I wasn't in the meeting where "the videogame industry" decided that most games should become Power Fantasies and be unfair to fans of the Survival Horror genre.
Welcome to niche markets.
Not that I do not feel empathy towards you as I enjoy some survival horrors now and then, but I feel some comfort that my niche market contains 50% of the world's population, that their exclusion carries with it a powerful word against their exclusion, and that not just members of the 50% do not like being excluded, but there are people on the other 50% that support them not being excluded.
Still, I sincerely hope that the survival horror trend on PC games is picked up on, and goes uncorrupted , and becomes wider spread.
I kinda miss the older resident evils. Especially Outbreak, and it's sequel.
Rebel_Raven said:
Seriously, you think I have the talent, and resources to make a game that'll matter? The connections to find people that are qualified to help? I should only be so lucky. I might have a vision, but I know full well my skills as a whole, my equipment, and my funds aren't up to snuff to reach it.
You want me to start a kickstarter? Who the hell am I to make a kickstarter? I can't even convince half the people on this board of anything short of me being some misandric feminist (and I don't even consider myself a feminist, or misandric) for crying out loud! Hell, I wouldn't even trust myself to lead a parade, nevermind a kickstarter.
I'm not saying this to garner any pity, mind you, I'm saying it to be realistic.
If I could have realistically set out on a campaign to make my own game, I would have done it.
Honestly, that "make your own game!" notion really is irritating. As if it's just that easy? There's lots of people who make games that just don't do well and they far outnumber the success stories. Not everyone's going to be a star when they make their own game. That's cold reality.
Yes, you can, everybody can.
Not all games have to be AAA multimillion titles. You don't even need Kickstarter, not even a budget.
You just have to Download a few free software and learn them. Unity, Gimp, Blender if you want 3D. Jump into #unity3d at http://webchat.freenode.net/ and ask for guidelines of where to start. Also, head to the next Global Game Jam and participate, even if you don't know anything.
And of course, gender doesn't matter, just your willingness to make it happen.
I am not certain I have the right motives for making my own game.
It is not for the love of the craft. It is not for myself. It is not to gamble with it dieing in obscurity. It is not to make a game that will fall well short of my hopes for it as my laptop is not all that powerful. I feel the game has to be so awesome that not only will men and women play it, but the dudebros against more female protagonists will crave it, and envy the game to the point that they might play it, and find a female protagonist is not a bad thing. That female protagonists in and of themselves are not what will kill a game, or it's sales and that they can be profitable when paired with an excellent game.
The game I would make, if I even had a clear vision of it in itself would have to be thoroughly awesome. The fact that the protagonist is female can not be readily interchangeable with a male replacement would have to be considered. The game would have to fall apart without a female protagonist, and be awesome enough to get produced.
The game would have to be awesome enough to become absolutely viral that people would talk about it on a wide scale to the point that people would play it on a wide scale.
Do you really believe that a laptop that costs less than 500 dollars, one person who is less than confident in their abilities with good reason, and is on a very tight budget day to day can pull this off? I mean realistically pull this off?
A person who has so many reasons that they cannot realistically pull this off that the person cannot even think of them all in the span of making a post on a laggy ps3 browser, or even a working laptop without making a text file for referrence (I haven't. Should I?) could pull it off?
But unlike a lot of people that just fling the notion at me, seemingly as a weapon to shut a person up, I thank you immensely for providing an alternative in the global game jam. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of others, do you have any links or information towards how one might participate in one?
The advice about the global game jam just might be the advice that helps me the most! It sounds brilliant!
Not that I do not feel empathy towards you as I enjoy some survival horrors now and then, but I feel some comfort that my niche market contains 50% of the world's population, that their exclusion carries with it a powerful word against their exclusion, and that not just members of the 50% do not like being excluded, but there are people on the other 50% that support them not being excluded.
But nobody is being excluded. What's this paranoia. You can buy Max Payne too if you want. It's like saying you're excluded by Coca Cola because you don't like its taste. Call me again the day that violent AAA games ask for your gender and refuse to install itself if you pick "woman".
If you're not pleased with what is offered to you, you are the one excluding yourself. There is no dev who won't want you to buy their games. It's you who doesn't want to. Don't reverse the roles.
Not that I do not feel empathy towards you as I enjoy some survival horrors now and then, but I feel some comfort that my niche market contains 50% of the world's population, that their exclusion carries with it a powerful word against their exclusion, and that not just members of the 50% do not like being excluded, but there are people on the other 50% that support them not being excluded.
But nobody is being excluded. What's this paranoia. You can buy Max Payne too if you want. It's like saying you're excluded by Coca Cola because you don't like its taste. Call me again the day that violent AAA games ask for your gender and refuse to install itself if you pick "woman".
If you're not pleased with what is offered to you, you are the one excluding yourself. There is no dev who won't want you to buy their games. It's you who doesn't want to. Don't reverse the roles.
We are being excluded in representation. A woman can enjoy Max Payne all she wants. However she wonders on occasion why there aren't more female main protagonists in videogames at the same rate as there are male protagonists.
We are being excluded in representation. A woman can enjoy Max Payne all she wants. However she wonders on occasion why there aren't more female main protagonists in videogames at the same rate as there are male protagonists.
That's a totally different issue in itself. At that point you're arguing that lines of code (the ones which create a female) which do not exist are being excluded from the role of protagonist.
We are being excluded in representation. A woman can enjoy Max Payne all she wants. However she wonders on occasion why there aren't more female main protagonists in videogames at the same rate as there are male protagonists.
That's a totally different issue in itself. At that point you're arguing that lines of code (the ones which create a female) which do not exist are being excluded from the role of protagonist.
You cannot brush off this issue as us arguing about the representation of "code".
That code just so happen to make up a bunch of polygons, that in turn are supposed to represent the female gender of the human race in a game that stimulates human minds.
Therefore it is perfectly logical of me to want more representation of my gender in the games that I play in my past time.
Not that I do not feel empathy towards you as I enjoy some survival horrors now and then, but I feel some comfort that my niche market contains 50% of the world's population, that their exclusion carries with it a powerful word against their exclusion, and that not just members of the 50% do not like being excluded, but there are people on the other 50% that support them not being excluded.
But nobody is being excluded. What's this paranoia. You can buy Max Payne too if you want. It's like saying you're excluded by Coca Cola because you don't like its taste. Call me again the day that violent AAA games ask for your gender and refuse to install itself if you pick "woman".
If you're not pleased with what is offered to you, you are the one excluding yourself. There is no dev who won't want you to buy their games. It's you who doesn't want to. Don't reverse the roles.
Women are ill represented in the face of gaming media. It does not matter if they're made of polygons, pixels, code, or what have you, they still represent a sex. A gender.
That representation is important! Maybe not to you, but to a lot of other people it is, or else this would not be talked about so widely.
There is no excuse that cannot make it sexism until men and women face the same problems, and neither face problems the other gender does not. Until that equality comes, and believe me, it's not here, defending the status quo is a losing battle.
Think of all the newcomer women to the gaming world, and all the potential ones in the future. Why not have a gaming industry that can welcome them with members of their own gender in modern releases, more often, putting the best foot forward? Saying, in a way, "We welcome you, female gamers, by allowing you to be female in our games! Come, enjoy our industry!"
And it'd help if the women weren't oversexualized. Sex sells, and a great character is made in part by appearances, but lets be real, and know there's a limit to how much sexualization is appropriate as not to scare off the women who could grow the market.
I'm not saying that women have to be playable in all games, but I'd certainly want them more often playable than they are now, treated better than they are, and treated with the care and consideration similar male protagonists.
What does it say about our society when this one battle cannot be resolved? That people think it's trivial when a lot of others do not? What does it say about our respect for women? Our views on them, and their abilities? The view on their struggles? Our society? Our ability to evolve as a people? Our imaginations?
If women can't be respected for wanting more representation in videogames, something people might think so trivial, what hope do they have in getting respect, and representation in larger battles? Especially in parts of the world where people respect women -less- than they do in the western/more civilized world?
The rammifactions of maintaining the status quo in videogames is really far reaching!
Denying the fact that women want to play as their own gender in a game, and have a power fantasy in that game is basically shooting the whole marketing argument dead because women are humanbeings, same as any guy that wants the same thing!
I am not certain I have the right motives for making my own game.
It is not for the love of the craft. It is not for myself. It is not to gamble with it dieing in obscurity. It is not to make a game that will fall well short of my hopes for it as my laptop is not all that powerful. I feel the game has to be so awesome that not only will men and women play it, but the dudebros against more female protagonists will crave it, and envy the game to the point that they might play it, and find a female protagonist is not a bad thing. That female protagonists in and of themselves are not what will kill a game, or it's sales and that they can be profitable when paired with an excellent game.
The game I would make, if I even had a clear vision of it in itself would have to be thoroughly awesome. The fact that the protagonist is female can not be readily interchangeable with a male replacement would have to be considered. The game would have to fall apart without a female protagonist, and be awesome enough to get produced.
The game would have to be awesome enough to become absolutely viral that people would talk about it on a wide scale to the point that people would play it on a wide scale.
Do you really believe that a laptop that costs less than 500 dollars, one person who is less than confident in their abilities with good reason, and is on a very tight budget day to day can pull this off? I mean realistically pull this off?
A person who has so many reasons that they cannot realistically pull this off that the person cannot even think of them all in the span of making a post on a laggy ps3 browser, or even a working laptop without making a text file for referrence (I haven't. Should I?) could pull it off?
But unlike a lot of people that just fling the notion at me, seemingly as a weapon to shut a person up, I thank you immensely for providing an alternative in the global game jam. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of others, do you have any links or information towards how one might participate in one?
The advice about the global game jam just might be the advice that helps me the most! It sounds brilliant!
Women are ill represented in the face of gaming media. It does not matter if they're made of polygons, pixels, code, or what have you, they still represent a sex. A gender.
That representation is important! Maybe not to you, but to a lot of other people it is, or else this would not be talked about so widely.
There is no excuse that cannot make it sexism until men and women face the same problems, and neither face problems the other gender does not. Until that equality comes, and believe me, it's not here, defending the status quo is a losing battle.
Intro: What is the problem discussed? Sexism. Now the question is on which level? Is it the game or the devs? Apparently depending on who you ask it can be either or both.
So in order to analyze whether we have a sexism issue we need to analyze both the developers decision and the tropes in the games themselves.
Developers: In order to prove that developers are being sexists one has to prove that the choices they make while writing the stories are caused by sexism. However no such evidence has been provided as no study analyzing sexism among gaming developers has been posted. The claim is based on the games they make. But in order for the mere existence of these games to be evidence of sexism other potential reasons have to be excluded, and with evidence.
What are the other potential reasons?
1) Data shows that the development sector in the gaming industry is still pretty much dominated by men. It can be possible that being Men these developers feel more comfortable creating male characters. After all they can project themselves into their character more easily. This, unless i'm mistaking, isn't sexist. But the result will also be that female characters, if any are present, will be relegated to secondary roles.
2) Marketing. Basically, research suggests that women tend to dislike violence in videogames and are seeking for rich social interactions. Two requirements not met by your average AAA game. As such it can be assumed that the female demographic among potential costumers is negligible compared to the male demographic. And if males tend to prefer playing as a male character (couldn't find any studies on this regard so yes this is speculation) than the marketing department may very well be the reason why female protagonists are so rare (this possibility is reinforced by the examples of female protagonists being "taco-blocked" by the higher ups)
3) Plain lack of creativity and laziness. I don't think this has to be expanded as it is pretty straight forward
4) Maybe i'm forgetting other potential reasons?
Considering there are 3 (or more) potential reasons which could explain the current state of characters in AAA games there seem to be no reason to assume the worst and vilify hard working people because they may or may not be sexists. Either all the potential explanations which don't involve "sexism" have to be disproven (which would de-facto prove it's sexism) or sexism has to be proven to at least be partially, but significantly, the cause of the current state of AAA gaming.
Games: Now a lot of people seem to think that there is a sexism issue in games. The reasons usually mentioned are "it's almost always a male protagonist", "women are often used as a part of a trope", "women often have little agency", etc.
But the big question which has to be asked, does that make a game sexist? First of all It has to be noted that every game creation process is an individual process (unless it's part of a series). As such the link between them is merely the one that they are all games.
The process goes as follows (not necessarily in that order): Developers come up with an idea for a game and a story. They than present their idea to the higher ups who will than ask the financial and marketing departments if the creation of the game is a good idea. If it is, the devs will have a green light on making the game and will make it. And than when they want to make a new game the process starts over again.
This understanding is paramount to avoid misjudgements because it clearly shows that you cannot simply sum up all the games and make a claim such as "games are sexist". They are all separate entities and a result of separate processes. The only way the sum of all these games may result in sexism is if the developers are sexist and that is why the games have the stories they have, in which case i'll refer to the first part.*
Now, some people seem to believe that the tropes used are sexist by nature. However is the story about a man avenging his murdered wife sexist? Is the story about a man rescuing his kidnapped daughter sexist? If yes, why? If, no, than we have no problem.
An other point which has been made is that the women put in these situations are often stripped of all agency and thus presented as "objects". However, the big 1 000 000 $ question is, is no agency = object? In this case the context is extremely important. The reason why the damsels have no agency is because they have been stripped of it by the Villain. Not because they don't have any to begin with. As a consequence they are not objects but humans not capable of having any meaningful impact due to the situation they're in. The difference is key because when the lack of agency is merely a consequence of the situation, that person is being portrayed as a "powerless victim", not an object. In order to be portrayed as an object the character has to be an empty useless and pointless shell because that's what she is and not because of the situation. A great way to illustrate this is with the Japanese infamous Rape Game. In said game women are your sexual objects just because they are. You as a gamer are basically the hand of God which can do whatever you want to these women without them doing anything about it. They have been stripped from any possible agency so you can use them as an object. Not because the story has put them in a situation in which they can't have any agency.
So in conclusion: Are developers sexist? It is possible but until proven it's like Schrodinger's cat, you'll only know once it's conclusively proven or disproven. And if you follow the innocent until proven guilty mantra they should be considered non-sexist until proven otherwise.
Are games sexist? Depends on whether you consider the tropes inherently sexist.
Is the AAA gaming segment sexist? See above. Unless you believe the individual games are sexist, no. Considering games are all results of individual creation processes they cannot simply be "summed up".
Now feel free to point towards holes or whatever you disagree with.
* The only games which are additive in this discussion are those linked by story. This is because the story is the problematic characteristic. If you have a game series existing of 10 installments and the protagonist always seem to lose a female loved one (could be his wife than sister than daughter than mother, etc.) than you could ask yourself: why is it always a woman?! Why doesn't he lose a male closed one? What are the odds that someone would lose ten female closed ones and no male ones?! But if the games are not part of a series linked by story than this type of questions becomes moot de-facto, because all the plots are a part of separate processes which are only linked to each other by either the devs or the mere fact they are game plots.
Think of all the newcomer women to the gaming world, and all the potential ones in the future. Why not have a gaming industry that can welcome them with members of their own gender in modern releases, more often, putting the best foot forward? Saying, in a way, "We welcome you, female gamers, by allowing you to be female in our games! Come, enjoy our industry!"
And it'd help if the women weren't oversexualized. Sex sells, and a great character is made in part by appearances, but lets be real, and know there's a limit to how much sexualization is appropriate as not to scare off the women who could grow the market.
Anita has proven that what 20-30 games use those tropes? Steam lists 1991 games. So even if we go by the idea anita shown 30 games used those tropes that's only 1.5% of the games. So are we gonna complain because only 98.5% of the games don't use those tropes? That's some big feeling of entitlement there. (i know you talked about sexualization but i don't have any numbers at all there, nobody has ever made a list and say "see, sexism". And i think this quick math illustrates quite well you can't make big claims about an entire industry based on a short list)
And how would it help if women weren't oversexualized? before C&C RA3 no female character was sexualized. I never met any woman discussing command and conquer on the C&C forum or anywhere else, neither in game. Why? RTS's tend to draw men. What i want to point out with that is that the mere "genre" itself can already pretty much define the demographic and than why not add some little extras for your main demographic? And if it comes to MMORPG we could say they try to use sexualization to differentiate themselves from big hits like WoW which don't sexualize. (it's extremely lazy but also cheap and easy)
I'm not saying that women have to be playable in all games, but I'd certainly want them more often playable than they are now, treated better than they are, and treated with the care and consideration similar male protagonists.
What does it say about our society when this one battle cannot be resolved? That people think it's trivial when a lot of others do not? What does it say about our respect for women? Our views on them, and their abilities? The view on their struggles? Our society? Our ability to evolve as a people? Our imaginations?
If women can't be respected for wanting more representation in videogames, something people might think so trivial, what hope do they have in getting respect, and representation in larger battles? Especially in parts of the world where people respect women -less- than they do in the western/more civilized world?
The rammifactions of maintaining the status quo in videogames is really far reaching!
Denying the fact that women want to play as their own gender in a game, and have a power fantasy in that game is basically shooting the whole marketing argument dead because women are humanbeings, same as any guy that wants the same thing!
As far as I can tell female protagonists are already treated with the same care. They just exist less. And that simply as a reflection of the consumer demographic. It's fine to want more of what you like, everyone does. But let's not pretend that has any kind of moral value.
What does it say about our society? That we are capitalistic. What does it say about our respect for women? Nothing. Our views of them, and their abilities? Nothing. (and that answer goes for all the following questions except the last one where i'd say "devs are being lazy due to the pressure to quickly pump out game to make quick money")
You can't be respected for wanting more representation because you're trying to take some kind of moral high ground, which you don't have. Nothing irritates people more than undeserved senses of self-righteousness.
Nobody is denying you anything. The games exist, in a lesser proportion because your demographic is a much smaller one in this particular segment.
I am not certain I have the right motives for making my own game.
It is not for the love of the craft. It is not for myself. It is not to gamble with it dieing in obscurity. It is not to make a game that will fall well short of my hopes for it as my laptop is not all that powerful. I feel the game has to be so awesome that not only will men and women play it, but the dudebros against more female protagonists will crave it, and envy the game to the point that they might play it, and find a female protagonist is not a bad thing. That female protagonists in and of themselves are not what will kill a game, or it's sales and that they can be profitable when paired with an excellent game.
The game I would make, if I even had a clear vision of it in itself would have to be thoroughly awesome. The fact that the protagonist is female can not be readily interchangeable with a male replacement would have to be considered. The game would have to fall apart without a female protagonist, and be awesome enough to get produced.
The game would have to be awesome enough to become absolutely viral that people would talk about it on a wide scale to the point that people would play it on a wide scale.
Do you really believe that a laptop that costs less than 500 dollars, one person who is less than confident in their abilities with good reason, and is on a very tight budget day to day can pull this off? I mean realistically pull this off?
A person who has so many reasons that they cannot realistically pull this off that the person cannot even think of them all in the span of making a post on a laggy ps3 browser, or even a working laptop without making a text file for referrence (I haven't. Should I?) could pull it off?
But unlike a lot of people that just fling the notion at me, seemingly as a weapon to shut a person up, I thank you immensely for providing an alternative in the global game jam. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of others, do you have any links or information towards how one might participate in one?
The advice about the global game jam just might be the advice that helps me the most! It sounds brilliant!
I appreciate the link, and I'm looking into it! Hopefully things will pan out.
Hopefully I can have some ideas at the very least going so I can be of use in a meeting like that.
Have you ever been to one? Can you give me any advice beyond having my laptop? I'd hate to arrive, and embarass myself.
Do you know how an event like this goes?
I've heard about game jams once or twice, but I didn't know it existed as an organization like this. It's pretty interesting!
I am not certain I have the right motives for making my own game.
It is not for the love of the craft. It is not for myself. It is not to gamble with it dieing in obscurity. It is not to make a game that will fall well short of my hopes for it as my laptop is not all that powerful. I feel the game has to be so awesome that not only will men and women play it, but the dudebros against more female protagonists will crave it, and envy the game to the point that they might play it, and find a female protagonist is not a bad thing. That female protagonists in and of themselves are not what will kill a game, or it's sales and that they can be profitable when paired with an excellent game.
The game I would make, if I even had a clear vision of it in itself would have to be thoroughly awesome. The fact that the protagonist is female can not be readily interchangeable with a male replacement would have to be considered. The game would have to fall apart without a female protagonist, and be awesome enough to get produced.
The game would have to be awesome enough to become absolutely viral that people would talk about it on a wide scale to the point that people would play it on a wide scale.
Do you really believe that a laptop that costs less than 500 dollars, one person who is less than confident in their abilities with good reason, and is on a very tight budget day to day can pull this off? I mean realistically pull this off?
A person who has so many reasons that they cannot realistically pull this off that the person cannot even think of them all in the span of making a post on a laggy ps3 browser, or even a working laptop without making a text file for referrence (I haven't. Should I?) could pull it off?
But unlike a lot of people that just fling the notion at me, seemingly as a weapon to shut a person up, I thank you immensely for providing an alternative in the global game jam. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of others, do you have any links or information towards how one might participate in one?
The advice about the global game jam just might be the advice that helps me the most! It sounds brilliant!
I appreciate the link, and I'm looking into it! Hopefully things will pan out.
Hopefully I can have some ideas at the very least going so I can be of use in a meeting like that.
Have you ever been to one? Can you give me any advice beyond having my laptop? I'd hate to arrive, and embarass myself.
Do you know how an event like this goes?
I've heard about game jams once or twice, but I didn't know it existed as an organization like this. It's pretty interesting!
I'm always trapped enough into work on commercial projects to be able to go, some of my friends always go and organize one of the sites we have here (and call me out for not showing up, 3 years in a row...).
Just tell people what you can (or can't) do and they'll find a way for you to help. Without many tecnical skills you can still learn something on the spot, or do writing, voice acting, drawing, organizing stuff. Everybody gets to help, that's the spirit of the GGJ. Non-digital games are also part of the event. And you'll certainly come out of there know a lot of new things.
Some Jams like the Ludum Dare (http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/about-ludum-dare/) have specific themes each time that are only revealed at the very last minute before the Jam starts.
Googling around you can find many blogs and articles of people talking about their experiences in these events, or general news and documentaries. For example:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134683/life_inside_a_game_jam.php?page=4
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/123214/Global_Game_Jam_Sees_Biggest_Year_Yet_With_6500_Participants.php
And of course:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RyanCreighton/20110524/89539/5YearOld_Girl_Makes_Video_Game.php
And if by any chance you (or anybody reading) happen to live in Montreal:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TanyaShort/20130320/188935/Pixelles_Postmortem_How_to_Increase_Game_Creator_Diversity_NOW.php
Women are ill represented in the face of gaming media. It does not matter if they're made of polygons, pixels, code, or what have you, they still represent a sex. A gender.
That representation is important! Maybe not to you, but to a lot of other people it is, or else this would not be talked about so widely.
There is no excuse that cannot make it sexism until men and women face the same problems, and neither face problems the other gender does not. Until that equality comes, and believe me, it's not here, defending the status quo is a losing battle.
Intro: What is the problem discussed? Sexism. Now the question is on which level? Is it the game or the devs? Apparently depending on who you ask it can be either or both.
So in order to analyze whether we have a sexism issue we need to analyze both the developers decision and the tropes in the games themselves.
Developers: In order to prove that developers are being sexists one has to prove that the choices they make while writing the stories are caused by sexism. However no such evidence has been provided as no study analyzing sexism among gaming developers has been posted. The claim is based on the games they make. But in order for the mere existence of these games to be evidence of sexism other potential reasons have to be excluded, and with evidence.
What are the other potential reasons?
1) Data shows that the development sector in the gaming industry is still pretty much dominated by men. It can be possible that being Men these developers feel more comfortable creating male characters. After all they can project themselves into their character more easily. This, unless i'm mistaking, isn't sexist. But the result will also be that female characters, if any are present, will be relegated to secondary roles.
2) Marketing. Basically, research suggests that women tend to dislike violence in videogames and are seeking for rich social interactions. Two requirements not met by your average AAA game. As such it can be assumed that the female demographic among potential costumers is negligible compared to the male demographic. And if males tend to prefer playing as a male character (couldn't find any studies on this regard so yes this is speculation) than the marketing department may very well be the reason why female protagonists are so rare (this possibility is reinforced by the examples of female protagonists being "taco-blocked" by the higher ups)
3) Plain lack of creativity and laziness. I don't think this has to be expanded as it is pretty straight forward
4) Maybe i'm forgetting other potential reasons?
Considering there are 3 (or more) potential reasons which could explain the current state of characters in AAA games there seem to be no reason to assume the worst and vilify hard working people because they may or may not be sexists. Either all the potential explanations which don't involve "sexism" have to be disproven (which would de-facto prove it's sexism) or sexism has to be proven to at least be partially, but significantly, the cause of the current state of AAA gaming.
Games: Now a lot of people seem to think that there is a sexism issue in games. The reasons usually mentioned are "it's almost always a male protagonist", "women are often used as a part of a trope", "women often have little agency", etc.
But the big question which has to be asked, does that make a game sexist? First of all It has to be noted that every game creation process is an individual process (unless it's part of a series). As such the link between them is merely the one that they are all games.
The process goes as follows (not necessarily in that order): Developers come up with an idea for a game and a story. They than present their idea to the higher ups who will than ask the financial and marketing departments if the creation of the game is a good idea. If it is, the devs will have a green light on making the game and will make it. And than when they want to make a new game the process starts over again.
This understanding is paramount to avoid misjudgements because it clearly shows that you cannot simply sum up all the games and make a claim such as "games are sexist". They are all separate entities and a result of separate processes. The only way the sum of all these games may result in sexism is if the developers are sexist and that is why the games have the stories they have, in which case i'll refer to the first part.*
Now, some people seem to believe that the tropes used are sexist by nature. However is the story about a man avenging his murdered wife sexist? Is the story about a man rescuing his kidnapped daughter sexist? If yes, why? If, no, than we have no problem.
An other point which has been made is that the women put in these situations are often stripped of all agency and thus presented as "objects". However, the big 1 000 000 $ question is, is no agency = object? In this case the context is extremely important. The reason why the damsels have no agency is because they have been stripped of it by the Villain. Not because they don't have any to begin with. As a consequence they are not objects but humans not capable of having any meaningful impact due to the situation they're in. The difference is key because when the lack of agency is merely a consequence of the situation, that person is being portrayed as a "powerless victim", not an object. In order to be portrayed as an object the character has to be an empty useless and pointless shell because that's what she is and not because of the situation. A great way to illustrate this is with the Japanese infamous Rape Game. In said game women are your sexual objects just because they are. You as a gamer are basically the hand of God which can do whatever you want to these women without them doing anything about it. They have been stripped from any possible agency so you can use them as an object. Not because the story has put them in a situation in which they can't have any agency.
So in conclusion: Are developers sexist? It is possible but until proven it's like Schrodinger's cat, you'll only know once it's conclusively proven or disproven. And if you follow the innocent until proven guilty mantra they should be considered non-sexist until proven otherwise.
Are games sexist? Depends on whether you consider the tropes inherently sexist.
Is the AAA gaming segment sexist? See above. Unless you believe the individual games are sexist, no. Considering games are all results of individual creation processes they cannot simply be "summed up".
Now feel free to point towards holes or whatever you disagree with.
* The only games which are additive in this discussion are those linked by story. This is because the story is the problematic characteristic. If you have a game series existing of 10 installments and the protagonist always seem to lose a female loved one (could be his wife than sister than daughter than mother, etc.) than you could ask yourself: why is it always a woman?! Why doesn't he lose a male closed one? What are the odds that someone would lose ten female closed ones and no male ones?! But if the games are not part of a series linked by story than this type of questions becomes moot de-facto, because all the plots are a part of separate processes which are only linked to each other by either the devs or the mere fact they are game plots.
Think of all the newcomer women to the gaming world, and all the potential ones in the future. Why not have a gaming industry that can welcome them with members of their own gender in modern releases, more often, putting the best foot forward? Saying, in a way, "We welcome you, female gamers, by allowing you to be female in our games! Come, enjoy our industry!"
And it'd help if the women weren't oversexualized. Sex sells, and a great character is made in part by appearances, but lets be real, and know there's a limit to how much sexualization is appropriate as not to scare off the women who could grow the market.
Anita has proven that what 20-30 games use those tropes? Steam lists 1991 games. So even if we go by the idea anita shown 30 games used those tropes that's only 1.5% of the games. So are we gonna complain because only 98.5% of the games don't use those tropes? That's some big feeling of entitlement there. (i know you talked about sexualization but i don't have any numbers at all there, nobody has ever made a list and say "see, sexism". And i think this quick math illustrates quite well you can't make big claims about an entire industry based on a short list)
And how would it help if women weren't oversexualized? before C&C RA3 no female character was sexualized. I never met any woman discussing command and conquer on the C&C forum or anywhere else, neither in game. Why? RTS's tend to draw men. What i want to point out with that is that the mere "genre" itself can already pretty much define the demographic and than why not add some little extras for your main demographic? And if it comes to MMORPG we could say they try to use sexualization to differentiate themselves from big hits like WoW which don't sexualize. (it's extremely lazy but also cheap and easy)
I'm not saying that women have to be playable in all games, but I'd certainly want them more often playable than they are now, treated better than they are, and treated with the care and consideration similar male protagonists.
What does it say about our society when this one battle cannot be resolved? That people think it's trivial when a lot of others do not? What does it say about our respect for women? Our views on them, and their abilities? The view on their struggles? Our society? Our ability to evolve as a people? Our imaginations?
If women can't be respected for wanting more representation in videogames, something people might think so trivial, what hope do they have in getting respect, and representation in larger battles? Especially in parts of the world where people respect women -less- than they do in the western/more civilized world?
The rammifactions of maintaining the status quo in videogames is really far reaching!
Denying the fact that women want to play as their own gender in a game, and have a power fantasy in that game is basically shooting the whole marketing argument dead because women are humanbeings, same as any guy that wants the same thing!
As far as I can tell female protagonists are already treated with the same care. They just exist less. And that simply as a reflection of the consumer demographic. It's fine to want more of what you like, everyone does. But let's not pretend that has any kind of moral value.
What does it say about our society? That we are capitalistic. What does it say about our respect for women? Nothing. Our views of them, and their abilities? Nothing. (and that answer goes for all the following questions except the last one where i'd say "devs are being lazy due to the pressure to quickly pump out game to make quick money")
You can't be respected for wanting more representation because you're trying to take some kind of moral high ground, which you don't have. Nothing irritates people more than undeserved senses of self-righteousness.
Nobody is denying you anything. The games exist, in a lesser proportion because your demographic is a much smaller one in this particular segment.
Strange this would be in the religion, and politics area IMO, firstly.
Well, here we go with the problems in your post. Firstly, lets get this out there.
sex·ism
/ˈsekˌsizəm/
Noun
Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
You seem to be confusing being actively sexist with making sexist things/decisions/etc. There is a distinction, one being a person is sexist, and the other is they don't consider it sexist consciously, it gets out there, and well. Fisco, scandal, and generally looking bad. The Game industry is looking bad for the most part.
Do you have to be actively sexist to make a sexist decision? I'd say no. Evidence? You say there's no evidence that women don't get treated unfairly in videogames, but I've provided over a half dozen links saying otherwise. I.E. being replaced by a male protagonist in fear of hurting sales. sexist by intent? maybe, but women are still getting shafted.
You have not given any evidence that a male has been replaced by a woman in the same situation. Won't you, or can't you?
Sure, the industry is still male dominated, but that doesn't dismiss the fact that this male dominated sector has made many many many memorable women in it's past that were in leading roles as protagonists. Lara Croft, Jill Valentine, Samus, Chell, Bayonetta, and so forth. They're not incapable of making games with female protagonists be they star of games like Portal where you'd probably never know you were a woman until you used portals to see yourself to Lara Croft who's obviously female.
We come to a game like Brink. Say what you will about it, but it's a game with enough customization to make "102 quadrillion" characters. But none are women.
Early in the development stages, they cut women out for assorted reasons. Women have small frames, so hitboxes would be messed up... but there's already some pretty scrawny guys in the game as it is. And women come in all shapes, and sizes.
It's painfully obvious that the characters in the game are cartoonish, so some cartoonish women wouldn't have been impossible.
But when it came down to having quadrillions of character customization combinations, or having some women, they went with 102 quadrillion character customization combinations.
God of War Ascension nixed females from multiplayer since they couldn't be made to look pretty in the rig. Yeeet they have plenty of women in the game. Buff women, too. Oh, and lets not forget the infamous "Bros before Hos" trophy that got renamed after the game released.
Saints Row the Third had an item in character customization called "told her twice" which was a pair of black eyes. It didn't make the final game, thankfully, with that name.
Market? The article about naughty dog having to specefically request female focus testers from a research firm who didn't consider getting any. I'm wondering just how many of these market testers went a similar route and for how long in having focus groups consisting entirely of men with no plans in obtaining the opinions of women?
Practices like this poison gaming.
I can easily speculate that the gaming community, male, and female, has evolved to the point where they can accept a female protagonist.
Lack of creativity? Considering a lot of the male protagonist designs out there, I'd say this exists. It's not easy standing out ammongst them. It'd stand out more to have the main character be a woman... what a novel thought considering the competition is less intense. Not the way I'd prefer female protagonists to appear, though, but it's hard to complain when I'd feel more comfortable playing a game.
But at least they're taking up multiple ethnicities for their male protagonists which stands out pretty well, and I can appreciate that.
4) other reasons? Could be there are some of them that are sexist? There's sexist people out there, and I know of no actions preventing them from getting into game development.
Not all developers are guilty of it, though. DontnoD wanted to make a progressive female protagonist with something of a love life. How much of that we'll see now, I won't know until the 4th of this month. Huzzah for pre-orders.
Bioware is good about being progressive as all getout compared to most with LGBT relationships for both genders of protagonists. Mass Effect has definitely been a highpoint in my gaming life.
So hanging them all, like with pretty much all groups of persons, is not a good thing. Still, there remains reasons to disrespect the industry, and I certainly will disrespect those facets.
Games? Games are a product of developers. Are games sexist? Certainly not all of them, but lets not forget Duke Nukem existed. The games he's been in might not be serious, but a sexist joke is a sexist joke.
Tropes? Tropes are usually stereotyping. And there's a lot of stereotyping of women. They're usually the medics, the back-liners in combat, mages, archers, and generally not physical when the reality is women can be very physical. Women in the MMA to say the extreme very least.
When things need to get serious, they're often the ones taking the injuries, and getting killed.
Is the story about a man rescuing his kidnapped daughter sexist? If yes, why? If, no, than we have no problem.
Lemme ask this. How often have the roles been reversed where a mother must rescue her child after her husband is killed?
Why does it seem incomprehensible that this event could possibly happen in games?
Seems conspicuos that it's pretty much always the wife in that scenario. To the point that it being the husband is virtually unheard of, if it's ever happened. Is it impossible for a woman to want to avenge her family?
How's that fair to women? They get stereotyped there as commonly being the victim. And stereotyping is part of sexism.
The story itself might not be sexist, but the frequency it crops up may well be!
Agency... lets look at how much agency women get vs the amount of agency males get, and how often.
It's pretty common for a guy to have relationships with women in games that go from plutonic to full blown orgies. Lets try not to overlook that. Kratos is a prime example. Not only did he have a wife he was intimate with providing him with a daughter, the orgy is practically a staple in his games.
Farcry 3. The male protagonist gets to have sex with Citra in exchange for slitting a woman's throat.
Even in games where women get some agency in that, like Mass effect, and Dragon's age, the guys can, too. If the guys couldn't have a relationship, then imagine that outrage amongst the gamer community!
Alright, you talk about damsels in distress. You say they didn't have agency because they were kidnapped, and rendered powerless. But did they have agency before that? I'd say no in most cases. We hardly ever have any time with the damsel before they're kidnapped and thus my point. they never had agency to begin with.
Lets not forget that pretty much no matter what, they do the same thing in every copy of the game every time you play it. Same lines, same motions, same capture scene. I'd say they have no agency. Zero. None. The game kidnapped them and stripped them of agency well before the ingame villain. They get objectified right from the get-go. Used as a plot device, and prevented from ever being anything else but that. Sure they might be important to the game's world, but they are what they are, and nothing more than that.
Tropes are stereotypes. Stereotypes of women are sexist because sexism doesn't distinguish between malice, or not, does it?
Are AAA games sexist? The bigger question is do AAA rely on tropes of women?
Ah, Anita. You do realize it's virtually impossible to have knowledge of every last game in existance, right? And to have the time to illustrate every one of them? So she only stated 30 games? That doesn't mean that's all that exist.
Steam also includes an indi selection, doesn't it? So things are always changing.
How many of those games did you go through to show no reliance on female oriented tropes? I'm guessing none.
your quick math is poor evidence to the conclusion you reached. It's a tainted answer.
Further Steam is only on one of the gaming platforms of MANY. A lack of research into 360, ps3, vita, Wii, Wii U, etc. further taints your findings.
You're twisting things to claim you're right. The very act a lot of people claim Anita is guilty of.
So you're using a personal anecdote saying there's no women that ever talked with you about C&C Red Alert? That's solid proof no woman has ever liked the series, or played it? It's not even remotely proof of that.
Ever consider there's many things that could stand in the way of women not talking to you? Have you ever gone to a forum for that game, and posted what's somewhat commonly posted on game forums "How many women play this game?" and gotten responses? Ya know, do some research like the scientist instead of relying purely on your own experiences? Try to get some of those numbers you appreciate so much?
Lets look at sexualization in MMORPGs, then. It's a lot of the same with fantasy in general. I don't see MMORPGS where guys wear less and less material like a lot of women. Kinda sexist that women wear less and less, men wear the same amount if not more. I mean it's not like the women are being made for women gamers. They're made for male gamers. Are the men being made for the female gamer? Not bloody likely. They're often being made for the male gamer.
As far as I can tell female protagonists are already treated with the same care
And that capitalism in the gaming industry does what it can to exclude women, and stereotypes them as failures to generate profits, and doesn't support the female protagonist as well as the males. I linked you proof that it happens.
What does it say about our respect for women? Nothing.
The tropes in games say otherwise. All too common the damsel in distress has no visible ability to do much of anything. Just assumed ones. The kingdom was at peace while she was at rule, but we hardly experience these things. We never see how she ensures this peace.
We don't get to see what Marian can do in double dragon. She hooks up with the brother that saves her, or in the case of 2 players, the brother that beats up the other. Really rude awakening in my childhood. In the remake she's not a whole lot better. She gets in one solid punch as if to get even.
Seriously when the majority of the games show superficial skills women can perform, if that, it's not exactly being respectful of their talents no matter what position they're in.
(and that answer goes for all the following questions except the last one where i'd say "devs are being lazy due to the pressure to quickly pump out game to make quick money")
the fact you ignore the rammifications, and can't seemingly consider any of them is frightening.
You can't be respected for wanting more representation because you're trying to take some kind of moral high ground, which you don't have. Nothing irritates people more than undeserved senses of self-righteousness.
Self-rightiously declaring you're a scientist, and a game developer, claiming to be one of the people I must convince like it matters to me, and relyting on faulty science to claim you're right.
Must be why you're irritating?
That and you can't accept any evidence, don't research, provide no evidence, have virtually zero empathy, rely solely on numbers twisted to your own means, rely solely on personal anecdotes dismissing other's personal anecddotes (sometimes in the same breath), and a long line of other reasons.
Nobody is denying you anything. The games exist, in a lesser proportion because your demographic is a much smaller one in this particular segment.
uhm... The people saying a female cannot be the protagonist are denying the opportunity for them to be produced, and robbing me of the opportunity to play as them. So you're wrong.
Every denied female protagonist is denying me a game with one.
Strange this would be in the religion, and politics area IMO, firstly.
Well, here we go with the problems in your post. Firstly, lets get this out there.
sex·ism
/ˈsekˌsizəm/
Noun
Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
You seem to be confusing being actively sexist with making sexist things/decisions/etc. There is a distinction, one being a person is sexist, and the other is they don't consider it sexist consciously, it gets out there, and well. Fisco, scandal, and generally looking bad. The Game industry is looking bad for the most part.
Do you have to be actively sexist to make a sexist decision? I'd say no. Evidence? You say there's no evidence that women don't get treated unfairly in videogames, but I've provided over a half dozen links saying otherwise. I.E. being replaced by a male protagonist in fear of hurting sales. sexist by intent? maybe, but women are still getting shafted.
You have not given any evidence that a male has been replaced by a woman in the same situation. Won't you, or can't you?
But again that's not a sexist decision that's a profit oriented decision. The male protagonist weren't replacing female ones because of their gender but because of the profit they would generate. The gender itself is not the reason, it's the money. there is no prejudice or discrimination based on sex, there is one based on p-r-o-f-i-t.
Sure, the industry is still male dominated, but that doesn't dismiss the fact that this male dominated sector has made many many many memorable women in it's past that were in leading roles as protagonists. Lara Croft, Jill Valentine, Samus, Chell, Bayonetta, and so forth. They're not incapable of making games with female protagonists be they star of games like Portal where you'd probably never know you were a woman until you used portals to see yourself to Lara Croft who's obviously female.
So like i said, the games exist, there are games giving you what you want. I'm not going on a moral rage because there are more shooters than RTS's and that must mean the industry is discriminating against the players who like RTS's.
We come to a game like Brink. Say what you will about it, but it's a game with enough customization to make "102 quadrillion" characters. But none are women.
Early in the development stages, they cut women out for assorted reasons. Women have small frames, so hitboxes would be messed up... but there's already some pretty scrawny guys in the game as it is. And women come in all shapes, and sizes.
It's painfully obvious that the characters in the game are cartoonish, so some cartoonish women wouldn't have been impossible.
But when it came down to having quadrillions of character customization combinations, or having some women, they went with 102 quadrillion character customization combinations.
Maybe fixing the hitbox for 102 quadrillion female combinations would have cost too much? Heck from what i read that game was rushed. Again, laziness. They wanted to pump money in asap. The decision wasn't gender-based but profit-based.
God of War Ascension nixed females from multiplayer since they couldn't be made to look pretty in the rig. Yeeet they have plenty of women in the game. Buff women, too. Oh, and lets not forget the infamous "Bros before Hos" trophy that got renamed after the game released.
Well i'm not in their heads, can't know why or why not they did that. But based on how the industry acts i doubt it was because they hate women and more because they wanted to get the game released asap. Usually devs come up with excuses to justify laziness. And come on, that trophy was obviously meant to be a joke.
Saints Row the Third had an item in character customization called "told her twice" which was a pair of black eyes. It didn't make the final game, thankfully, with that name.
Market? The article about naughty dog having to specefically request female focus testers from a research firm who didn't consider getting any. I'm wondering just how many of these market testers went a similar route and for how long in having focus groups consisting entirely of men with no plans in obtaining the opinions of women?
Practices like this poison gaming.
I can easily speculate that the gaming community, male, and female, has evolved to the point where they can accept a female protagonist.
As long as the female demographic isn't quantitatively significant there is no real reason to shape the games for them. Focus testers are meant to be there to tell the devs what their costumers will think, the more costumers a focus tester is likely to represent the better.
Lack of creativity? Considering a lot of the male protagonist designs out there, I'd say this exists. It's not easy standing out ammongst them. It'd stand out more to have the main character be a woman... what a novel thought considering the competition is less intense. Not the way I'd prefer female protagonists to appear, though, but it's hard to complain when I'd feel more comfortable playing a game.
But at least they're taking up multiple ethnicities for their male protagonists which stands out pretty well, and I can appreciate that.
Standing out isn't always good, it's only good if the reason why you stand out will result in more sales.
4) other reasons? Could be there are some of them that are sexist? There's sexist people out there, and I know of no actions preventing them from getting into game development.
And i know of no studies suggesting that is why the games we get are what they are.
Not all developers are guilty of it, though. DontnoD wanted to make a progressive female protagonist with something of a love life. How much of that we'll see now, I won't know until the 4th of this month. Huzzah for pre-orders.
Bioware is good about being progressive as all getout compared to most with LGBT relationships for both genders of protagonists. Mass Effect has definitely been a highpoint in my gaming life.
See some people do it. They probably believe that being among the few doing it they will reap benefits worth the investment. (but like all niches, this gets saturated very quickly)
So hanging them all, like with pretty much all groups of persons, is not a good thing. Still, there remains reasons to disrespect the industry, and I certainly will disrespect those facets.
I think disrespecting the industry for making choices you don't like is a bit pushing it, no?
Games? Games are a product of developers. Are games sexist? Certainly not all of them, but lets not forget Duke Nukem existed. The games he's been in might not be serious, but a sexist joke is a sexist joke.
The beauty of humor is that it can be anything, sexist, racist, bigoted, exactly because it is humor and not meant to be taking seriously. Taking humor at face value is a good sign you have taken it too far.
Lemme ask this. How often have the roles been reversed where a mother must rescue her child after her husband is killed?
Why does it seem incomprehensible that this event could possibly happen in games?
Seems conspicuos that it's pretty much always the wife in that scenario. To the point that it being the husband is virtually unheard of, if it's ever happened. Is it impossible for a woman to want to avenge her family?
How's that fair to women? They get stereotyped there as commonly being the victim. And stereotyping is part of sexism.
The story itself might not be sexist, but the frequency it crops up may well be!
I have already addressed this in the spoiler-ed wall of text.
Agency... lets look at how much agency women get vs the amount of agency males get, and how often.
It's pretty common for a guy to have relationships with women in games that go from plutonic to full blown orgies. Lets try not to overlook that. Kratos is a prime example. Not only did he have a wife he was intimate with providing him with a daughter, the orgy is practically a staple in his games.
So? The protagonist always has a lot of agency. It's like saying James Bond is sexist because it's always a man who gets most of the attention...
Farcry 3. The male protagonist gets to have sex with Citra in exchange for slitting a woman's throat.
Even in games where women get some agency in that, like Mass effect, and Dragon's age, the guys can, too. If the guys couldn't have a relationship, then imagine that outrage amongst the gamer community!
I'm confused here, the fact that in a game where you can be both a man and a woman both can have a relationship seems straight forward. How is that comparable with games where you can only be a man?
Alright, you talk about damsels in distress. You say they didn't have agency because they were kidnapped, and rendered powerless. But did they have agency before that? I'd say no in most cases. We hardly ever have any time with the damsel before they're kidnapped and thus my point. they never had agency to begin with.
Lets not forget that pretty much no matter what, they do the same thing in every copy of the game every time you play it. Same lines, same motions, same capture scene. I'd say they have no agency. Zero. None. The game kidnapped them and stripped them of agency well before the ingame villain. They get objectified right from the get-go. Used as a plot device, and prevented from ever being anything else but that. Sure they might be important to the game's world, but they are what they are, and nothing more than that.
You don't know their agency because it wasn't shown. But unless you make the assumption she hadn't, and there is reason to unless you hate women and think they don't have any de-facto, she had agency before and after because she's a human being. The story just doesn't show the before and after because most gamers don't give a shit about the before and after.
Tropes are stereotypes. Stereotypes of women are sexist because sexism doesn't distinguish between malice, or not, does it?
Ah, Anita. You do realize it's virtually impossible to have knowledge of every last game in existance, right? And to have the time to illustrate every one of them? So she only stated 30 games? That doesn't mean that's all that exist.
No but you can't make a claim on a very small sample of games which was specifically selected because they'd prove what you want to prove. Like I once said: it's like interviewing 1000 KKK members and claiming America is filled with racists based on that. Surely you can see what went wrong there?
Steam also includes an indi selection, doesn't it? So things are always changing.
How many of those games did you go through to show no reliance on female oriented tropes? I'm guessing none.
I don't need to. People claim based on a list of 20-30 games that the gaming industry is fucked up. I merely showed that it would merely show that 1.5% of the games use the tropes. All the rest is vast speculation.
your quick math is poor evidence to the conclusion you reached. It's a tainted answer.
It taints it... in my favor because it means 1991 games is a much too small amount. But the bigger the amount the weaker anita's point. The fact that by being generous i still managed to show how weak her point was tells more about Anita and her followers than me.
You're twisting things to claim you're right. The very act a lot of people claim Anita is guilty of.
Twisting? How? The only one making twists is Anita herself. She does it in all her videos actually.
So you're using a personal anecdote saying there's no women that ever talked with you about C&C Red Alert? That's solid proof no woman has ever liked the series, or played it? It's not even remotely proof of that.
Ever consider there's many things that could stand in the way of women not talking to you? Have you ever gone to a forum for that game, and posted what's somewhat commonly posted on game forums "How many women play this game?" and gotten responses? Ya know, do some research like the scientist instead of relying purely on your own experiences? Try to get some of those numbers you appreciate so much?
Oh i'm not saying NO women played RTS's but RTS's are typically dominated by men. And scientific literature explains why: extremely competitive + lack of social interactions = nono for many women. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue4/hartmann.html
But if C&C would have a bastion of women i would have probably noticed it. Yet despite the female characters not being sexualized it wasn't.
I put links stating otherwise on the table, and all you're doing is flipping the table and stating "I WIN!"
How so? Is Lara being treated with less dignity than let's say Kratos? Oh and before you tell me what i know you will. Female protagonists who didn't make it can't be treated in any way because they never made it into the final version of the game.
How on earth can I have any sort of debate with you when you refuse the evidence? If you're not going to aknowledge facts, then just don't reply.
I don't refuse the evidence. You think that certain things are evidence of unrelated points.
And that capitalism in the gaming industry does what it can to exclude women, and stereotypes them as failures to generate profits, and doesn't support the female protagonist as well as the males. I linked you proof that it happens.
too bad no one managed to argue the tropes themselves were sexist.
The tropes in games say otherwise. All too common the damsel in distress has no visible ability to do much of anything. Just assumed ones. The kingdom was at peace while she was at rule, but we hardly experience these things. We never see how she ensures this peace.
We don't get to see what Marian can do in double dragon. She hooks up with the brother that saves her, or in the case of 2 players, the brother that beats up the other. Really rude awakening in my childhood. In the remake she's not a whole lot better. She gets in one solid punch as if to get even.
Seriously when the majority of the games show superficial skills women can perform, if that, it's not exactly being respectful of their talents no matter what position they're in.
Now you're just trying to hard. Who in the name of God would like to play a game in which nothing happens just to show that when she was there everything was at peace. The devs simply cut everything non-essential.
And that solid punch actually says enough: it says she's bad ass.
the fact you ignore the rammifications, and can't seemingly consider any of them is frightening.
What ramifications? That you're not pleased? I'm sorry i'm not going to make a big deal out of that. And any other ramification has no evidence to support it.
Self-rightiously declaring you're a scientist, and a game developer, claiming to be one of the people I must convince like it matters to me, and relyting on faulty science to claim you're right.
Must be why you're irritating?
When did i claim that i'm a scientist? When did i claim i'm a developer? I'm sorry that i follow the innocent until proven guilty mantra and don't jump on the hate-train.
That and you can't accept any evidence, don't research, provide no evidence, have virtually zero empathy, rely solely on numbers twisted to your own means, rely solely on personal anecdotes dismissing other's personal anecddotes (sometimes in the same breath), and a long line of other reasons.
I accept evidence. I just don't apply it to irrelevant points. I'm not sure if it was in this topic but i've provided a scientific research about game preferences among men and women. Have no empathy? I'm sorry but I don't know you and there are gamers complaining all the time, can't go start feeling sorry for all of them.
uhm... The people saying a female cannot be the protagonist are denying the opportunity for them to be produced, and robbing me of the opportunity to play as them. So you're wrong.
Every denied female protagonist is denying me a game with one.
Well that's some hefty feeling of entitlement. I'm sorry you're being denied of being given games which you find optimal. Welcome to everyone's world. The market doesn't owe you anything. It gives what it wants to give, mostly to make profit, and either you like it or don't. The market is making no moral mistake by not giving you everything you want.
Lately I've seen fewer and fewer e-feminists (internet feminists, a new breed) claim that whatever few developers create games which rely too heavily on sex appeal, do so out of purely sexist/mysoginistic motives.
It's a good sign. It's becoming increasingly easier to file whatever few feminists who continue to hold such beliefs as tinfoil-hat wearing crazies.
Perhaps some day even someone as Anita Sarkeesian (teaspoon-shallow perspective, etc etc) will some day admit that this is purely a case of story writing and narrative going a bit stale, not some overarching plot contrived by evil men in suits to be as sexist/misogynistic to fictional women as possible.
At least she admitted that playing (or enjoying) such games doesn't automatically make the gamers themselves sexists/misogynists. Thank fucking god, it's at least some progress in this lopsided world of gender politics.
@SeanSeanston careful what you say about feminists (or any groups) here, these forums are highly supportive of said groups and resorting to generalized insults really isn't a good idea.
But she did say that. She said almost exactly that, though she used "moustache-twirling villains" instead of "evil men in suits". She spent a fairly good portion of the end of the last video going out of her way to explain that the repeated use of the trope wasn't deliberate or an act of conscious sexism, but that it more likely just arose naturally from the nature of games and the main characters needing an easy justification for their revenge sprees. Didn't you watch the video?
You know what is also funny actually, Anita also says that devs corner themselves by relying on violence too much in those games. This begs the question: why do you play violent video games than? Why talk about a specific sub genre which is known to be very violent in order to complain developers corner themselves with violent game mechanics. Extremely intellectually dishonest shit. Sim City isn't violent, The Sims isn't violent, Tetris isn't violent. If the problem is the violence centric approach buy games which aren't focused on violence that much god damn it.
I'm not even going to address any of the other posts in this thread, I'll respond only to the OP's question.
I'll need an elaboration on the question to know what you mean by opposite of Feminism, since Feminism relates at it's core to females. To play with context, I will give some basic responses from different angles:
Female angle: The opposite of feminist from a female's point of view is the female who resolves self-identification as inferior to a male and is subservient to male figures. Such a resolution can also be feminist, if enough women who self-identify in such a way choose for it to be so. The only way for this set of logic to actually exist is for the female to identify themselves as inferior.
Male angle: The first logic set which is opposite of feminist from the male's point of view is the male who resolves self-identification as superior to a female and chooses not to allow a female to be subservient to a male figure. Such a resolution can be in support of a feminist movement, regardless of how many males are involved with this way of thinking. The only way for this set of logic to actually exist is for the male to identify themselves as superior.
The second logic set which is opposite of the feminist from the male's point of view is the male who resolves self-identification as inferior to a female and is subservient to female figures. Such a resolution can also be feminist, regardless of how many men are involved with this way of thinking. The only way for this set of logic to actually exist is for the male to identify themselves as inferior.
Finally, in relation to the question asked, a male or female who does not self-identify as inferior or superior to each other nullifies the concept of feminism within the logic sets of a feminist approach, making them entirely useless to modern day feminist movements, simply because they do not believe in an imbalance even if evidence suggests that there is. As such, if you want feminism to go away, simply do not identify yourself as inferior or superior to women. Feminism as a concept will also collapse if the percieved cultural norm of male superiority changes to equality between genders, or superiority for women.
This perception of opposite is made under the assumption of male superiority existing as a cultural norm and current day feminism defining itself as a movement to equalise female inferiority to male superiority.
Ultimately, feminism can only exist because of belief and quite literally does not have an overt opposite for either males or females. As such, the subject of feminism is simple; either you believe that women are inferior, or you do not. If you believe that women are inferior, then become a feminist and seek to empower them. If not, then it will likely not matter to you anyway, since you may see both genders to be your equal already.
Woe be to you if you are male and believe that women are superior, as that may suggest moreso what type of contact you'd prefer to have with the female.
Edit: I forgot to address the OP's title. Feminism in gaming may not actually exist, I certainly havn't seen any examples of a feminist approach in gaming.
They're only 25 minutes each. It's fine if you don't want to watch them, but that sort of disqualifies you from being able to criticise them. For example, you just said that the videos were bad because they were "shallow" (but you didn't stick around to see how in-depth they got) and that she was making out that video games were sexist because of evil game designers deliberately making them that way, when in fact she said the exact opposite of that. I'm sure you could find more excuses to dismiss the TvW series, but why don't you try actually watching it? Or, if you don't want to watch it, can you at least stop trying to give an opinion on it? You wouldn't try to write a review of a film if you'd only seen the trailer.
When someone disables comments and ratings on their work, I don't really believe in giving them views and am free to judge their work on the spot as something that could never stand up to criticism in the first place. It is already disqualified. In the end she's going to judge her "success" based solely on number of views (not validity or feedback), therefore the only way to express disagreement with her stuff is to stop giving her views. Simple logic, she's backed herself into that corner.
I've seen Anita's earlier stuff and some her stage talks, they told me everything I needed to know about her personality and perspective - they are teaspoon-shallow, she can only seen in black and white.
She is doing nothing more than pointing out the obvious (sky is blue, etc) and I really don't feel like sitting through multiple 25 minute videos of being told same shit over and over again because I already know what tropes are, and I've frankly never given a shit about their existence because tropes will always exist and fictional tropes are ultimately harmless. Tropes are almost ENTIRELY market-driven (i.e. consumer-driven) and exist purely for the sake of legal entertainment.
I mean how would you like to sit through 25 minute videos of learning basic math all over again? You'd lose interest very quickly.
While Anita may have finally admitted that developers aren't inherently sexist/misogynistic (baby steps people), she is still coyly skirting big question - what does she want done about it? Eventually she's going to have to vocalize that developers need to stop falling back on tropes, at which point she'll basically be trying to dictate how game devs should and shouldn't write their fictional stories and characters.
Eventually it will come down to blaming game developers , or mainstream media, or the consumers themselves, or some combination of those groups. As soon as she starts pointing fingers it's game over because she'll have even less of a chance of convincing anyone how or why these tropes are harmful in any fashion, or why they should stop being used while they're still working (i.e. raking in consumer cash).
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