to target the audience paying most reliably and often. Pink and pastel sells better to little girls and cops and primaries to little boys. Also notice the change in figurine design, with the standard being more common in boy sets and the larger, doll sized ones being more common in female marketed sets. Lego changed things up in order to appeal to a market that was buying the hell out of barbie and bratz as it was, but even still the largest appeal of lego, being able to make your own stuff, means that the targeted market is not at all discouraged from buying one set or the other to use for parts or play with as they see fit. Hell, I would argue that because of cultural pressures, boys are less likely to buy the pastels then girls would of any of the sets targeting males. And when one looks in to the sets and still finds a good number of female minifigs, the full neutral brick sets are still there as well, and the universal inter-connectivity of the sets, I can't see lego as sexist any more then I would see the maker of T-shirts as sexist for having some pink shirts marketed to girls and some blue with skulls towards boys. Nothing stops anyone from enjoying the other side except personal choice and cultural pressures that have been weakening every year.
Besides, if I am any example of a norm, I bought some of the female sets because they often had pieces I wanted that I couldn't find in other sets, and the sets themselves were nothing but resources to cannibalize for my own stuff. I know my nieces love my lego collection as well, even if most of it was "boy" themed cops, cowboys, space and medieval sets.

Well, yeah, talking about representation is about all Anita does. You can only fight so many battles at one time. I mean there's lots of issues I have with gaming beyond women's representation, like male representation, LGBT representation, and racial diversity, but intensity is exhausting. If I fought on all fronts all the time, I'd burn out. Focus can be a good thing.
Focus definitely shows some dedication to the cause. Speaking wisely about many things is good, but without a focus, without dedication, it's hard to drive home the message.
Once this battle's over, I'll look for another front to try'n champion.

I honestly don't think we're the norm.
I mean, I'm about as Minority as one can get. Female, Lesbian, Asian, I like weapons, and I'm not exactly christian for reasons I don't care to discuss as Religion, and Politics are 2 topics I try hard to avoid.
So, yeah, I'm about as minority as it gets, IMO. Far from the norm. far away from conformity.

As towards audience, I was thinking that it's needed to go after more than the gamers themselves, but the developers, and producers as well. And thus you have to talk to people that'd likely call themselves professional adults, in denial over enjoying anything other than live, straightfaced news with the occassional shouting. There's a reason that when people talk seriously on tv, they talk seriously for the most part.
Part of the audience is a lot of people who'll never admit to watching cartoons, and probably not even youtube. Real hard ass types.

Have you sat and watched the news lately? Any time there is a "discussion" going on, all I see is a bunch of grown up children screaming at each other. Yeah, they look all official when they are telling the news as facts or when they have free rein to preach at the audience, that is a given. That is how they work, the illusion they weave. Not many keep that when challenged and it is sad that often it is the "joke" news sites that end up more trusted then the news networks. Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart are a more trusted source of news for a lot of people, and all they do is openly mock events going on.

I do understand that getting developers and producers to listen is important, but that really sort of supports why targeting gamers is the best course as it is. The developers of this generation of games were impassioned gamers of the previous. Hell, the industry has horrible conditions for many working as developers (as noted from Extra Credits in a separate episode then the female one, and Jim at least once) and it is often only because the people love what they do that they put up with it. It is unfortunate though that the ones with the most power to force change are the ones who are least likely to listen to any of it though. There is a reason the business side of things is such difficult wall to breach, and that is because it comes from a money-first perspective and while we may both agree that a change would do well, a conservative business strategy would look at the countless failed attempts and decide no, it wouldn't, or wouldn't invest enough to make it viable. The suits at the highest level may listen to market demand if they see a profit already in action. They may listen to developer push for an idea if the developer is trusted with giving returns on a project. I highly doubt any sane manager or CEO will listen to fox news about how to run their company, and that is where Anita rests. I would sooner expect the greater scientific community at large to listen to a creationist ranting on Fox.

Ah, but the "discussion" is being done people in suits looking respectable as you said! That's the key, IMO. If you're not taking that appearance, you might as well be covered in tattoos, which carries with it a bad, and generally undeserved rep in itself. Or a guy with hair long enough to go passed the shoulders.
And generally lead by an old white dude that's rich.
Plus they're generally taking a very hard line stand. they're loud, they're driven, they're passionate.
Also watching a fight is interesting. Fights generally have clear sides to root for.

If you walked into a job interview for a job during the day, and in dealing with people face to face sporting face tatoos, a messed up shirt that says something "witty" on it, and baggy camoflage pants hung off your thighs, do you think you'll make the right impression?
I'm not saying Jim, Bob, and EC are that bad, but that's basically what serious minded hardasses are going to see most likely.
They probably aren't going to listen to them.

When it's money first, the developers don't have the say. As much as I hate to say it, the developers aren't the ones to make any major changes. They're the ones that get pushed around unless they're one of the few untouchables like Naughty Dog who seems to have some ability to say "no."
The rest are still getting pushed around.

Honestly? With all the bad news, and nonsense the real news channels spout, I prefer BBC, and Comedy central for my news. People getting rich off spreading misery kinda isn't something I wanna be a part of. even then I don't go out of my way to watch as there's generally more interesting things on in the time slots, or things to do. Not that I have a huge amount of time to myself these days.

Honestly, I love Jim Sterling. I watch every vid, and went back, and watched everything on Escapist. He's practically my hero as far as people that talk about videogames.
I've watched more than a few Movie Bobs, but mostly when he talked comics, and that vid about the old nerd generation being unable to let go of how they were treated, and should be better.
I, by far, do not hate them, or their opinions. All I'm saying is how well known are they outside of the Escapist?

And I am subscribed to Gamegrumps, though I don't watch them as heavily.

My point is, Anita's known all over the place, in many places, even if it is partly, or even mostly through the controvercy.
See, I was very very very late to the party as far as Anita's concerned. I didn't know who she was for, I'd say a few years after she started? How long was she talking about games? I honestly don't know. And when her name did come up, I didn't really care until fairly recently. That said, she's made a bigger apparent impact than Jim, Bob, and Gamegrumps combined to me.

The first are known well enough inside the gaming community. Hey have some reach even to Developers, with Jim often having back and forths with them, and the Extra Credit team having connections to various teams. They fueled the discussions within the community and among developers. They are the sort of ones who will ultimately be the enacters of positive change because people listen, people respect them, and they are not bigger then the issue they talk about.

So what about their connections with producers? You know, largely the people who have final say in things and hold pretty much all the power?

She just doesn't have competition, IMO, for being the name mentioned first when these topics start. Being the first name mentioned is the most important thing. It can set the tone for everything, IMO. People can talk a great game, but if people aren't around to listen, tehy aren't going to have the impact.

It's really really really optimistic to think youtube+Anita=civilized discussion. Especially with the really limited amount of space for typing comments... at least for long winded folk like me.
Further, keep in mind there's no real moderation in youtube, comments go a mile a second, so it'll likely be flooded by people saying a lot of uncivil things, and ad hominem stuff, drowning out the people that are trying to have a civil discussion, and unlucky sap (likely more than 1.) would have to filter through all of that dung to get the "civil" stuff out. The comments would likely be never ending. Then Anita needs to make a reply video.
The Escapist would be a really really bad expectation to have for Youtube comments.

Anita is no more well known outside gaming then Jack Thomson was in his prime. Within gaming, she is seen as a toxic topic that causes flame wars and who over shadows the actual discussion. You are very right that the first name can set the tone for the discussion. That is why people who wish to talk civil rights do not start with divisive movements like the Black Panthers. That is why people who wish to discuss politics do not starts with Ann Coulter. And it is why I truly hate that Anita is the current face of this discussion, but all her presence does is make ignoring the discussion so much easier for people. Who cares if anything changes, when we can complain about this controversial figure. Why discuss the topic when we can instead have shouting matches about who is being misogynist and what is or is not sexist. you feel she has done more good by being more well known, I feel she has done excessively more harm for that same reason. I don't have to go any farther then the forums here for evidence of the negative impact towards the discussion she has. How many discussions that Jim has are locked down because people prefer to argue about him instead of the topic?

I never said she's done good for being better known, I'm just saying being better known is better than being virtually unknown.
I'm pretty neutral on Anita, and that's just not changing until someone does as good a job, or better. At least she's she's trying. What have her critics done for me lately, if not ever? All of not a thing, as far as I can tell. If they're just going to criticise instead of do a better job, they're pretty worthless to me, coz all they're doing is trying to interfere, and maintain the status quo.
I mean, really, where are their solutions? What are they doing to help women's representation? What are they doing anyhow?

To be fair, it's been stated often, that contributors cannot have their topics locked, so Jim would never have one of his topics locked, same as this topic.

Separate individuals from a group? Not that I'm a fan of Anita, or trying to defend her as I'd like to think 'm pretty neutral towards her, but care to expand on that?

The rest I can't comment on. I don't talk government type politics.

In this case, individuals are the individual companies and the games they make. When one talks trends, as she does to back most of her points, she has to ignore the individual for the collective she is commenting on (that part is not so bad) however, she has a large problem of then trying to apply the trait she was arguing about in the trend back into the individual pieces that make up the trend (thereby showing she does not see them as individual entities but rather a single collective). For instance, every trope she discusses is a trope because it is a trend in the first place. The popularity of the trope helps set up the trends of "more male protagonists" or "less female ones" because popular tropes are more likely to be used. Unfortunately, Anita then uses these trends to support insinuations of sexism or sexist motivations for the decisions of individuals who end up points of data in the trend. When she covered Star Fox, for instance, she touched on how Krystal was bumped down from a protagonist (she was one of two) and the second protagonist was replaced by Fox. She then uses the trend of less female protagonist in all games as a mark of sexist motivation and applies that to the decision of using fox as the new main character. To put it another way, one may be able to argue that if 90% of games with a main character have that character be male, the trend reveals a sexist bias (I wouldn't, but it could be argued depending on how one defines sexism in this case). Now, it is important to remember that it is the trend here that is sexist, as it is the pattern revealed that shows the disparity. The individual games that reveal the trend are simply points of the data. That Game A has a male protagonist says nothing more then game B having a female when one does not look at the overall trend. The game (assuming no other aspect is looked at here) is no more or less sexist for the protagonist choice then the next for the opposite choice. Anita attempts to take her interpretation of the trend and apply that to the individual points of data, which is actually a logical fallacy. It would be akin to taking the atoms that make up water and saying that because water is wet, hydrogen or oxygen on their own are as well.

I define Sexism by what Google says.
1. prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

That's basically what the industry is doing. They're actively fighting the presense of women in games. Bioshock Infinite, and The Last of Us are easily 2 examples with their covers alone. Why?
Sterotyping that women harm game sales, a misplaced predjudice that women hurt game sale (when was the last time they weren't in a sub par game that got actual support?), and so, the discrimination happens when they get blocked from production.
Here's the million dollar question. If it comes off this way, and there's no real effort to change this instead of letting it happen, what's really the difference? Intent? The definition says nothing about bad intentions being necessary. Why should I care? They don't.

And are you denying seixist developers exist? I mean, "bros before hos" trophy that was earned after kratos beats the piss out of a more or less defenseless woman in God of War? Really?
I'm not looking on the bright side of a company until I have some cause to. giving peopel the benefit if the doubt isn't going to help the situation, is it? Coz it won't really change anything, will it?

And while I'm at it, Oppression:
1. prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.

"a region shattered by oppression and killing"

synonyms: persecution, abuse, maltreatment, ill-treatment, tyranny, despotism, repression, suppression, subjection, subjugation; More

cruelty, brutality, injustice, hardship, suffering, misery

"the young people in this country have known nothing but oppression"

antonyms: freedom, democracy

?the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control.

synonyms: persecution, abuse, maltreatment, ill-treatment, tyranny, despotism, repression, suppression, subjection, subjugation; More

cruelty, brutality, injustice, hardship, suffering, misery

"the young people in this country have known nothing but oppression"

antonyms: freedom, democracy

? mental pressure or distress.

especially the last one in my case.
I'll never know when the next female protagonsit game will happen, or how many I'll get. Safe bet guys will get a lot of them, though.

Yeah, it could be a lot worse, but it's not really getting better either. Trend, developer, producer, what's the difference if it's all the same result? excuses don't change the facts, and don't make anything better.

Still, I'd rather get the point through without using scary negative words like sexism, and oppression. I will if not using them doesn't frikking work, though.

I'm not trying to dismiss as opposed to be honest here.
I appreciate their points of view. I'm just saying they don't seem to be as well known.

Believe me, I'd be thrilled if Movie Bob, or Jim, or Extra Credits got Anita's level of recognition. I agree they make the points better. But like I said, would the hardass professionals listen to them, and take them seriously?
Through Jim's crass nature?
Through Extra credit's cartoon nature?
Mobie bob might have a shot at being taken seriously by them.

I mean, I hear EA's gotten Anita in on Mirror's Edge 2, for better or worse. She's being taken seriously if true, I'd imagine.

Well, if I recall, Jim has mentioned a few times he talks with, and is heard from by, management in the developer side of things.
The Extra Credit team work with developers, even teaching courses for them, so they obviously has some pull. No clue about bob. I know the game grumps have gotten custom demos and the like, so obviously developers do listen to them somewhat. Hell, the angriest most unprofessional reviewer I can think of, TheSpoonyOne, is doing a developer interview with the man behind a huge franchise, and one that is currently working on a new title.
For mirror's edge, that was the first I heard of that, though I would temper my optimism. The first game wasn't exactly hailed as a roaring success, and knowing EA, I don't think they will be giving anywhere near, say, Madden levels of funding to the project as it is. I will admit it saddens me to no end to hear that EA is humoring her, as it only feeds the beast, with plenty of backlash and chaos to come from it.

I've never heard of Jim Sterling before I joined the escapist. I've never hear dof Movie Bob. I have heard of Anita first, and not on this site.

Again, working with developers doesn't really mean anything because it's the producers that have power over the developers. If developers had real power, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

Oh, Mirror's Edge 2 is created to fail. It's on a system that's gotten an insane amount of bad rep, it's exclusive to that system, people won't buy the game simply because of Anita, and of course, it's niche. The game doesn't have a chance in hell. I have no optimism there. It not making it wil just be one more strike against women even though it's got less to do with the gender of the protagonist than anything else.

I can't say it often enough, I live Jim.
Bob's pretty cool.
Extra Credits is all right with me. I have absolutely nothing against them, personally.
In fact I prefer them over Anita.

I do admit they don't jump on the issue as often as I'd like, but heck, Anita seems to take forever to make a video, so it kinda balances it out some, but Anita has that whole dedication thing going for her, and she seems to go out into the world and have talks on the matter as Bob attended one.

I gotta wonder, outside of the Escapist, does Jim, or Bob get mentioned in talks like these? Extra Credits I could see, maybe.
Word of mouth is definitely going to be important if they are going to become the go to name for videos on the matter.

Word of mouth is a very powerful advertising tool, but so often people forget it is a double edges sword. You are right, none of them have the renown of Anita, though they have aspects she does not. For one, consistency. Her video view count has shrank a lot and instead she seems to be more riding her fame then making content or contributing to the conversation. Hell, it often seems she has had more work relating to her being a victim of online bullying then about the actual topic of the videos themselves.

I've mentioned it before, not sure here or elsewhere, but it is worth repeating that Anita is sort of a symptom of an overall issue within gaming and the news media itself. There has been a major shift towards sensationalism and bias with the boom of instant communication, and that is not a good thing for journalism. Anita seems to follow a lot of that MO, so it does make sense that she is more widely known of then more traditional journalists, especially once the controversy around her is also added in.

Sensationalism has always been a big thing. And Bias. Have you not been watching the news?

Well, maybe if people didn't bully anita with ad hominem attacks, and actually tried to be civil her victmization wouldn't be called upon?

That's a hell fo a catch 22.
If they don't take the chance, women won't be the playable stars of games, they'll never see them as viable, wash, rinse, repeat.
What other solutions are there?
I mean I'd love to say "indie games!" but I think it'll be a miracle for an indie game with a female protagonist, nevermind most games, to make the kind of bank that the larger industry would take notice. I mean, lets look at the indie darlings. Then lets look at all the rest that haven't made it there. The percentage of indie games that gfot noticed seems intensely small.

Very true. Indie games don't advertise well and countless gems lay buried and forgotten. And it is a hard nut to crack when it comes to the industry. Still, back when I had the thread trying to come up with solutions, we did come up with a couple ideas.
Main one seemed to be setting up a game resource of great games, especially affordable, small and computer friendly ones so that people who were curious didn't have to, say, risk a half a grand to get a system and game. Most people have computers, or at least a smart phone, so some sort of list or even better community designed around promoting the best or most beloved games on platforms people could try the games on seemed like a good way to drive up and reveal demand for good stuff, while at the same time widening the audience being reached and marketed to (since it would be word of mouth advertising and, essentially, act like an indie gaming version of youtube). Tack on some basic social media stuff, and not pull-a-goole by screwing up commenting and handicapping self moderation, and it is a start.

Another idea was to go into game company backlogs and with some organization, buy the crap out of old games that represented what you wanted. A massive boom of demand would be noticed by the industry and the motivation for that demand would be sought out simply because of the anomaly aspect of it. A large enough burst that manages to last a while might get more games like that made to cash in on it.

Neither are silver bullets, to be sure, but they represent what we as gamers and member of this community can do ourselves to try to enact change instead of hoping the developers listen or the publishers even care.

The problem, IMO, with the main one is, well, it completely ignores consoles. Considering that's where AAA tends to focus, it's not quite showing them anything. But considering the latest console push for indie games, it could likely translate.

I doubt the industry will notice. I mean Slender, and Amnesia are big hits, but there's no sort of revival for the horror genre with console games, is there?

The latter point, being less reliant on developers, and publishers is probably the most sensible part of the plan.

Sounds like you're suggesting I give up on wanting female protagonists, honestly considering what I quoted before this, and this part.
I mean, it's a huge risk, and people are gunna hate playing as women, and so forth. Lots of excuses as to why what I want will never happen, which can't be a good thing, can it? I mean I can't accept that I should stop talking about the issue.

One thing about using pre-made assets, though, it it cuts through a lot of development costs. It's why stand alone games like Undead nightmare, Libery City Stories, and Blood Dragon aren't sold at 59.99 like the parent game.

Like I said, we're going to need a lot of women out there. No one person is a good representative of anything but themselves, I think. I mean, meeting one person out of a group is just one impression. Meeting a lot of people will make many impressions. You may not like one, or two of them, but there's bound to be some you'll like.

I am not trying to say not talk about the issue, but we do need to somehow channel it better or just drop the massive drama so often associated with the topic whenever something new pops up. It never does any good when a shitstorm rolls through, even less when it can be so easily associated with a trait you actively want to see more of. And the ease of which the topic can be abused for controversy, where there is no right answer in the eyes of someone looking for something to complain about, only makes the matter all the worse. The tale of the boy who cried wolf, where the villagers rewarded him every time, regardless if there was a wolf or not.

The idea of DLC and the like is admirable, and certainly a more viable alternative, though again it does sort of run into all the other walls of before. Still, it would be something to try to follow up on by having someone with at least an ear of people in the industry presenting the idea. This seems less something the average gamer could pull off and more like something someone like Jim, or James from the EC team might get rolling.

Yeah, it is really easy to complain about the issue. Harder to praise it coz, well... honestly, what is there to praise? I mean really praise? Honestly praise?

I mean I'll praise where it's due, but it's rarely due, and I can't just cling on to old stuff forever coz, well, it doesn't seem like it'll help in the long run.

I mean I made a thread praising Ubisofr for Child of Light and AC: Liberation HD. ... then Ubisoft had to say something effing stupid like give Child of Light flak, and say Beyond Good and Evil was a mistake.

So, what is the solution? I mean I've given mine, but I'm not really seeing one from you.
I mean I can guess "Stop criticising" but I really don't see that happening. That seems to go against human nature. Hate is like a litteral drug.

It sounds repeditive, but the only way I see to combat the criticism is to give people more to love than they hate.

Also I think you typoed Dragon's Crown by typing Dragon's Dogma.

Yeah, Crown, not dogma there lol.

I mentioned a couple above for solutions, and I did like the idea you touched on for DLC, even if I think it is not that viable with how developers and publishers are a little hard of hearing as it is. I don't have a lot of solutions to offer I am afraid, and I have spent more of my time trying to understand why things are the way they are and convince others why they are then I have been able to worry about solving that Gordian Knot. I said before and I stand behind it that understanding the reasons why things are the way they were is the best path to finding solutions. Figuring out how to influence the factors that make it so will help in order to fix things. What sucks is that so many refuse to even discuss that rationally (one of the reasons I dislike Anita so much is how she influences what people perceive is the cause, or how she oversimplifies everything, literally undermining efforts to figure things out and therefore harming the efforts of finding solutions from understanding). I do want to make another monster thread on the causes for why things are and fielding for ideas and solutions like before, but it takes a lot of effort to try to keep it on topic and it is so quickly overlooked when the next "Anita is terrible/Anita is the best" inevitably thread pops up.

You will never give people more to love then hate, one can only hope that you give enough to love that the majority voice the hate cautiously. A critic of a well-received game knows they have an uphill battle, so does so carefully (unless they trying for controversy, then all bets are off), Critics of a despised game often end up in a game of one-upsmanship in how hard they can bash it.

Yeah, you got in some potential solutions.

Yeah, I do admit the critics of Anita, and the praisers of Anita both make it hard to have a discussion on female representation at times.

The first part of the latter paragraph is pretty much why I want a lot of female representation.

I paid less than 400 for my laptop, a compaq persario cq56 a few years ago. It dun hold up.
But like I said, 'll prolly get a new PC over anything, and keep my laptop open for the social stuff I do while gaming.

That is one way to do it. I have found laptops are not that great for gaming anyways. Overheat real fast.

Yeah. That's why it irritates me when people just throw PC games at me like I can even play them. I can't, really.

I don't think Minecraft did much for open world destruction short for helping the push. I think the push predates minecraft a bit with games like Red Faction, and some military shooter I can't remember the name of. Bad Company, or something? Military shooters kinda bleed together a lot.

I suppose. I never saw it as anything but a rare gimmick until Minecraft hit big, now it seems to be a marketing point for a number of games, either on the "explore generated open world" sort or the destructive environment. Still, my mind fuzzy about the exact dates, so I may be mistaken there.

Destructable cover was a big thing for a long time. I think outright destroyed buildings were new, though.

You have a point in indie games resembling the old exploratory time in videogames where budgets weren't as huge.
Still, even if there was the next castle crashers, or minecraft, how could it hope to stack up to what the industry's after? The CoDs, the MWs, the GTAs, and big names that people go after to try and squeeze money out of the people that already likely bought the games they're trying to emulate?
Money talks, unfortunately, and until indies generate enough of it, I don't think the main industry'll care.

I don't blame you for any bias for the indies.

Do keep in mind, that there is cost involved too. Dark souls made less money then Tomb Raider overall, yet was considered a massive success while Tomb Raider was considered a failure. Indie games have something the big names don't, and that is much lower upfront cost. That influences how much profit the company makes in the end, and that in turn balances the scales more then you would think. Yeah, a triple A game making 300 million is great, but if it was in development for 2 years and cost 250 million to make, it is not as great as a game that made only 75 million but only took a year and 10 million to make. Plus indies have a less tangible benefit then large scale games, that of improvability. Games in the AAA have hit a bit of a wall. Graphics don't improve as noticeably and gameplay is less likely to change. Hell, the cash cows you mention have changed very little. But indie games start low. They have the ability to improve drastically over the following iterations. They are potential franchise starters, and at a fraction of the cost of in-house attempts at the same. They are also cut more slack when criticized and (probably due to less interference from above) retain enough soul that people are not as hung up about smaller negative criticism (though when it comes to complete failures, indie title saves you not at all).

Yeah, but I'm hard pressed to think of many indie games that stack up to non indies. I mean sure, indie games can be fun, but what's stopping them from selling like CoD, or GTA for the most part?
The answer to that is prolly why Indie games aren't making as huge of an impact.

It's pretty ambitious to think an indie game could get an AAA overhaul for the most part. Yeah, Portal, sure, but how likely is it to happen?

Heck, lets go a step further and add a "siege mode" where you craft a castle and let Peach to try and repel Bowser for once instead of getting kidnapped and lending credence that Peach likes being kidnapped, and boinks Bowser. <.<

Maybe make a village of defenses.

Hmm, well, nintendo has the mario robot things from Mario v. DK. Or could work in strategy aspects of teams, by toads and koopas with different skills. This could be a really cool idea, mixing the creativity of building defenses the way you want them while utilizing defenders to the best of their ability.

Sounds like a plan to me.
I'm gunna have to get sleep now, though. rar.

If you don't mind some constructive criticism, I suggest a bit more use of paragraphs to break up the large amounts of text bundles.

I was thinking so before, but was just being lazy. Makes it easier to read when broken up like this though, so I have to agree.

I didn't mean break up the quoted person's post, and reply to it in part, I meant press enter now and then when typing the large chunks of text so they're a little less wall-ish.

 

[runic knight]

It certainly is pretty clear you don't like Anita.

Well, I gotta wonder if people weren't ticked off before Anita, enough to try the gentle ways. What if those ways you spoke of were tried, and just hadn't worked? I mean with the way the industry's been getting, money woes, and all, I feel like people have been voting with their wallets, and it's already had it's impact.

I mean, it's plainly obvious it doesn't matter how you go about it, we'll have the immature people that give gamers a bad name up in the faces of any woman that tries, trying to make them back down, and win. They don't respect women regardless. The internet, and anonymity make it even easier for these people to arise. Without them being policed, attempts at civility are pretty screwed.

Thing is Anita's going to remain the figurehead until we have another figurehead. When people talk about this topic, they think Anita, and mention Anita. Doesn't matter if Jim's speaking, or Bob's speaking, pretty much.
Even if we did drop Anita, somehow, and stopped talking about her (unlikely. People love to hate.) we'd still need a figurehead to replace her. Without that, what do we have?
Basically, we'd have to use my suggestion to get someone else to lead the cause, regardless.

See, the thing is, I pretty much understand the business side of it. People love making sure they rely on that information. Thing is, despite it all, we're losing companies left, and right, so I can't really take their excuses for the status quo as seriously as they'd like, honestly. It's like we can't go a few months without hearing about another company closing it's doors, being bought out, or the game industry just shrinking in general. If people can't do what they want, and have to brace for the worst, then there's a problem... and the problem is probably the developer's inability to do what they want. It's going to boil down to only the bulletproof companies left, eventually, it feels like.

No, and you picked the words perfectly a little further down. I don't like people profiting off of misery or problems, and I can not see Anita but as exactly the same sort of person as Alex Jones who does just that.

Anonymity itself lets people be the assholes that society forces them to hide. That is true regardless of race or gender. Yes, that certainly means that sexist jackasses are allowed to be more vocal, but they are far from the only assholes out there and while a good issue, especially tied to gaming like it is, it is not exclusive to the topic in question, so merely going after that part of the issue seems a little selective.

As for the business side, especially about companies, lets hold that point for a moment.

Well, yeah, talking about representation is about all Anita does. You can only fight so many battles at one time. I mean there's lots of issues I have with gaming beyond women's representation, like male representation, LGBT representation, and racial diversity, but intensity is exhausting. If I fought on all fronts all the time, I'd burn out. Focus can be a good thing.
Focus definitely shows some dedication to the cause. Speaking wisely about many things is good, but without a focus, without dedication, it's hard to drive home the message.
Once this battle's over, I'll look for another front to try'n champion.

I honestly don't think we're the norm.
I mean, I'm about as Minority as one can get. Female, Lesbian, Asian, I like weapons, and I'm not exactly christian for reasons I don't care to discuss as Religion, and Politics are 2 topics I try hard to avoid.
So, yeah, I'm about as minority as it gets, IMO. Far from the norm. far away from conformity.

Atheist in a town with more churches then fast food places myself, I am aware of how petty and insulated people can get. But, you are a gamer, so in the world of gaming, that is all that counts. Hell, in servers I play on that are privately owned and managed, be they FPS or Minecraft, the community itself self moderates the vocal assholes away, up to and including the misogynistic. I have seen times when someone tries to be funny or hit on girls or just be a dick, but it is always been pretty quickly quashed, when it wasn't obviously someone having fun with a friend they new outside the game. The problem is, as you say, anonymity protects people from repercussions, and allows those looking to hurt others to use whatever means they have to do so. There is something about attempts to make things sacred making them easier targets to be learned here, be it words like niger or threats of rape though. If you make it a sacred cow to not be touched, they are the primary targets of people whose goal it is, it to cause harm and reaction.

You are right, it would be draining to fight every front at once, but it is equally as tiring talking about it non-stop, or hearing about it non-stop. It makes it blur together as some sort of white noise, tuned out, easily ignored. I know that has to be a reason that the gaming commentators we mentioned do mix things up as it is. Also, as discussed before, the issue is tied hand in hand with many others in the industry, so taking the time to explore them contributes to the solution as well. Focus is useful, you are right, but Anita seems blind to everything else to the detriment of her own cause.

Ah, but the "discussion" is being done people in suits looking respectable as you said! That's the key, IMO. If you're not taking that appearance, you might as well be covered in tattoos, which carries with it a bad, and generally undeserved rep in itself. Or a guy with hair long enough to go passed the shoulders.
And generally lead by an old white dude that's rich.
Plus they're generally taking a very hard line stand. they're loud, they're driven, they're passionate.
Also watching a fight is interesting. Fights generally have clear sides to root for.

If you walked into a job interview for a job during the day, and in dealing with people face to face sporting face tatoos, a messed up shirt that says something "witty" on it, and baggy camoflage pants hung off your thighs, do you think you'll make the right impression?
I'm not saying Jim, Bob, and EC are that bad, but that's basically what serious minded hardasses are going to see most likely.
They probably aren't going to listen to them.

When it's money first, the developers don't have the say. As much as I hate to say it, the developers aren't the ones to make any major changes. They're the ones that get pushed around unless they're one of the few untouchables like Naughty Dog who seems to have some ability to say "no."
The rest are still getting pushed around.

Honestly? With all the bad news, and nonsense the real news channels spout, I prefer BBC, and Comedy central for my news. People getting rich off spreading misery kinda isn't something I wanna be a part of. even then I don't go out of my way to watch as there's generally more interesting things on in the time slots, or things to do. Not that I have a huge amount of time to myself these days.

Depends on what job they are applying for. If a guy in tattoos and looking like a punk was applying for a job as a tatoo artist, I think that may even help his odds. Not everyone is going for the suit and tie jobs, and as it says, it is best to dress for the job you want. In this regard, it is best to present yourself as part of the audience you hope to reach, or at least fit the expectations of the people watching. Jim and Bob and the like don't have the "outsider" stigma to avoid, so the people who watch their stuff see them as part of the same culture and are willing to listen. They appeal to gamers, and game developers who are gamers themselves.

As for the suits, like I mentioned before, their drive is elsewhere and they are not likely to listen to the likes of a youtube personality on fox news seriously, save maybe as a gimmick in itself. And with the backlash she gets as an "outsider" trying to tell gaming how to do it right, there would be worry of backlash from listening too closely to her.

So what about their connections with producers? You know, largely the people who have final say in things and hold pretty much all the power?

I don't know many outright. Even Jim's connection there seems more antagonistic. One of the reasons my ideas centered on influences gamers and developers primarily. The other relates to that point I wanted to hold back on. Still not there yet.

I never said she's done good for being better known, I'm just saying being better known is better than being virtually unknown.
I'm pretty neutral on Anita, and that's just not changing until someone does as good a job, or better. At least she's she's trying. What have her critics done for me lately, if not ever? All of not a thing, as far as I can tell. If they're just going to criticise instead of do a better job, they're pretty worthless to me, coz all they're doing is trying to interfere, and maintain the status quo.
I mean, really, where are their solutions? What are they doing to help women's representation? What are they doing anyhow?

To be fair, it's been stated often, that contributors cannot have their topics locked, so Jim would never have one of his topics locked, same as this topic.

Fame is a double edged sword, and having a cause associated with a controversial figure can do as much harm as good. As for what her critics have done, I don't know, probably no more or less then she herself. After all, they are the ones continuing the discussions and often feeding the fame machine that keeps her relevant (and thus, continuing the only good aspect you mention of keeping the topic talked about). Without her critics, no one would care at all what she says, and it is only because she has people against her that she boomed in fame in the first place, let alone got as much funding. So her critics have done no more or less then critics usually do, Anita herself included. As for their solutions, well as a critic of Anita myself, I offered a couple. I know I can not be the only one tossing out them. And that does sort of assume that everyone is on the same page that the issues need to be solved instead of letting the industry evolve out of them naturally or are even issues in the first place, instead of just a phenomenon with a gender lean.

True, his threads are not likely to be locked, but I was referring to how the discussion on the threads go. His usually stick to the topic of the issues, where as any on Anita devolve into arguments about her personally.

I define Sexism by what Google says.
1. prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

So it is treating people differently because of their gender? Alright...

That's basically what the industry is doing. They're actively fighting the presense of women in games. Bioshock Infinite, and The Last of Us are easily 2 examples with their covers alone. Why?
Sterotyping that women harm game sales, a misplaced predjudice that women hurt game sale (when was the last time they weren't in a sub par game that got actual support?), and so, the discrimination happens when they get blocked from production.
Here's the million dollar question. If it comes off this way, and there's no real effort to change this instead of letting it happen, what's really the difference? Intent? The definition says nothing about bad intentions being necessary. Why should I care? They don't.

And are you denying seixist developers exist? I mean, "bros before hos" trophy that was earned after kratos beats the piss out of a more or less defenseless woman in God of War? Really?
I'm not looking on the bright side of a company until I have some cause to. giving peopel the benefit if the doubt isn't going to help the situation, is it? Coz it won't really change anything, will it?

The problem here is that not everyone agrees that your examples are sexist. Oh, everyone would agree that yes, in those examples, there is a difference in treatment based in gender. That aspect is not the issue as it is a statement of fact. The issue is that the difference in treatment may not have been because of said gender. As talked about before, there is a web of reasons why companies act the way they do, especial in relation to demographic targeting choices, and while that does result in choices affecting female characters differently, the motivation not being based in gender itself is a point of hangup that people often have when the label of "sexism" is tossed around. Like it or not, when one says sexism, you are appealing to the motivation of the choice labeled as such. And the label is used a lot in situations where it is hard pressed to be applied fairly. Often tied with racism, there is a backlash to how it has been used, to the point of parody. The "This is because I am black" sort of joke when a black man is arrested, for instance. The term is thrown around loosely and it makes people wary of such claims and especially so of those tossing the claim around so often.

In the case here, the companies often have evidence to site that a game with a male protagonist on the cover sells better then a female. Thus the choice is a no brainer, and while the action is treating one gender differently, the motivation is devoid of gender itself. To many, that would make the action not sexist. Characters are treated differently not because of gender, but because of money. Yes, one may certainly complain the bullshit justification for the conclusion relating to money, but the point remains that the choice was not because of gender, merely related to it. And for many, that distinction is enough to prevent it from being labeled sexist.

Do note that the same people who would refuse to call it sexist may have no issue with acknowledging it as a problem to address. Hell, many would probably be as happy to see it changed as you, but instead of working together towards that goal, people end up bickering over a damn label because of the implications of its use. Like how most people agree that some tropes in games are overused, but instead of talking about that, they now fight over the idea that a trope itself is sexist or not.

I don't dismiss that there are sexist assholes in gaming. Nor in companies. Same as racists, you will find them everywhere after all. I do have to point out that many associate motivation when someone labels something as sexist, and when there is not a clearly apparent gender-based motivation (this is different then the resulting choices that affect gender), you will get conflict for using the word. Hell, calling anyone a sexist will instantly be seen as an attack on what you call it, and will always result in a bad start to things. You've touched on it before, gaming is full of over zealous fans, so labeling something as sexist only makes it harder to make people listen. Instead it turns things into a flame war, as Anita's videos have shown. And I can't imagine the developers being called sexist does a lot to make them empathetic to your opinions either.

And while I'm at it, Oppression:
1. prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.

"a region shattered by oppression and killing"

synonyms: persecution, abuse, maltreatment, ill-treatment, tyranny, despotism, repression, suppression, subjection, subjugation; More

cruelty, brutality, injustice, hardship, suffering, misery

"the young people in this country have known nothing but oppression"

antonyms: freedom, democracy

?the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control.

synonyms: persecution, abuse, maltreatment, ill-treatment, tyranny, despotism, repression, suppression, subjection, subjugation; More

cruelty, brutality, injustice, hardship, suffering, misery

"the young people in this country have known nothing but oppression"

antonyms: freedom, democracy

? mental pressure or distress.

especially the last one in my case.
I'll never know when the next female protagonsit game will happen, or how many I'll get. Safe bet guys will get a lot of them, though.

Yeah, it could be a lot worse, but it's not really getting better either. Trend, developer, producer, what's the difference if it's all the same result? excuses don't change the facts, and don't make anything better.

Still, I'd rather get the point through without using scary negative words like sexism, and oppression. I will if not using them doesn't frikking work, though.

I can only sigh at that last bit. It is like a person saying "I'd rather get the point through without attacks, but I will if need be". It is not the direction the discussion should be going, as I can't imagine that flame wars and screaming matches and slanderous accusations would get any changes here then they ever did in the youtube comments.

You are not getting the quality or type of games you want. That sucks, but not many would see that as actually oppressive. Games are not essential nor a guarantee, but rather a luxury product whose very existence is owned to supply and demand. You are no more oppressed by video game companies then I am by a pizza shop not making pizzaburgers. And much like people would site dozens of reasons why it is understandable why they don't offer Pizzaburgers, from lack of overall demand, to the cost of the product, to simply being lazy and content with the market and product they do sell, so too have many replied to claims that a lack of female protagonists are in any way oppressing people.

People lose a lot of credibility when they try to argue that point. Ultimately, the audience has to convince the developers and publishers to make any product. It is just that what exists in gaming now already did that for the 30 or so years it was supported beforehand. Nothing in them not making a product to suit your taste affects your freedom. It sucks, but oppressive it is not. If a lack of product suited to your taste does cause mental pressure or distress though, I think that may be something you should have looked into, as it that seems more like a projection or attachment on your part then any sort of fault of the developers or producers for not making you a product suited to what you want. I want the Star Wars prequels to not suck as much as they do, but the distress I feel about such a memory of my childhood being bastardized is not the fault of George (though I do still blame him for most of the shitty aspects.)

I've never heard of Jim Sterling before I joined the escapist. I've never hear dof Movie Bob. I have heard of Anita first, and not on this site.

Again, working with developers doesn't really mean anything because it's the producers that have power over the developers. If developers had real power, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

Oh, Mirror's Edge 2 is created to fail. It's on a system that's gotten an insane amount of bad rep, it's exclusive to that system, people won't buy the game simply because of Anita, and of course, it's niche. The game doesn't have a chance in hell. I have no optimism there. It not making it wil just be one more strike against women even though it's got less to do with the gender of the protagonist than anything else.

I would be pissed if I was in your shoes. If you already know it is doomed to fail, it is made to fail, where is the sheer outrage about that? You know that will be nothing but excuse for them to say "see, we tried and it failed, no reason to invest again". It will be made an example and only further the issue. Hell, Anita is actively making things worse because of association, so right there is her harming the cause.

Sensationalism has always been a big thing. And Bias. Have you not been watching the news?

Well, maybe if people didn't bully anita with ad hominem attacks, and actually tried to be civil her victmization wouldn't be called upon?

That is just it though, everyone on youtube gets bullies if they talk about controversial issues. Youtube is a cease-pool thanks to shitty oversight and anonymity. Religion, politics and fandoms are well known for it. Add on to that, someone spammed 4chan itself with her videos and it is no wonder she got hate. The problem is, well, exactly what you did here. You assumed the entirety of those against her were somehow uniform or working together, when that is not the case. Those that attacked her in no way represent those that did not. Each are their own, and nothing nasty one side says in any way dismisses or invalidates what the other says calmly.
Hell, Thunderf00t criticized her videos and was called a misogynist and threatened in his own comment section, does that somehow make him right about her being wrong? No, it is all who you pay attention to there, and as many called up before, Anita only paid attention to the trolls. Hell, she sounds proud of the fact she was a victim of trolling with how much she goes on about it, even getting talks about being the victim of online bullying.
To bring back up Thunderf00t for a moment, he had death treats of his own which he had to take to the FBI to get sorted, as well as having his identity and home address smeared online in hopes of getting people to attack him and even having people attempt to get him fired for being controversial on youtube. Anita is not special in how she was treated, she merely trumpets louder about it. And no, not saying I think it is good that anyone is getting threats and such bullshit, merely that it was always disingenuous for Anita to try to associate the trolling in her thread with her critic as a whole.

The problem, IMO, with the main one is, well, it completely ignores consoles. Considering that's where AAA tends to focus, it's not quite showing them anything. But considering the latest console push for indie games, it could likely translate.

I doubt the industry will notice. I mean Slender, and Amnesia are big hits, but there's no sort of revival for the horror genre with console games, is there?

The latter point, being less reliant on developers, and publishers is probably the most sensible part of the plan.

I ignored consoles because I was aiming more towards those not part of gaming at all, or only tangentially. Consoles are expensive and it is a hard sell to get someone to pay that much to check out a new medium. Though the group and resource could very easily have a console section, no problem.

Also, wasn't the latest Resident Evil going big towards the horror roots (in contrast to it's action oriented approach of late). Or that new Bethesda one in the works. Or Outlast. Or Evil Within. There seems to be a horror resurgence to me.

Yeah, it is really easy to complain about the issue. Harder to praise it coz, well... honestly, what is there to praise? I mean really praise? Honestly praise?

I mean I'll praise where it's due, but it's rarely due, and I can't just cling on to old stuff forever coz, well, it doesn't seem like it'll help in the long run.

I mean I made a thread praising Ubisofr for Child of Light and AC: Liberation HD. ... then Ubisoft had to say something effing stupid like give Child of Light flak, and say Beyond Good and Evil was a mistake.

No one ever accused the industry of an excess of intelligence. One can only do what they can and hope there is enough rationality around to understand it. Bonus points for efforts that take into account patterns they pay attention to and motivations they already have. You will always get better results appealing to someone's self interest then someone's selflessness after all.

Yeah, you got in some potential solutions.

Yeah, I do admit the critics of Anita, and the praisers of Anita both make it hard to have a discussion on female representation at times.

The first part of the latter paragraph is pretty much why I want a lot of female representation.

The difficulty in having the discussion is a major reason I dislike Anita in the first place. And while a shotgun approach of a lot of female protagonist games all at once would be interesting to see in action, I still doubt the industry has it in them to do it yet. Too cautious with such games, too reliant on bad policy. But this is a good time for that topic I held off on.

The industry as it was is dying off. It has become a very much do or die thing, with huge piles of money invested into projects that HAVE to make it back, or the company dies. And many times, it can't. This is the worst culture for gaming I can imagine. That means you will have a small group of companies with massive pull in the industry. Those are the companies that have guaranteed security from flagship titles, such as GTA, CoD, Madden and so on. The top dogs of the triple A. AS a result, they will not change strategy (why fix what isn't broken) so innovation is rare. In the topic here, that means they are the ones most likely to be rigid and conservative in following market trends and listening to suits. Bad news for someone wanting things to change. But it gets worse. Because the big dogs make boatloads of cash, you have copycats rising, chasing the dream. You've seen it, the rise of platformers in the 90's, the rise of cover based shooters, the WoW clones, the rise of grey-brown industrial modern warfare fps. They want a piece of the biggest pie and chase it with the same tactics. So, not only are you less likely to get the top dogs to have female protagonists, you are less likely to get the copy cats to either.

What is more, the copy cats have to invest a larger percentage of available money in order to match the amount the top dogs are. GTA could do less then perfect and Rockstar would be alright still. Other companies.... not so much. As such, they invest more resources into the game and are less likely to take risks. Now the copycats are even less likely to use female protagonists then the big dogs. And it is oh so easy to blame any change in formula on a failure. If a Top dog Game goes down, it sends a message for the copy cats to avoid that sort (unless they are too invested in one already, where you may get an attempt to change it or some half-assed mix game or a number of other responses). And if a copycat goes down, and we already established they go down hard, it really nails the message home. The entire culture of the triple A industry is so toxic towards actual innovation or risk that it is mind-boggling. It is a huge high-stakes risk to make a game in the Triple A market now (because you have to go big when you do. Invest so much money that games are too big to fail without taking the company with you), so conservative policies will be taken over risky ones except under certain situations.

So this tells us a few things. Either we can try to concentrate on the largest slice of the pie, the companies with enough resources that they can take a risk (and start a trend) in the first place, or we can try to concentrate on smaller mid-tier companies or indie companies who are not bound to the "game has to make this much or the ship sinks" mentality. Or we can wait til the industry dies enough more that the other triple A actually learn to not mimic a suicide path, though I doubt that is any time soon unless a huge company goes down. Actually, I think I would love to see Microsoft's X-bone go down as the example of excess and waste in order to teach the rest of the industry, though someone like EA would be a much more beautiful bombfire warning to others instead.

Destructable cover was a big thing for a long time. I think outright destroyed buildings were new, though.

I remember cover, though that may have been because of the rise of cover-based shooters themselves needing variation and a way to make urgency. Can't hide behind that rock forever now.

Yeah, but I'm hard pressed to think of many indie games that stack up to non indies. I mean sure, indie games can be fun, but what's stopping them from selling like CoD, or GTA for the most part?
The answer to that is prolly why Indie games aren't making as huge of an impact.

It's pretty ambitious to think an indie game could get an AAA overhaul for the most part. Yeah, Portal, sure, but how likely is it to happen?

More and more likely as we go on I think.

But beyond that, I think one of the reasons indie games don't have the impact as CoD or whatnot has to do with, well, fame and security. The biggest names are franchise games that are bedrock solid sellers. They change little, but you know exactly what you are in for if you buy that game, and you know all your friends (who like that sort of game) will buy it. They are the quintessential games of their genre. Add to that the fact they are advertised more (because they can afford to be) and they reach more players. They are reliable games that are worth the money, damn near guaranteed. It is very hard to compete with something like that, so I don't think indie games should expect to. If you make a home-movie, you don't expect it to compete with the likes of Avatar or The Avengers, but you don't think it is a failure when they don't beat the returns there either. Now, indie games are able to beat Tomb Raider, or Resident Evil, or the non-flagship triple A titles out there, which is impressive on its own rights. Hell, with how close minecraft came to topping the kings, that alone is insane. That would have been a home movie beating out Titanic. That it came close but still didn't best them is nothing to dismiss.

I didn't mean break up the quoted person's post, and reply to it in part, I meant press enter now and then when typing the large chunks of text so they're a little less wall-ish.

Ah. Sorry, I tend to be a little long-winded. Still, I like the broken up way a little bit more I think.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Snip for space

I honestly don't know about Anita "profiting" on those terms. Yeah, she does profit, but it's hardly her fault her kickstarter grew like it did, well beyond what she asked for. It seems to be voluntary donations made to her on top of that.
I mean, I can understand why people would support her.
Supporting Feminism, representation of female characters, some combination of both.
Heck, some people could be giving her money just to keep her around to be hated on coz people need "monsters", and hate's a drug. Almost litterally as it has drug like properties.
The motives of people who invest in her are likely beyond my imagination.
It strikes me, just now, Anita's gotten a considerable sum. Far and away more than what she's asked for. Why -that- hasn't seemingly gotten the attention of producers is beyond me. If she can get paid that much to just talk about games, why is it no one else seems to be taking advantage of it, or taking note of it? Wouldn't that, certainly, indicate want from the customers?

I know hate's not exclusive to this topic, but as you said, it prevents discussion.
It interferes a -lot-. The only reason Escapist isn't overrun is the moderators, and staff doing their jobs. Still, we see glimpses of it in moderated posts, and buried in posts that just barely dodge the bullet.
The comments section on her videos, if they were open? No such luck, I'm sure. People seem to forget that Youtube is where intelligent conversation goes to die. Especially on polarizing topics.
I'd think Anita would need a moderated neutral grounds, or, well, a college lecture room to come out, and deal with questions... though I'd keep some cops with Tazers on hand in a public area. ... My faith in humanity is kinda low.

I wish your outlook on gamers wasn't so rare. I mean a lot of people on the Escapist might hold that view, but there's a lot of threads floating around about people saying they have to game a certain way to be called gamers.
It's no secret there's people that don't consider girls gamers, citing them as playing facebook games, casual games, and such. People are on them for playing casual games, yet I don't think they ever stopped to wonder why women might prefer "casual" games. It's likely coz they're more likely to cater/pander to them than the rest of the industry.

You're right, it can be tiring to hear about it all the time. That said some sort of balance should be sought so the audience doesn't burn out, yet the goal doesn't get too hard to see, and to keep people talking.
Maybe that could part of why Anita doesn't make her videos all that quickly? I can only guess.

Well, the job I was thinking of was like a fortune 500, or even a Macdonald's cashier/window cashier. People with tattoos, and such have a bad rep, unfortunately, but they're people like everyone else, and there's the good, and the bad.
A suit won't work if you have a spider web tattooed across your face, or coral horn implants, or large facial piercings, or tatoos on your hands, dyed hair in an unnatural color, etc.
Yeah, there's jobs out there for people like that, but I don't see "Bank teller" as one of them, for instance, which is my point. A person coming off as immature, or as a hooligan won't get a second look from people hiring for jobs like that. Those people hiring are likely to be the same sort of people producing games. Anything outlandish is something they don't want to deal with either for their sake, or for the sake of the people they cater to.

I have little doubt that Bob, Jim, and others can reach the gaming community, but I fear that might not be enough. It's obvious they reach the community with mixed results, as well. There are some people lament them talking about gender issues at all, period.

As I've stated more than once, the producers seem to hold all the power save for maybe some huge name like Naughty Dog.
Just hitting the consumers, and Developers might not be enough.

Spreaking of them, maybe, when people talk about gender representation, links to jimquisition, movie bob, and extra credits could be provided to show people there's an alternative to Anita? Help get them known more?

You're right, fame is a double edged sword.

You're honeslty one of the few I've seen that offered any sort of solution. You're not alone, but it seems you're in the minority.
I've watched many a rebuttal video, and honestly, read most of this thread. Most people are just interested in telling her, and anyone that remotely agrees with her to shut up.

The defintion of Sexism doesn't require malicious intent, so yeah, basically just treating genders different because of the gender. Still, lets not forget that the industry's somewhat hostile to the idea of women in their game, even on the covers of their games, nevermind their agency towards love lives both sexual, and romantic among other things. It doesn't matter if there's malice in every case, it's the fact that the trend exists, and the industry, nearly as a whole, is perpetuating it. Fighting the status quo seems rare, and the rest of the time they seem okay with it. I can't be okay with that.

Agree, or not if they're sexist, by that definition, I'd say they are, and it certainly feels a bit that way the way opponents of better representation of women throw around the guy card in that games are catered to them, and the rest need to suck it up, and deal with it.

While I don't want to use words like Oppression, and Sexism, it's going to become an example of measured force.
If progress happens without those words, wonderful. If nothing happens despite our civility, then things are likely to escalate. What more can one do if asking nicely doesn't work?
Some people won't put up with the status quo of gaming forever, me included.
I've been waiting for some good 13 years, I'd say. Girl Power 90s was wonderful in getting women out there in blockbuster games, but after that, it whithered, and died, and at best is only seeing any sort of resurgance now. I mean we've gotten a few more than I remember, but the games they're in weren't up to par with the compitition, so they didn't do as well, and gamers are going to pay for it. Not just people who want female protagonists, mind you, but this will likely have ripples across all of gaming.
Less female protagonists means more male ones, obviously. Thing is that could very well lead to more bland ones, and ones guys don't like.
People who complain about men being the default enemies won't likely see more female enemies because it'll just be more male on woman violence to get shouted at over, right?. Women fighting women would likely be more acceptable.
Adjustments to the female side of the industry's Status quo can have positives to the male side. It's a matter of looking at the big picture.

How can the audience convince the industry it's what we want when they don't make what we want? And when they do make it, it's sub-par? The consumers are being sabotaged, here, IMO.

There's too many instances to list out that tick me off, so I refer to the industry as "the industry" as opposed to aiming at certain people. I know there's some decent companies out there, but they're too few, frankly.

As for Mirror's Edge 2, it's a funny thing, there's not much that pisses me off. The internet going out, my computer messing up, my own dumb mistakes. That's about it as far as common stuff goes. I'm pretty zen, and level headed.

The inevitable BS that people are going to blame Mirror's Edge 2's failing on the female protagonist? Not too much (un)fortunately. I know it'll happen, and there's bugger all I can do about it. Not much I can do about the games come and gone that got the same treatment. What can I do?
Of course I'll be dissapointed, and annoyed by the people looking at the small picture, or just trying to confirm their hypothesis (Ya know, the stuff they're mad at Anita about most likely. ) and try to calmly explain things to them, but all in all, it's not a situation I can control.

Well, for one, I'm glad you're open to the possibility that someone besides Anita kicked the hornets nest that's 4 chan. I'm not really invested in weather she did, or not, but still, an open mind is a wonderful thing.

I think we miscommunicated. I'm not saying her critics are working together. They're all individuals, they just happen to have a lot of the same stuff to say about her.
Of course trolling, death threats, rape threads, anti-semetic comments, misogynistic comments, and such don't invalidate the level headed comments, but when the level headed comments get drowned out by the former, they tend not to reach the target, which is problematic. It's pretty much the same effect as replying to those posts through the madness of trolls, and assholes may not happen.

I don't doubt Anita's critics got harassed, and name called, too, and it's definitely not right, but quanitity of harassment needs to be taken into account, too. No, threats don't make anyone any more right, or wrong.
I'm not looking to downplay Thunderf00t's harasment, mind you. It shouldn't have happened at all. Having to go as far as to go to the FBI is well above and beyond the point anyone should have to go, and I certainly hope the people that threatened him get sent to prison.

Thing is, women getting harassment is unique vs male harassment.
Someone in this thread showed a link that where a study leads to the conclusion women get 3x more harassment which I don't doubt. I mean, I don't even have CoD, yet someone IMed me to tell me I sucked, and was a dick after I let them know I don't have the game.
I don't recall much of a use of "Make me a sammich!" and kitchen jokes aimed at men in a serious attempt to insult them. Then again I'm no expert on insults so gendered insults towards men are a bit unknown to me.
I'm pretty sure rape threats are fairly unique against women.
Yeah, there's questioning their sexual orientation for guys, and talks of one's mother, but thabt doesn't seem gendered, rather indicative of other problems.

Your idea makes sense more about why it doesn't include consoles. PC gaming is a bit easier to get into because people are more likely to have a PC just for utility. Still, consoles need all the help they can get.

Resident Evil 6 goign back to horror roots? No. Revelations, which is a port from a 3ds game, I think? Not really, no. I watched most of a playthrough.
We'll see what happens in the future. I wouldn't say you're wrong about the ressurection of the horror genre. It might be returning.

Appealing to the industry's self interest is pretty difficult when they don't really give much to utilize for the process. All I can really do is vote with my wallet.

The industry might not be willing to take a shotgun attempt, but they'll have ot do something, or things just won't change.

I agree with you on the issue of copycats. It's why I'm suggesting, some, that they take an easier route. Seek new markets. Take paths of least resistance. Trying to kill the bulletproof companies is just stupid, IMO. they've shown that there's little that can be done.
And you're right, I have seen pretty much every era of gaming, or went back to it as I bought an Atari 2600 well after I got an NES. I guess female protagonsits were one of those phases.

I'm not sure how we can focus on the largest slices so they can afford to take a risk because they, frankly, won't.
I doubt we'll see "GTA: Stories of Los Santos: Hooker's revenge", because if we support the largest slices, they won't fix what isn't broken to them. They're making money and won't likely understand our motives, and won't likely give a damn. Still, there's an absurdly small glimmer of hope. CoD's inclusion of female multiplayer characters means that copycats will likely adopt. While I don't dig PvP, I'd still be happy if it happened.

Concentrating on mid tiers is about all I do what with the voting with my wallet business. Sometimes I go AAA, but I mostly go for companies I don't really consider AAA since they don't seem to have the budgets to sink into TV commercials.
Still, even Indie companies can get into the mentality of "this game has to work, or we're done for." I.E. the people that made Hydrophobia.

I don't think we have a choice, honestly, it's going to be option 3, which is pretty unlikely.
EA's not likely to go down, though. They have some of those bulletproof titles that guarentee money. More than a few companies are unlikely to go down.

Time will tell with indie games competing with non-indie games, I guess, but I don't really see them getting TV commercials, and advertisement. Money is a double edged sword here. The lack of investment, and ease in getting it back is great! But the lack of it keeps them from getting as much as they could.

 

[runic knight]

-snipity snip-

Well, it seems we are on the same page on a lot of things here, so that is good.

I will add though that tv commercials and advertising that way is being phased out in how useful it is, giving indie games better chances then they would have a decade ago. People don't watch as much tv as they used to, instead using the internet for faster, less commercial filled alternatives. Advertising is of course slow to respond to the change in things the same way the music world was (mainly because admitting things would mean a huge reduction in money in their pocket. Better to ride the wave til it dies) and largely dismiss online advertising. But online, especially among the social media, has built in the strongest, most effective form of advertising, word of mouth. Be it just because they don't want to have to be on a level playing field online with all others or they are afraid of backlash when something goes wrong, most companies just seem to treat online advertising as an afterthought. Gaming is not even that big into it, even though the ones online are most likely to be the target demographics. That does mean there is space yet though, and some already huge games made use of the internet, such as Minecraft relying on word of mouth.

Also, wanted to straighten out something I think you misunderstood me saying. The Thunderf00t guy had to go to the FBI and stuff because of youtube trolls and actions youtubers took against him, but that was not because of criticism of Anita herself, that happened a little way before when discussing, funnily enough, people who used methods to censor others on YouTube (I think this was regarding his being critical of religious topics and youtubes notoriously bad false flagging issue). While he certainly got a lot of threats and flack from criticizing anita too, I didn't want you to misunderstand me and think that he started to get people trying to fire him because of that.

I do get what you were saying about people being petty and how one dresses sends a message, and you are right. But that slices both ways and if one dresses like a political pundit, sounds like a political pundit and acts like an outsider like a political pundit, do you think anyone will listen to Anita who didn't already agree? Obviously we have seen gamers have not been that receptive over all. The money she earned my be the only reason why EA pays her any mind, though that has publicity stunt written all over it. And when compared to the amount small indie groups make to actually make a game, it really is not that much at all. Also, as the likes of Jon Stewart shows, personality can be flexible. While mocking on his own show, he can be very articulate and professional when he chooses to be. If anything, we would need someone who can present the topic and discuss them in a way that is interesting, while also being able to represent the topic and gaming as a whole in a fair light to others. I do not think Anita is that at all, and honestly, I would rather use still fight over the issue among ourselves then to lets someone like her represent us or the topic itself.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

-snipity snip-

Well, it seems we are on the same page on a lot of things here, so that is good.

I will add though that tv commercials and advertising that way is being phased out in how useful it is, giving indie games better chances then they would have a decade ago. People don't watch as much tv as they used to, instead using the internet for faster, less commercial filled alternatives. Advertising is of course slow to respond to the change in things the same way the music world was (mainly because admitting things would mean a huge reduction in money in their pocket. Better to ride the wave til it dies) and largely dismiss online advertising. But online, especially among the social media, has built in the strongest, most effective form of advertising, word of mouth. Be it just because they don't want to have to be on a level playing field online with all others or they are afraid of backlash when something goes wrong, most companies just seem to treat online advertising as an afterthought. Gaming is not even that big into it, even though the ones online are most likely to be the target demographics. That does mean there is space yet though, and some already huge games made use of the internet, such as Minecraft relying on word of mouth.

Also, wanted to straighten out something I think you misunderstood me saying. The Thunderf00t guy had to go to the FBI and stuff because of youtube trolls and actions youtubers took against him, but that was not because of criticism of Anita herself, that happened a little way before when discussing, funnily enough, people who used methods to censor others on YouTube (I think this was regarding his being critical of religious topics and youtubes notoriously bad false flagging issue). While he certainly got a lot of threats and flack from criticizing anita too, I didn't want you to misunderstand me and think that he started to get people trying to fire him because of that.

I do get what you were saying about people being petty and how one dresses sends a message, and you are right. But that slices both ways and if one dresses like a political pundit, sounds like a political pundit and acts like an outsider like a political pundit, do you think anyone will listen to Anita who didn't already agree? Obviously we have seen gamers have not been that receptive over all. The money she earned my be the only reason why EA pays her any mind, though that has publicity stunt written all over it. And when compared to the amount small indie groups make to actually make a game, it really is not that much at all. Also, as the likes of Jon Stewart shows, personality can be flexible. While mocking on his own show, he can be very articulate and professional when he chooses to be. If anything, we would need someone who can present the topic and discuss them in a way that is interesting, while also being able to represent the topic and gaming as a whole in a fair light to others. I do not think Anita is that at all, and honestly, I would rather use still fight over the issue among ourselves then to lets someone like her represent us or the topic itself.

Commercials getting phased out is bad, IMO. You -have- to let the gamers that don't use gaming mags, or the internet for their news. Also the people who don't look for gaming news so much.
I've noticed a small relationship between games with female protagonists getting sequels when they have TV ads.
I.E. Tomb Raider, X-Blades, Mirror's Edge.
Of course it might be nothing but a theory.

Ah, I see what you're saying about thunderf00t.

I do agree we need a better representative. Until then people will look to her as the one we have.

 

[Karl Milfburn]

I watched Anita's videos and I felt that they were ok feminist 101 material (I consider myself a humanitarian feminist; equality is good in my book). However, something just didn't ring true. Certain things seemed like they were being used without knowledge of their context, weakening the broader points Anita was trying to make. A legit gamer (and more to the point, an academically legit feminist)wouldn't have done this.

So I did a bit of reading, checked a few sites and found this: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/415/777/451/acknowledge-and-present-legitimate-criticism-of-anita-sarkeesian/

It covers all the objections about Anita and her work. First there's her admittance of not being a fan of videogames https://vimeo.com/13216819 (relevant statement at 12:50 onwards) This is in direct contradiction to what she regularly tells the press. She's also on record as knowing about the darker elements of the 4Chan community before she advertised her campaign there.

Secondly, for those who wonder whether the extra Kickstarter funds raised were an intentional calculation on Anita's part there is her 'background is in ethically questionable internet salesmanship' to consider, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2h4vITidvo with a former employer who were subsequently dogged by fraud allegations http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Handwriting-University/internet/Handwriting-University-HSI-Handwriting-Services-International-USA-Handwriting-Exper-563438 .

One of the key pillars of the business appears to have been milking as much money out of online users as possible. Anita worked directly under the head honcho (again, verifiable by a quick online search).

I think the vile abuse Anita received was depressing and predictable at the same time (and depressing for being predictable). I think this forced us to look at ourselves as a community to check if we were doing enough to counteract those elements that wish to silence debate on the issue. I also think that by drawing attention to the subject of female tropes in videogames, Anita has given us a short-term gain.

However, on this issue, I fear there will be a net-loss for free and open debate in the long run. Here's why:

By presenting herself to the press as a lifelong gamer(when on record stating otherwise), by failing to provide citations for her game clips (thereby taking them without other Youtubers permission and giving the false impression that the gameplay footage is her own) and by refusing to engage in public debate about her videos, Anita has effectively closed off a well of discussion.

In other words, those that agree with her and want to debate the point lose credibility by trying to cite her in as an academic example(talk of the videos being used in schools was kaboshed as they do not hold up to peer review and would require Anita to be accountable for her sources).

Those that disagree with her and want to honestly debate points get tarred with the same brush as the vile misogynists who initially commented on her Youtube channel(incidentally, I agree with her decision to close the comments. No-one needs that level of vitriol in their lives). I've never seen the mainstream press ask her about any of the issues I've stated here. I've never seen her hold an open Q & A where any of these questions were answered (or allowed to be asked). And that's a problem.

Because while many of the Youtubers who sourced this information on Anita may seem obsessively creepy, or snotty and condescending in their tone, or prone to making the odd leap of faith here or there, that is because they are not the mainstream press. They are having to do the job of the mainstream press for them.

And so Bob, whilst I enjoyed your article (genuinely, I like the lightness of touch with which you write and the use of language in general) I would very much like it if yourself, or others in your profession got the chance to ask some more critical questions of Anita and her work. I don't expect every point here to have to be refuted, but they at least merit inquiry, no?

Because IMO, I must agree with the statement that:

I'm just going to say that I disagree that she's doing more good than harm. The lack of diversity in female characters was something talked about. It just wasn't some huge polarizing issue. I feel like she's poisoned the well, and that what could be discussion of the issue and those surrounding it has mostly become two circlejerks attacking each other.

Ultimately this isn't about me being irritated about a woman calling me out on my privilege (male privilege is a theory I broadly agree with). It's about me as one human being objecting to (inconsistencies in) another human being's work and their behavior in the public domain, which I believe to be actively harmful to public discourse on a subject that really needs better exploration. Because once the work is out there, you are accountable for it. That's the way it works. That's how better work gets produced. Those making (admittedly quite funny) jokes on the petition site I quote at the top of my post seem to miss that point. Here is a statement from that petition that sums up why it is important that Anita is not beyond criticism:

"It is a profound dereliction and degradation of journalistic integrity to unilaterally portray any person?s argument on a controversial matter as being final, unquestionable, and above legitimate criticism."

While I stop short of leveling that charge at your good selves (after all, you do allow comment sections), I would say that I think it does apply to the mainstream media (gaming and otherwise) in general. Apologies for the length of this post, but I've moved from being happy that someone is tackling this issue (first heard about the kickstarter project) to being disappointing with the result (watching series) to being dismayed at the dismissal of all criticism.

Because I want female leads with better characterization. Goodness, I want better-written characters in general. But the way to go about it is by having open and honest debate, not by blunting your argument by disengaging from all criticism of your work and the themes around it. Thank you for your time. Let the debate continue!