I apologize for not taking time to reply to quote pyramids about my common observations that feminists themselves say exist and speak out against, especially when debating feminism... I don't have the time for this non-sense.
But you do have time to write the longest post in this thread?
Gosh, it's almost like you don't want to listen to anyone else's arguments while demanding that yours be heard. Where would you have gotten the wacky idea that you deserved that sort of attention? Could it be privilege?
Hmm. So, it's not privileged behavior for women to desire to be heard, but it is privileged behavior for men to desire to be heard? This seems to be gender bias. I am human. I think my ideas have just as much right to be considered as yours. You did not respond to any of my criticism, you deflected it all by simply dismissing it out of hand as some privileged male rant. Your comment seems sexist to me.
I stand by my assertion: Equal Rights can exist without Patriarchy Theory or Feminism. There is no evidence Feminism or Patriarchy theory are respectively good or valid. Test the hypotheses. Prove feminism is actually good. Most of all, where is the evidence that Feminists actually lobby for and affect gender equality? Patriarchy Theory is the vilification of boys, men, and fathers. It is sexist, and not founded in science.
On a large scale? Maybe. I am not the voice of women everywhere, and neither are you (thank god or else we'd never have female protagonsits as you're condemning them all by excusing the game industry that does that), nor is Eve.
Me? I don't mind shooting people in a game, and playing games like Saints row 2/3 to it's most violent. I've enjoyed third person shooters, and first person shooters.
It's not just me. There's a group of women called the "Frag Dolls" that play games like that, too!
My significant other also enjoys violent videogames. She even played Eve a while, though she didn't like how meta things could get with forums, and stat tracking, and several people just annoyed her enough to quit. Nothing sexist I know of, but, well, people are people. My significant other and I also love Koei games! Not only do they allow you to play as women without any apparent penalty, it has a bodycount that dwarfs even GTA! Hell, you often get trophies for killing a thousand people in the span of a dozen minutes!
There's numerous amounts of girls who post videos of their gameplaying of violent, bloody, and/or horrifying games on youtube.
Just a small list of examples there.
So? Examples of groups don't suddenly show that statistically speaking violent videogames don't mainly attract men. I've never said no woman played violent videogames, just that mainly men did.
How large of a percent does the female gamer have to get before they stop getting ignored? So what if men are the majority of violent videogame player?
And you're defending the game industry's ... bluntly, sexist attitude towards female protagonists. It may not be their intent (but it may be in some cases as the people in the gaming industry are human after all, and there's nothing stopping a sexist from getting power in the industry and coloring the media), but that's the result I'm seeing. And not just me, either. I'm not the one starting these threads. I'm not anyone other than this account in these thereads. I'm not Jim Sterling, and I'm certainly not Anita.
Again with the misuse of the word sexist... The industry is not sexist towards protagonists... heck how could that even be possible it's just a bunch of lines of code.
And yet when those lines of code represent a female protagonist, the producers fight against that "code" specefically trying to prevent that "code" from being released, nevermind any agency that "code" gets, and those producers pressure developers to not even make that "code" to begin with... but it's just code! Why does it matter?
Obviously because it's not just code.
That code represents the female sex. That representation gets discriminated against. It creates a stereotype. It creates predjudice against that code. And that code represents females. And what happens when females get treated worse than males?
Sexism!
If it was just "code" and didn't matter, I don't think we'd be here discussing that "code."
It's not a misuse.
Lets look at some real facts here. Female Protagonists are being denied based solely on being female, either to end up replaced by a guy, or the game not even being produced by and large.
When they are produced they get near nonexistant promotion in media, the perpetuated stereotype that a female protagonist won't sell, and the self fulfilling prophecy that gets filled thanks to lack of support.
Producers, and game companies are pressuring people to not make female protagonists, and you're apparently fine with that.
Nono, not solely based on being female, based on the idea they will make less money. Very big difference. I'm not sure how you can keep making the same mistake over and over.
And again, the lower marketing budget is linked with the lower expected sales. You need a profit margin, therefor the marketing budget needs to be adapted to the expected sales otherwise the game might end up causing the company to make a loss (expenses > sales).
Off course i'm fine with that. Do you know why? Because that's the perspective I take as a soon-to-be graduating Business Student. For me a company wanting to make money is ok. I don't expect companies to do what they deem bad business just to please some people.
The idea that a female protagonist won't make as much money? Not a very big diffirence. No difference at all, really. It's a stereotype that leads to discrimination, and it's directed at women.
Lower marketing budget based on lower expected sales? based on what? the idea that female protagonists won't sell. Again, directed at women.
If there's no marketing for a product, people won't know about it, and then they're less likely to buy it leading to lower sales. It's self fulfilling prophecy.
It takes money to make money. If you don't have faith in your own product, who will? Why should the consumers have faith in a product you have no faith in?
Is it a bad idea to make people happy? Happy people will provide business. Unhappy people won't. People are what provide the money. It's really hard to have a successful business without people.
Lets not forget that people can, and will vote with their wallets. If you don't pay attention to people, your business will hurt.
It shows one of the most toxic, dudebro intensive communities in gaming history vs. what I'd see as more average communities.
The more average communities are by no means a shutout victory over women. Women are still playing texas Hold'em poker in large amounts despite not being the majority, and Castle Age, too.
Lets see CoD replaced by... well, anything else other than Battleground, and games that try to compete directly with CoD, I.E. Battlefield.
The results are utterly biased, and hold no water for me.
There's men and women who hate CoD thanks to it's community alone.
Yet if people like the game mechanics a lot they could easily ignore the community. I have played Modern Warfare 1 for years and never noticed sexism. Maybe because I didn't activate voice chat or whatever, but if it's a game you truly want to play the community alone shouldn't shut you out. At least not to such a point that you get only 8% of the players being women. There is obviously something else at hand. (i'm not saying the crappy community has no effect but let's not pretend as if that was the only thing)
I imagine a lot of people try and ignore the community to enjoy the game. Or they -are- part of the community that drives off so many.
The thing is, there's other games that have similar, if not the exact mechanics of most other games. If the community doesn't make me happy, and/or if the company that makes the product doesn't make me happy, I won't give them my business until they put out a product that does make me happy. I don't think I'm the only one that thinks that way. And if you want to follow CoD's success, good luck.
You do realize Modern warfare is far and away marketed towards guys, right? It's in the same boat as CoD, and thus not the greatest example. Still, 8 percent? not that small of an amount. It can add up. Maybe there's a reason other than the violence and compeditiveness that there's such a low population of women?
You didn't have voice chat, the sole method of communication, on? So you couldn't hear anyone in the game? How would you notice if there was anyone saying anything? It makes the anectdote useless, doesn't it? How would you know it even if you saw it?
How many women have you seen playing, and interacting with the other people?
I'm not missing the point, you are, apparently since you're taking CoD as the proof women don't like violent games.
What about the AAA games that aren't violent shooters? AAA games don't HAVE to be those, you know.
Yet that's the segment we've always been discussing. The Violent AAA Game section. Because if we get out of the "violent" segment than we notice the industry is very woman friendly. Unless you feel games like The Sims, Civ, Sim City or other big budget non-violent games are catering towards men?
To be honest, I'm not narrowing my scope of conversation to just violent videogames. We weren't always talking about violent games, either. It's bigger than that!
Sure, there's the rare game like Civs, Sims, Sim City, and so forth that don't maket heavily towards men... well, sim city's marketing campaign with the guy in his underwear on a power trip talking about sharks and how they don't look back, I kinda have to wonder about. <.<
My problem with EA/maxis is that they don't do much towards being on consoles, but that's not relevant to the conversation. But yeah, they're a small sliver of the gaming world that does well for not being a violent set of games.
What about games like Skyrim, or Mass effect that while they are violent, there's a whole lot more to it than that. Or the Sims? or Civs?
I'd say mass effect is still violent because that's what the game mechanics are about. If you don't like violence you probably wouldn't play it. Not having played Skyrim i can't be 100% sure but i was under the impression it was still a lot about killing stuff. And for the two other examples: see above.
The thing about Mass Effect is that there's far, far more to it than just violence. There's relationships, there's ways to settle things without violence, or with more violence, there's dialogue, and there's so much more. To say it's only about violence would be doing it a massive disservice. The strength of Mass Effect has no doubt lead to female shepard becoming extremely well received, and iconic.
Similarly, Shyrim offers so much more than just violence! Exploration, adventure, the ability to do things like mine, and grow things, and marry (even same sex marraige), and own several homes! There's ways to get through scenarios without violence... or extra violence! The hearthfire DLC allows you to build a customized home, and adopt children! It's a world that has some life in it.
Like mass effect, saying it's only about violence would do it a massive disservice.
No, you linked 1 scientific study that you twisted the facts of to try and win. I punched holes easily in your case.
You also linked several other highly biased sources, which I pointed out the flaws of, too, so they're practicelly irrelevant.
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.
Annnd you're ignoring a good chunk of the equasion. It goes something more like:
archaic gender role + portrayals + violence + lack of social interaction= no no for many women.[/quote][/quote]
You're worse than Anita to me. At least Anita's fighting to get better representation of women in videogames regardless of her motives, and methods. All you're doing is trying to silence the voices trying to get better representation of women in games, and building worse cases than Anita builds and claiming you win at the same time.
I'm worse than Anita because I don't fight your fight. That's typical confirmation bias. I'm sorry but ones fight doesn't make their argumentation correct. Anita has no case at all so how could mine be worse? How could someone who actually brings up numbers which are usable and citations be worse than someone who does neither? Come on open your eyes and stop with the blatant confirmation bias.
No, you're worse than Anita because you're not only excusing people who practice sexism (intentions be damned), and may well end up doing the exact same thing in your business practices, intentions be damned.
What good are you doing for people? How are you trying to help the situation you're debating?
You haven't debunked the simple fact that the tropes are overused, and may well reflect poorly on women. The recent state of gaming just might be attributable to that.
Sure I have. I have proven that based on Anita's evidence one cannot make the claim the tropes are overused. Unless the overused means "more than i would like" in which case it's impossible to refute it. And may reflect poorly on women? Why would i need to disprove a claim which still hasn't been given any tangible evidence. I'm waiting for the citation there.
Lets see you cite otherwise. How about that? I mean really cite. Not an anectdote.
I haven't found a study saying oen way or the other on the subject of how this impacts women.
You've debunked nothing. You have no case. Your arguments have been shut down time, and time again. You've shown yourself to be unable to build a case and, frankly, hypocrate for providing less data than Anita, skewing that data BADLY, and saying you win.
The fact you think i provided less data than Anita is just absurd (since she provided none, just a small list). How can you even make such a claim with a straight face? If you wanted to prove me you were just looking for confirmation in this discussion and wouldn't accept the possibility of Anita being wrong than you couldn't have chosen a better paragraph.
And here an other study. http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/141/videogames.asp
Main findings: - a majority of men classify themselves as expert gamers or frequent gamers while women classify themselves as occasional. ( male respondents play 17.46 hours per week on average compared to 6.51 for women) (men spend on average 333$ per year on game related stuff vs 87$ for women)
- 85% of men said they played violent videogames
- only 46% of women said the same
- The most prefered gaming device of men is PC followed by Console. With women its console followed by mobile/handheld
Well this makes me wonder, women prefer handheld/mobile over men and despite that in shooters and action RPG games in the mobile gaming segment they were a minority... what does that suggest about these games on PC or consoles?
- Male preferred game genres: Strategy, Role Playing, Action, and Fighting
- Female preferred game genres: Social, Puzzle/Card, Music/Dance, Educational, and Simulation
that means they didn't test anywhere near 50/50. It means they talked to more men than women, and got a more diverse opinion on them than the women. I can't accept the findings to be definitive because of the skewed amount of opinions heavily in favor of the males.
Buuut if you're so hard pressed on it,
- 85% of men said they played violent videogames
- only 46% of women said the same
By a SLIM majority women don't play violent videogames only technically gives you the "majority of female gamers don't like videogames" argument. Again, I gotta ask, how big does the percent of women playing violent videogames have to get before the game industry actually gives a damn?
Also, you missed:
Preference for violent vs. non-violent content:
Male players Strongly Violent
Female players Equal preference
Also, you missed
With women its console followed by mobile/handheld
They prefer consoles over handhelds, and mobile.
And possibly handhelds over mobile.
And handhelds are the DS, 3DS, Vita, and so forth, and for some strange reason the handheld market isn't as hung up on blocking games aimed at women, and games that don't make them feel alientated.
It could also be that women are usually on the go more often, too.
Also most mobile systems are phones. Women like socializing. Kills 2 birds with one stone. Heck, most handheld systems have some way to connect, and communicate on the go.
Honestly, in the "preferred" genres, there's a lot of ability to put the game down on short notice without being penalized.
So women prefer different genres than the violent stuff? Come on, we both know that doesn't mean they don't play those they don't wholly prefer. You say there's 8 percent of the modern warfare community consists of women.
I generally don't prefer sports games, or racing games, but I've got a need for speed, and NBA Jam on fire edition on my ps3's hard drive to say the least.
Moreover, how many of the "Strategy, Role Playing, Action, and Fighting" have male protagonists, and male main characters, and how many have women in oversexualized appearances?
How many of them seem truely inviting to women? I know there's some out there, but I seriously doubt they get as much publicity.
I apologize for not taking time to reply to quote pyramids about my common observations that feminists themselves say exist and speak out against, especially when debating feminism... I don't have the time for this non-sense.
But you do have time to write the longest post in this thread?
Gosh, it's almost like you don't want to listen to anyone else's arguments while demanding that yours be heard. Where would you have gotten the wacky idea that you deserved that sort of attention? Could it be privilege?
No, it's privileged behavior for you to dismiss all prior discussion in a thread, then write a massive rant that you expect people to read and respond to. Why should anyone read and respond to your massive post, when you won't even attempt the same?
VortexCortex said:
You did not respond to any of my criticism, you deflected it all by simply dismissing it out of hand as some privileged male rant.
Why should anyone give half a shit what you think? By your own admission, you "don't have time" for anyone's ideas but your own. If you want to masturbate on the internet, there are better sites for it.
How large of a percent does the female gamer have to get before they stop getting ignored? So what if men are the majority of violent videogame player?
Define "ignored". Are there 0 games out there you truly like? If not, you're not "ignored". Probably given less attention but that's normal. It's business. Don't take it personally.
And yet when those lines of code represent a female protagonist, the producers fight against that "code" specefically trying to prevent that "code" from being released, nevermind any agency that "code" gets, and those producers pressure developers to not even make that "code" to begin with... but it's just code! Why does it matter?
Obviously because it's not just code.
That code represents the female sex. That representation gets discriminated against. It creates a stereotype. It creates predjudice against that code. And that code represents females. And what happens when females get treated worse than males?
Sexism!
If it was just "code" and didn't matter, I don't think we'd be here discussing that "code."
So when the code is supposed to create the image of female protagonist somehow lines of codes become some kind object worth a crusade? You're making it a lot more personal than it has to be.
And it doesn't create any kind of stereotype or prejudice against the codes that's just silly.
And what happens when females get treated worse than males?..... NOTHING. unless you've proven the gender is the reason for this different treatment it is NOT sexism. I repeat, by definition it is is NOT sexism unless it is the gender itself which is causing the prejudice.
The idea that a female protagonist won't make as much money? Not a very big diffirence. No difference at all, really. It's a stereotype that leads to discrimination, and it's directed at women.
Not a stereotype, marketing. Big difference. In order to prove it's purely stereotyping and not based on FACTS you'll need some evidence. Bring on your sources. Despite me spending time finding sources to back up my claims you seem under the impression just repeating your statements will validate them.
Lower marketing budget based on lower expected sales? based on what? the idea that female protagonists won't sell. Again, directed at women.
Again, how is that directed at women? How is saying "this won't sell", somehow directed at women? Stop demonizing the world around you, drop the feminist-tinted glasses. The world is not out there to hate women.
If there's no marketing for a product, people won't know about it, and then they're less likely to buy it leading to lower sales. It's self fulfilling prophecy.
But if the expected sales won't cover a big marketing budget why would you invest a big one? Advertisement is only one of the many factors which influence sales.
It takes money to make money. If you don't have faith in your own product, who will? Why should the consumers have faith in a product you have no faith in?
There is faith and faith. Not every dev expects all his games to be massive blockbusters. There is nothing wrong with making games which won't achieve millions of sales.
Is it a bad idea to make people happy? Happy people will provide business. Unhappy people won't. People are what provide the money. It's really hard to have a successful business without people.
Lets not forget that people can, and will vote with their wallets. If you don't pay attention to people, your business will hurt.
Correct. And this point goes against your case because evidence suggests that you're in the minority. It's much better to keep the majority of your costumers happy than minority. I'd rather lose 20% of my costumers than 80%.
I imagine a lot of people try and ignore the community to enjoy the game. Or they -are- part of the community that drives off so many.
The thing is, there's other games that have similar, if not the exact mechanics of most other games. If the community doesn't make me happy, and/or if the company that makes the product doesn't make me happy, I won't give them my business until they put out a product that does make me happy. I don't think I'm the only one that thinks that way. And if you want to follow CoD's success, good luck.
You do realize Modern warfare is far and away marketed towards guys, right? It's in the same boat as CoD, and thus not the greatest example. Still, 8 percent? not that small of an amount. It can add up. Maybe there's a reason other than the violence and compeditiveness that there's such a low population of women?
You didn't have voice chat, the sole method of communication, on? So you couldn't hear anyone in the game? How would you notice if there was anyone saying anything? It makes the anectdote useless, doesn't it? How would you know it even if you saw it?
How many women have you seen playing, and interacting with the other people?
That was the whole point: if you don't wanna hear shit, mute! And don't forget the written chat.
The thing about Mass Effect is that there's far, far more to it than just violence. There's relationships, there's ways to settle things without violence, or with more violence, there's dialogue, and there's so much more. To say it's only about violence would be doing it a massive disservice. The strength of Mass Effect has no doubt lead to female shepard becoming extremely well received, and iconic.
Similarly, Shyrim offers so much more than just violence! Exploration, adventure, the ability to do things like mine, and grow things, and marry (even same sex marraige), and own several homes! There's ways to get through scenarios without violence... or extra violence! The hearthfire DLC allows you to build a customized home, and adopt children! It's a world that has some life in it.
Like mass effect, saying it's only about violence would do it a massive disservice.
I said the game mechanics were still violence-centric. Doesn't make the story disappear off course but i doubt someone who hates shooting stuff would buy Mass Effect.
So you did no sort of testing, here?
Annnd you're ignoring a good chunk of the equasion. It goes something more like:
archaic gender role + portrayals + violence + lack of social interaction= no no for many women.
Not really. Every single of these elements have a negative influence. You see that was the purpose of the study, to analyze preferences towards certain traits. If you make a violent game with little social interaction you'd probably already get a very male dominated costumer base. The more in the equation is valid the less women will like it.
No, you're worse than Anita because you're not only excusing people who practice sexism (intentions be damned), and may well end up doing the exact same thing in your business practices, intentions be damned.
Well since you defined sexism as: choosing the more lucrative option, well yes i'm totally sexist, like any company out there is sexist. And until we switch over to communism the whole system will be sexist.
What good are you doing for people? How are you trying to help the situation you're debating?
I'm trying to keep bad arguments out of my hobby. I don't want games to change because of being put in a guilt trip. What kind of horrible precedent would that set. Such an event would probably even revive Jack Thompson. I'm doing what every gamer should do: protect their hobby against sunday-moralization.
Lets see you cite otherwise. How about that? I mean really cite. Not an anectdote.
Cite what? How games don't reinforce sexism? I'm sorry but having already bothered backing up my claims I think it's only fair I expect the opposing party to back up its claims and consider them wrong until than.
I haven't found a study saying oen way or the other on the subject of how this impacts women.
The results may not be definitive but at least i'm providing SOMETHING. Neither you or Anita provided anything but words.
And it's up to you to prove that the reason the numbers are what they are because the games are what they are. I can only do that much... I'm providing data supporting my hypothesis, now you provide data supporting yours.
"Again, I gotta ask, how big does the percent of women playing violent videogames have to get before the game industry actually gives a damn?"
Well since the segment is smaller, plays less and spends less in gaming it's actually probably MUCH smaller sales volume wise (which is what matters the most for the companies).
Let me illustrate with some quick math. if we take ESA's study that 47% of the gamers are women and combine it with the data found here about the amount of money spent:
0.53*333 + 0.47*87 = 176.49 + 40.89 = 217.38. 40.89/217.38 = 18.6%. Now that 18.6% is the estimated share of the purchases made by women in the gaming industry. Suddenly the 47% doesn't seem that significant anymore. Now take 18.6% and take into account the studies about women's preferences. What are the odds that women would be the source of the majority of sales of a violent video game with little social interactions? (typical violent AAA game) Even if the devs would make it "woman-friendly".
No, it's privileged behavior for you to dismiss all prior discussion in a thread, then write a massive rant that you expect people to read and respond to. Why should anyone read and respond to your massive post, when you won't even attempt the same?
I did read the responses. As expected, there are correct assessments that what I was saying were logically fallacious and flawed unprovable conjecture. This is due to the biggest problem of all: The foundation for and against all the arguments is moot if the core assumption is unproven: Feminist Theory is Correct. I argue that there is no evidence to prove Feminist Theory is correct, and give a break down of why I think it is totally incorrect.
I would love to spend more time on the issue, but it's not worth either of our time debating Feminism unless we can agree on the core assumption that Feminist Theory makes.
VortexCortex said:
You did not respond to any of my criticism, you deflected it all by simply dismissing it out of hand as some privileged male rant.
Why should anyone give half a shit what you think? By your own admission, you "don't have time" for anyone's ideas but your own. If you want to masturbate on the internet, there are better sites for it.
I don't have time to go back and forth over stuff that makes no difference -- is moot. We must cut to the heart of the matter and assess whether there is any evidence for or against Feminist Theory's inclusion in games.
It seems you want to discuss this, just not the core assumption? Let's not waste time arguing over whether or not my observations, which were in agreement with Feminism, are correct. I say they were incorrect, flawed, and moot because they were based on an unproven core assumption about application of Feminist Theory to Games. So, that core issue is what I addressed. It's kind of a big post because that's a big point to argue, eh?
People should care about arguing the core point because no one but me has tried to. I backed my logic with evidence and even cite research from the Center for Disease Control. I think it's a worthy argument to debate.
Note: While this topic was indeed created in response to the new Anita video, I really, Really, REALLY don't want this topic to devolve into just that video. There are other forum dedicated to that topic and I want to focus on something else. Thanks
The topic of this forum is in essence, and open forum question: what is the opposite stance in the debate about women in gaming? I ask this because I have seen many videos of the Jimquisition, Game Overthinker, Big Picture, Extra Credits, etc. talk about it and there is always a group of people saying that there side isn't represented or represented poorly. Alright then, this topic is essentially for you. What is the opposite stance in this debate?
Because when I do read the comments before the inevitable degradation into name calling and ban hammers, I can never understand why people are against this. Below I have a list of the average responses (Note: these are generalizations and I am hopefully not quoting anyone directly)
"This topic is discussed too much. We shouldn't have to talk about it!"
"The video was horrible!"
"These problems don't exist anymore/are not as bad as you think!"
"Men are just as objectified."
...None of these strike me as a good reason. Maybe I just don't get it. But I cannot believe that these are good reasons to get behind that side of the debate. So for a better understanding of this stance, I am asking for a more detailed response. (Apologies for the poor writing.)
Sometimes its just a lack of compromise from one end to the other or lack mutual understanding from one end of the other.
I want more games with better females but do I want games like dragons crown to go away or be forced to do this, this or this because it offends somebody? no( And I know the typical response is nobody is trying to force anything but that is semantical. You want said thing to go away so there is less of it and I am against that for many reasons)
I dont agree with some people about what is sexist. I for one dont think Ico is sexist. It or its other game shadow have nothing to say about Most or all females in the world and what the developer thinks of them. It has more to say with what the developer wants from himself. I suspect he suffers from a white knight complex like I once did and thinks that saving those that he wants to be with is the only way to validate his existance. That is completely different from an "all women are weak " mentality that those who strawman try to imply.
Though some want to make it out like we are all frothing at the mouth to subjugate every woman who dares pick up a controller this is far from reality. Alot of us dont care what gender you are but people only count the times that someone is a dick misogynist on the internet not how many times us guys are cool and decent on the internet,xbox live etc.
Honestly If we can just agree that sexual pandering and such other things can be done fairly and respectfully and agree to that instead of taking the prudish,below the knees approach that somehow survived from the 1920s suffragettes(pre feminism but still feminism) than Im down. But if you tell me I cant create a something purely for sex appeal and still respect this or that group then we shall simply never agree.
while were at it I dont agree with the way they have tried to combat sexism in the industry. Its moralistic and impractical. Its all not too different from the bible beaters of yesteryear using negativity and shame to bring about change. It doesnt allow for compromise and it rarely speaks positively. It doesnt affect the dudebro going on cod and being a dick. He doesnt read these sites and the only time hes ever heard the word sexist is when someone online calls him that to which he goes"fuck off casul fggot"
(side example)
I can for example go to a strip club and respect the ladies working there all while oogling at there lady bits. women can do the same with male strippers. They can also grab there junk and laugh at them. Whether it be respecting the scantily clad woman or demeaning fernando on stage it happens more than most credit.
I would love to spend more time on the issue, but it's not worth either of our time debating Feminism unless we can agree on the core assumption that Feminist Theory makes.
People should care about arguing the core point because no one but me has tried to. I backed my logic with evidence and even cite research from the Center for Disease Control. I think it's a worthy argument to debate.
Actually, you mis-cited the CDC report. Thanks for providing the link, though. That enabled me to determine how selective your reading of that report is.
Turn your attention to pages 18 and 19. There you will find that the lifetime chance of being raped is 18.3% for women and 1.4% for men. This is why people focus on rape of women -- since those are 92% of all rapes. Even for other sexual violence, the rates for women are double those for men. You will also note that in table 19, the 12-month incidence for male rape is not reported because they didn't have enough data for a reliable estimate. Male rapes are that uncommon. Given that your reading of this report is extraordinarily bad, exactly why should I trust any other supposed "logic or evidence" you might present?
How large of a percent does the female gamer have to get before they stop getting ignored? So what if men are the majority of violent videogame player?
Define "ignored". Are there 0 games out there you truly like? If not, you're not "ignored". Probably given less attention but that's normal. It's business. Don't take it personally.
No, there are some games I truely like. Not enough, though, and they're really spread out, and rare. Moreover, my significant other is not being satisfied with any game, but a female protagonist is always something that interests her.
Stll, it's bigger than that. Stop trying to narrow the scope of the argument coz I'm talking about the big picture, and I don't want to hear "you moved the goal posts," and I'm not taking chances.
And yet when those lines of code represent a female protagonist, the producers fight against that "code" specefically trying to prevent that "code" from being released, nevermind any agency that "code" gets, and those producers pressure developers to not even make that "code" to begin with... but it's just code! Why does it matter?
Obviously because it's not just code.
That code represents the female sex. That representation gets discriminated against. It creates a stereotype. It creates predjudice against that code. And that code represents females. And what happens when females get treated worse than males?
Sexism!
If it was just "code" and didn't matter, I don't think we'd be here discussing that "code."
So when the code is supposed to create the image of female protagonist somehow lines of codes become some kind object worth a crusade? You're making it a lot more personal than it has to be.
And it doesn't create any kind of stereotype or prejudice against the codes that's just silly.
And what happens when females get treated worse than males?..... NOTHING. unless you've proven the gender is the reason for this different treatment it is NOT sexism. I repeat, by definition it is is NOT sexism unless it is the gender itself which is causing the prejudice. [/quote]
Every excuse that gets power is an excuse the gaming industry will use to maintain the status quo of treating female protagonists worse than male protagonists until it runs out of power. Problem is, it's just not going to run out of power so long as they think they're right. They aren't going to try and grow the market. They aren't going to experiment much at all.
Yes, it's worth a crusade. Diversity in videogames in the big picture, including the focus of this conversation, female protagonsits, will be a good thing. Look at Modern Warfare continually trying to kill CoD, nevermind all the other imitators, and inspired-bys that fail to compete. The mundane paint by numbers "safe" games are killing the industry.
If you don't like it, that's fine, but it won't change anything on my end.
I've PROVEN it. Find me one cite that says a male protagonist was turned down because he wouldn't sell, or the assorted reasons you'd have for not including a female protagonist.
If the reasons you don't include a female protagonist hangs on her presense, for any reason, it's sexism. You've purposely targeted her as the problem.
It did create a predjudice, a stereotype, and discrimination against what that code represents. It's why they're underserved, and undermarketed.
The idea that a female protagonist won't make as much money? Not a very big diffirence. No difference at all, really. It's a stereotype that leads to discrimination, and it's directed at women.
Not a stereotype, marketing. Big difference. In order to prove it's purely stereotyping and not based on FACTS you'll need some evidence. Bring on your sources. Despite me spending time finding sources to back up my claims you seem under the impression just repeating your statements will validate them. [/qote]
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them
How about that? The article is a bit dated, but the point of the article rings true today. You pretty much never see a commercial for a female only protagonist game. Tomb Raider was it, recently, and it's commercials were sparse, and related to gamestop promotions.
Publicity is important to a game. If you don't get word out about your product, people won't know it exists, and will likely overlook it no matter what. Even if they see it on a shelf, the lack of knowledge about the game may have them overlook the game anyhow.
You repeating yourself won't validate your statements either. Isn't that obvious by now? Blaming it on marketing WILL NOT WORK on me. Marketing is what's sabotaging female protagonists to begin with, and causing the sexism a lot of people are seeing.
I've punched holes in all of your sources as you try and twist the sources to support your claim without taking the entire source in mind.
Lower marketing budget based on lower expected sales? based on what? the idea that female protagonists won't sell. Again, directed at women.
Again, how is that directed at women? How is saying "this won't sell", somehow directed at women? Stop demonizing the world around you, drop the feminist-tinted glasses. The world is not out there to hate women.
How? Did you even look at my links? It's because it's a female protagonist. That's it.
Game producers are basically saying "Make the female protagonsist a guy, and we'll produce the game."
I don't give a damn -why- they say it.
Why the heck are you talking about the "world?" I'm talking about the gaming industry that's actively against female protagonists, and barely supports them when they produce them, if at all!
If there's no marketing for a product, people won't know about it, and then they're less likely to buy it leading to lower sales. It's self fulfilling prophecy.
But if the expected sales won't cover a big marketing budget why would you invest a big one? Advertisement is only one of the many factors which influence sales.
Because people don't invest in game marketing to get word about the game out there, so it doesn't do well, and so they get the idea it won't do well next time?
Self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't try, you fail, you're not surprised, and it reinforces that it'll fail again.
It takes money to make money. If you don't have faith in your own product, who will? Why should the consumers have faith in a product you have no faith in?
There is faith and faith. Not every dev expects all his games to be massive blockbusters. There is nothing wrong with making games which won't achieve millions of sales.
Devs might believe that, but producers sure as hell don't.
Oh, how I wish it were true as far as consoles go, but it circles back to that "the idea of a female protagonist won't sell!" so they don't produce them. they actively block them.
If they made, and produced games with expectations of not killing CoD, or toppling someone's existing work, and just produced that the developers make, 'm sure we'd all be a lot happier.
Is it a bad idea to make people happy? Happy people will provide business. Unhappy people won't. People are what provide the money. It's really hard to have a successful business without people.
Lets not forget that people can, and will vote with their wallets. If you don't pay attention to people, your business will hurt.
Correct. And this point goes against your case because evidence suggests that you're in the minority. It's much better to keep the majority of your costumers happy than minority. I'd rather lose 20% of my costumers than 80%.
Uhm, I linked accumulated data that says the population of female gamers is way larger than 20%. Double, or better. If you're going to ignore it, stop asking me to cite things.
I imagine a lot of people try and ignore the community to enjoy the game. Or they -are- part of the community that drives off so many.
The thing is, there's other games that have similar, if not the exact mechanics of most other games. If the community doesn't make me happy, and/or if the company that makes the product doesn't make me happy, I won't give them my business until they put out a product that does make me happy. I don't think I'm the only one that thinks that way. And if you want to follow CoD's success, good luck.
You do realize Modern warfare is far and away marketed towards guys, right? It's in the same boat as CoD, and thus not the greatest example. Still, 8 percent? not that small of an amount. It can add up. Maybe there's a reason other than the violence and compeditiveness that there's such a low population of women?
You didn't have voice chat, the sole method of communication, on? So you couldn't hear anyone in the game? How would you notice if there was anyone saying anything? It makes the anectdote useless, doesn't it? How would you know it even if you saw it?
How many women have you seen playing, and interacting with the other people?
Even if you mute them, you'll get rude text some how or another. Luckily they won't know you're a female, so they won't have that added ammo for their immature texts.
And WHY would I pay money to a game company that doesn't give a shit what people like me want, and/or provides something I don't want year after year? If I want to play a shooter, there's games that at least have female playable characters out there with similar mechanics. I'll spend my money on the people who have the courage to make female playable characters, and support that market over the dudebro centric stuff.
I want DIVERSITY in games, not more brown and gray worlds filled with dudebros.
No, if a company's going to keep playing it safe and avoid playable female characters, I'm not giving them my business until they do, or in the rare case they provide a game that genuinely interests me.
The thing about Mass Effect is that there's far, far more to it than just violence. There's relationships, there's ways to settle things without violence, or with more violence, there's dialogue, and there's so much more. To say it's only about violence would be doing it a massive disservice. The strength of Mass Effect has no doubt lead to female shepard becoming extremely well received, and iconic.
Similarly, Shyrim offers so much more than just violence! Exploration, adventure, the ability to do things like mine, and grow things, and marry (even same sex marraige), and own several homes! There's ways to get through scenarios without violence... or extra violence! The hearthfire DLC allows you to build a customized home, and adopt children! It's a world that has some life in it.
Like mass effect, saying it's only about violence would do it a massive disservice.
I said the game mechanics were still violence-centric. Doesn't make the story disappear off course but i doubt someone who hates shooting stuff would buy Mass Effect.
I dunno, there's several modes in mass effect 3's campaign that adjusts the combat and story focus, so they just might. So it' snot really violence centric. Sure you shoot people, but that's not the point of the game so much as a means to an end.
So you did no sort of testing, here?
Annnd you're ignoring a good chunk of the equasion. It goes something more like:
archaic gender role + portrayals + violence + lack of social interaction= no no for many women.
Not really. Every single of these elements have a negative influence. You see that was the purpose of the study, to analyze preferences towards certain traits. If you make a violent game with little social interaction you'd probably already get a very male dominated costumer base. The more in the equation is valid the less women will like it.
And lets not forget that AAA games, or even games not made to be multi-million blockbusters, as you said (though the industry seems to disagree) have to be violent, non-social games. The industry really should diversify more. especially on the console market.
No, you're worse than Anita because you're not only excusing people who practice sexism (intentions be damned), and may well end up doing the exact same thing in your business practices, intentions be damned.
Well since you defined sexism as: choosing the more lucrative option, well yes i'm totally sexist, like any company out there is sexist. And until we switch over to communism the whole system will be sexist.
I chose to define it as picking the more lucerative option that favors one gender over another time and time again, not trying to do otherwise, even if it's just what the code represents. See, sex plays a part, and one sex is treated better than the other. The entire definition of sexism.
Make your money, but that doesn't give you the right to be sexist.
Well, you said it, not me. You're sexist. Like the game industry. *Shrugs* I'm not going to argue. You're the one defending game companies for cutting out female presenses in games.
What good are you doing for people? How are you trying to help the situation you're debating?
I'm trying to keep bad arguments out of my hobby. I don't want games to change because of being put in a guilt trip. What kind of horrible precedent would that set. Such an event would probably even revive Jack Thompson. I'm doing what every gamer should do: protect their hobby against sunday-moralization.
Hey, it's not my fault that the presense of women is represented the way it is. If the game industry didn't fight their presense, then we probably wouldn't be here talking about this.
It's not a matter of guilt tripping, it's calling out BS as we see it, and trying to get them to think about what they're doing a bit more instead of maintaining their course.
You wanna pretend your "hobby" is fine, we can end our conversation here, and now, but that's not going to stop the people who don't believe it's fine, me included.
Lets see you cite otherwise. How about that? I mean really cite. Not an anectdote.
Cite what? How games don't reinforce sexism? I'm sorry but having already bothered backing up my claims I think it's only fair I expect the opposing party to back up its claims and consider them wrong until than.
You backed up nothing. I chopped your arguments off at the knees time, and time again. The fact that I'm still arguing is proof of that. You simply failed to convince me.
I haven't found a study saying oen way or the other on the subject of how this impacts women.
The absense of evidence is not evidence of absense.
And, again, I see it every month in gaming magazines, I see more and more links based on female protagonists being denied because they're female, and notihng else, and the gaming industry doesn't believe in female protagonists. Says a lot to me.
The results may not be definitive but at least i'm providing SOMETHING. Neither you or Anita provided anything but words.
And it's up to you to prove that the reason the numbers are what they are because the games are what they are. I can only do that much... I'm providing data supporting my hypothesis, now you provide data supporting yours.
"Again, I gotta ask, how big does the percent of women playing violent videogames have to get before the game industry actually gives a damn?"
Well since the segment is smaller, plays less and spends less in gaming it's actually probably MUCH smaller sales volume wise (which is what matters the most for the companies).
Let me illustrate with some quick math. if we take ESA's study that 47% of the gamers are women and combine it with the data found here about the amount of money spent:
0.53*333 + 0.47*87 = 176.49 + 40.89 = 217.38. 40.89/217.38 = 18.6%. Now that 18.6% is the estimated share of the purchases made by women in the gaming industry. Suddenly the 47% doesn't seem that significant anymore. Now take 18.6% and take into account the studies about women's preferences. What are the odds that women would be the source of the majority of sales of a violent video game with little social interactions? (typical violent AAA game) Even if the devs would make it "woman-friendly".
[/quote]
I've provided a ton of links you apparently ignored. More than words. Studies on matters like these, accounts from interviews from the people that dealt with this directly, and accounts from people in the industry itself.
Ever consider that maybe if games weren't aimed at guys so much more than women, that more women would buy them (Ya know like several of the top grossing games on IOS, and handhelds), and there juuust might be the possibliy that 47% would be quite profitable as women feel less alienated by the sea of dudebro protagonists, and dudebro communities, and women dressed like Ivy Valentine, or women being pretty useless overall in the game?
Until gaming, especially console gaming explores this, they'll maintain their course no matter what until they hit an iceberg of financial troubles (Notice that gaming companies are already complaining about their profits, pointing their fingers at piracy, used games, and so forth) until we have another game crash. Sadly it'll probably take that much before they wake up, and stop practicing foolish business ideas.
But like I said several times in this post. I'm not going to agree with you that it's not sexist. If you're not going to agree with me, or even concede that there's a problem in the gaming industry's view of female protagonists, then we should stop talking about it with eachother here. It's a waste of time on both our parts to continue.
I would love to spend more time on the issue, but it's not worth either of our time debating Feminism unless we can agree on the core assumption that Feminist Theory makes.
The social construct of masculinity is seen by feminism as problematic because it associates males with aggression and competition, and reinforces patriarchal and unequal gender relations.
Feminism is debunked because it assumes masculinity is associated with aggression and competition. The opposite is true. Women are just as aggressive as men, or even more so than men.
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
Department of Psychology - California State University said:
SUMMARY: This bibliography examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 371,600.
You will also note that in table 19, the 12-month incidence for male rape is not reported because they didn't have enough data for a reliable estimate. Male rapes are that uncommon.
The lack of data does not mean your hypothesis is supported. There is only an 8% disparity between male and female domestic abuse and rape. If they did have enough data to include male rapes, then male rape and domestic abuse would be even nearer to, or higher than female abuse and rape.
To illustrate the fallacy of your assumption consider that perhaps not enough men coming forward about male rape is a result of the fact that men face a woman at home that is as aggressive or more aggressive than they are? Combine this with the social stigmas associated with rape, especially male rape and it's reasonable to consider that they might not have enough data about male rape even if it were occurring frequently.
Given that your reading of this report is extraordinarily bad, exactly why should I trust any other supposed "logic or evidence" you might present?
Even if one point of an argument is invalid, it doesn't make the whole argument moot unless the claims all depend on that point. Feminists claim aggression is a male trait, then build upon this incorrect and flawed assumption to create their theories. The Feminist Movement's theories are debunked.
Male abuse and rape and Female abuse and rape are the figures I cited. They have an 8% higher occurrence among females. Focusing primarily on female gender issues is hypocritical when Feminists say they support Gender Equality.
Feminism wrongly attributes traits to genders. "Gendered" traits. That is sexist.
The opposite of Feminism in Gaming is: Gender Equality in Gaming.
- Why would i give you a citation about a male protagonist being turned down for being expected to provide less sales? That would be shooting myself in the foot. The whole argument i'm making is that based on costumer demographics male protagonists are more likely to sell better and hence why publishers favor them. So why would i need to cite a source in which a male gets replace by a female?! What would that prove?
- http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7qDd2i/www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-28-bioware-female-characters-will-follow-commercial-success. Again a link which proves nothing. It merely talks about "accepted wisdom". It doesn't prove said wisdom is wrong.
- "http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them". Pure anecdotal evidence. And off course less marketing will result in less sales. But like i said a couple of times the effect of marketing is only "that much" and you can't just blow millions into marketing, you need to expect millions in return to do that. This article proves nothing. Just one guy stating common knowledge and than saying this "It?s also hard to draw many broad conclusions from this data. There are so few games with exclusively female heroes, and those few games are given such a small marketing budget, do we even know how well a large-budget, marketed game with a female hero would perform?".
- "I chose to define it as picking the more lucerative option that favors one gender over another time and time again, not trying to do otherwise, even if it's just what the code represents. See, sex plays a part, and one sex is treated better than the other. The entire definition of sexism."
Definition of sexism
noun
[mass noun]
prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex:
See how it clearly states "on the basis of sex". "On the basis of expected sales" =/= "on the basis of sex". It is discriminating against women BUT not on the basis of sex. Key nuance which renders the use of the word "sexism" false.
- "The absense of evidence is not evidence of absense.". No but just like i'm an agnostic until given evidence of the existence of a God I won't support the idea it has an impact until proven.
- "Ever consider that maybe if games weren't aimed at guys so much more than women, that more women would buy them (Ya know like several of the top grossing games on IOS, and handhelds), and there juuust might be the possibliy that 47% would be quite profitable as women feel less alienated by the sea of dudebro protagonists, and dudebro communities, and women dressed like Ivy Valentine, or women being pretty useless overall in the game? "
It's possible but until it's proven no reason for me to believe it's a fact. I'm looking at the current available data and drawing my conclusions based on that. If you want to convince me i'm wrong you'd better come up with data supporting your hypothesis.
Yes, they do, but in order to recognize that you'd actually have to listen to what they have to say.
But this line of critique ("but men have it bad too") would be invalid anyway. Pointing out one problem doesn't mean being blind to all other problems. But, you know, you can't focus on everything at once. You guys really need to get that into your heads.
"Ain't no other kids eating till I feed my kids."
It's human nature to want to address problems affecting yourself before problems affecting others (especially if the severity of the problems is comparable on a personal basis). If a male individual feels that society/culture has dealt him a raw hand or they feel they are discriminated against because of their gender. Then they are not going to respond well to the marketing pitch "we almost exclusively concentrate on issues affecting females but if you're lucky addressing one of those issues might benefit you collaterally."
Yes, they do, but in order to recognize that you'd actually have to listen to what they have to say.
But this line of critique ("but men have it bad too") would be invalid anyway. Pointing out one problem doesn't mean being blind to all other problems. But, you know, you can't focus on everything at once. You guys really need to get that into your heads.
"Ain't no other kids eating till I feed my kids."
It's human nature to want to address problems affecting yourself before problems affecting others (especially if the severity of the problems is comparable on a personal basis). If a male individual feels that society/culture has dealt him a raw hand or they feel they are discriminated against because of their gender. Then they are not going to respond well to the marketing pitch "we almost exclusively concentrate on issues affecting females but if you're lucky addressing one of those issues might benefit you collaterally."
Yes, they do, but in order to recognize that you'd actually have to listen to what they have to say.
But this line of critique ("but men have it bad too") would be invalid anyway. Pointing out one problem doesn't mean being blind to all other problems. But, you know, you can't focus on everything at once. You guys really need to get that into your heads.
"Ain't no other kids eating till I feed my kids."
It's human nature to want to address problems affecting yourself before problems affecting others (especially if the severity of the problems is comparable on a personal basis). If a male individual feels that society/culture has dealt him a raw hand or they feel they are discriminated against because of their gender. Then they are not going to respond well to the marketing pitch "we almost exclusively concentrate on issues affecting females but if you're lucky addressing one of those issues might benefit you collaterally."
The social construct of masculinity is seen by feminism as problematic because it associates males with aggression and competition, and reinforces patriarchal and unequal gender relations.
Feminism is debunked because it assumes masculinity is associated with aggression and competition. The opposite is true. Women are just as aggressive as men, or even more so than men.
The actual aggressiveness of men vs. women is irrelevant, since feminism is talking about the SOCIAL CONSTRUCT of masculinity, which they contend is MYTHICAL. You seem to be really bad at reading comprehension.
Do you mean to say that patriarchal culture inaccurately describes gender? Shocking!
VortexCortex said:
Here's 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses that refute the core assumption of Feminism.
No, those studies disprove the core assumption of patriarchy, because as noted above feminists are NOT saying that men are inherently aggressive -- rather that our culture encourages them to be aggressive and is more accepting of aggressive displays by men. It really would help if you actually understood the theory you are critiquing.
VortexCortex said:
The lack of data does not mean your hypothesis is supported.
First, it actually does. Look at the footnote. They had enough incidents in their sample to estimate an annual rate for women, but not enough for men. In other words, the annual rape rate for men was statistically indistinguishable FROM ZERO.
Second, you have blatantly avoided the fact that those tables clearly show that 92% of the people who are raped in their lifetimes are WOMEN. Nice attempt at a dodge, but I did catch it.
VortexCortex said:
Combine this with the social stigmas associated with rape, especially male rape and it's reasonable to consider that they might not have enough data about male rape even if it were occurring frequently.
First, victim stigma also exists for women. Second, this study is a survey of people's past experiences, not a collation of police reports, so the under-reporting rate would be much smaller. Third, do you realize how many fewer men would have to report rapes in this survey for male and female rape to be comparable? Men would have to be SIX TIMES less likely to report a rape than women on AN ANONYMOUS SURVEY. Citation fucking needed.
- Why would i give you a citation about a male protagonist being turned down for being expected to provide less sales? That would be shooting myself in the foot. The whole argument i'm making is that based on costumer demographics male protagonists are more likely to sell better and hence why publishers favor them. So why would i need to cite a source in which a male gets replace by a female?! What would that prove?
Simply put it'd prove that male protagonists have that decision made against them, too. But you can't, or won't provide such evidence. This means that the decision is leveled against female heroes exclusively. Hence the decision is made based on SEX, and thus SEXism.
Until male and female representation can stack up equally in terms of problems, there's no equality.
Until female representation is looked at in the same light as male representation, there's no equality.
And the way I see it, things are heavily unequal on the female sex.
- http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7qDd2i/www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-28-bioware-female-characters-will-follow-commercial-success. Again a link which proves nothing. It merely talks about "accepted wisdom". It doesn't prove said wisdom is wrong.
It talks about the mentality a lot of producers have. They won't support female protagonists only games until it has a financial success. Problem is, it's not likely to happen because virtually every game made by major industry names is made to sell in the millions, and be AAA, and they simply won't support the games with female protagonists they put out setting themselves up for failure.
It's a vicious cycle, you see:
Game with female protagonist doesn't get marketed well, the game doesn't do well, it reinforces the stereotype that female protagonists don't do well, Game with female protagonist doesn't get marketed well, the game doesn't do well, it reinforces the stereotype that female protagonists don't do well, ad infinit.
And that doesn't even include the other factors that a game can fail because of! Bad gameplay, bad writing, glitches, too niche, and so forth.
Every time a game fails it ALL gets blamed on the female protagonist. They're all getting condemned because of this.
- "http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them". Pure anecdotal evidence. And off course less marketing will result in less sales. But like i said a couple of times the effect of marketing is only "that much" and you can't just blow millions into marketing, you need to expect millions in return to do that. This article proves nothing. Just one guy stating common knowledge and than saying this "It?s also hard to draw many broad conclusions from this data. There are so few games with exclusively female heroes, and those few games are given such a small marketing budget, do we even know how well a large-budget, marketed game with a female hero would perform?".
There's:
"?Games with a female only protagonist, got half the spending of female optional, and only 40 percent of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually,? Zatkin said."
That's based on the study done. I'd say it's pretty solid. It's evidence, and it's going to need solid counterevidence for me to believe it isn't true.
And they said it was hard to get data because there's so few games with a female heroes? THAT'S THE BIG PROBLEM!!! That's what I've been driving at the whole conversation!
If there's not enough data to them to say solidly, then why is the claim that female protagonsits hurt sales being made by the game industry itself, and supporters of the status quo?
Why are there so many games that were changed because of the female protagonist?
Why is the code that represents a female hero the problem?
Why is a female hero in a straight relationship (nevermind any sort of relationship) a problem when it's okay for guy heroes to not only have wives, children, girlfriends, casual relationships, love lives, date, but they also get orgies?
Why does the agency of a woman hero get so restricted?
Is it REALLY "marketing" that is telling them that there shouldn't be female protagonists? If a person doing a study on it can't find solid evidence it's the female protagonist herself, then how can the game industry?
- "I chose to define it as picking the more lucerative option that favors one gender over another time and time again, not trying to do otherwise, even if it's just what the code represents. See, sex plays a part, and one sex is treated better than the other. The entire definition of sexism."
Definition of sexism
noun
[mass noun]
prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex:
See how it clearly states "on the basis of sex". "On the basis of expected sales" =/= "on the basis of sex". It is discriminating against women BUT not on the basis of sex. Key nuance which renders the use of the word "sexism" false.
Then why is it that female protagonist games get less than half the marketing male only games get? That's a divsion between the sexes.
Why are female protagonists not believed in as much as male protagonists?
Why is the expected sales less for female protagonists than it is for male protagonists?
The "On the basis of expected sales"/marketing/whatever excuse is drawing a line between the sexes, and the female sex side is getting the short end of the stick in so many ways. And that is part of the problem.
- "The absense of evidence is not evidence of absense.". No but just like i'm an agnostic until given evidence of the existence of a God I won't support the idea it has an impact until proven.
I've given evidence. You're ignoring it blatantly, and giving excuses for the sexism. You're permitting it to happen.
- "Ever consider that maybe if games weren't aimed at guys so much more than women, that more women would buy them (Ya know like several of the top grossing games on IOS, and handhelds), and there juuust might be the possibliy that 47% would be quite profitable as women feel less alienated by the sea of dudebro protagonists, and dudebro communities, and women dressed like Ivy Valentine, or women being pretty useless overall in the game? "
It's possible but until it's proven no reason for me to believe it's a fact. I'm looking at the current available data and drawing my conclusions based on that. If you want to convince me i'm wrong you'd better come up with data supporting your hypothesis.
And no one's willing to prove it one way or the other which is some of what I'm driving at here. They're so afraid to try testing it that female heroes are such an absurd rarity compared to male heroes because they're afraid they'll hurt sales! Which is largely why I'm talking about it. It reinforces the crystal clear difference in the way female protagonists are treated compared to male protagonists. There is no equality in the matter, and it's the female sex that's getting the short end of the stick on so many levels like marketing, agency, frequency, being outright replaced by male protagonists, and so forth.
And it's all on the basis of the SEX of the hero of the game.
The stuation is revolting to me as are the people defending the gaming industry. The situation may well be why females aren't as common as males as gamers.
The social construct of masculinity is seen by feminism as problematic because it associates males with aggression and competition, and reinforces patriarchal and unequal gender relations.
Feminism is debunked because it assumes masculinity is associated with aggression and competition. The opposite is true. Women are just as aggressive as men, or even more so than men.
These are just weasel words. What is the social construct of masculinity? What evidence supports the assumption that there is a social construct of masculinity?
Feminism is talking about the SOCIAL CONSTRUCT of masculinity, which they contend is MYTHICAL.
I'm not seeing any evidence to support the existence of a social construct of masculinity. It seems we're in agreement that it's just a myth.
Why does the mythical social construct warrant being labeled as "problematic"? Where is the objective proof that it is, in fact, problematic. There is none. No thinking person should believe unproven and untested theories, especially not theories about Masculinity proposed by Feminists. I don't believe unproven theories about the social construct of blackness posited by white supremacists.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is no evidence to support Feminist Theories. I'm just as afraid of flying spaghetti monsters as the social construct of masculinity as defined by feminism.
Wikipedia said:
Masculinity is a set of qualities, characteristics or roles generally considered typical of, or appropriate to, a man.
The set of qualities and characteristics or roles that men typically fill. So, being muscular, logical, caring and fair (esp. towards women), fatherhood. You have to prove to me why these are seen as problematic. I need evidence to back my beliefs. I'm a thinking person.
You seem to be really bad at reading comprehension.
I mean to say that Patriarchy Theory inaccurately describes the social constructs that Feminism takes for granted. It's bogus. Founded only on assumptions. Neither History nor the Science of Evolution support their claims.
VortexCortex said:
Here's 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses that refute the core assumption of Feminism.
No, those studies disprove the core assumption of patriarchy, because as noted above feminists are NOT saying that men are inherently aggressive -- rather that our culture encourages them to be aggressive and is more accepting of aggressive displays by men.
That it is our culture encouraging men to be aggressive is a bogus theory. Aggression is as common in men as it is in women. If we're encouraging men to be aggressive, and not women, then why are women just as aggressive as men? If this is a problem that needs to be addressed, then you've got to prove why it needs to be addressed. In other words: Feminists say encouraging aggression and competition is a problem. We actually have reduced our encouragement of competition and aggression, and yet the aggression remains. If you are a scientist then you might think: "Hmm, maybe the aggression in men is there regardless of encouragement?" Then you might think to examine aggression in females, and wonder where it comes from since it's not encouraged at all. Taking action based on unproven hypotheses is jumping at shadows. It's not good science.
It really would help if you actually understood the theory you are critiquing.
Uncalled for ad hominem. I'm not ignorant. It is Feminism that ignores reality and presents it through their biased lens.
I'm fully capable of understanding the theory, I've studied it. It's centered on the effects of male aggression, and ignores female aggression entirely. That's sexist. I also understand that it is a completely unfounded theory. The debunked Newtonian Gravity theory was based on observation. Newton was deeply troubled by this action at a distance, but he could not find fault in his observations, so he believed there was Gravity. Feminist Theory does the opposite. Feminism is not objective, it makes assumptions first and then builds upon them to develop social critique, without actually testing the theories. Newton tested his theory, it's damn accurate approximation but it's flawed and now we have better theories. Feminists do not test Feminist Theory before believing it. It's an entirely inaccurate and opinionated portrayal of society, motivated by a Feminist Movement. It's flawed, but there is much resistance to replacing it with actual Gender Science. You can't get more biased than this.
Feminists did not set out to unequivocally prove that a Patriarchy exists, or that it was at fault for their assumed oppression of women or that such oppression even existed. They do not prove a Patriarchy is intolerant to differences in gender or sexual orientation, they assume this and have no evidence to back it. Feminism ignores the history of the world, eg. the Roman Empire where homosexuality was far more acceptable. Perhaps religion is to blame for intolerance instead? Perhaps the cause is our genetic imperative to procreate -- procreation, being the power woman wield, is not responsible? Feminism ignores that evolutionary psychology explains male and female gender roles developed for the benefit of women, because women hold the ultimate power of life, and dictate which traits in men are beneficial.
Patriarchy Theory ignores that women have power and have always had power. Vast powers, the supreme power of reproduction. It is the female sex that dictates what characteristics are favorable for males to have. It's quite illogical to blame men for the roles and traits that evolution empowered females to give men. Further, they ignore the influence of womankind in history, and where women are found influential they also attribute this to Patriarchy or dismiss it as it's not the norm... You can't have it both ways. If you want to talk about gender roles and privileges then you have to examine both genders -- We're all in this together, but not according to Feminism.
It was through obligations that men paid for their privileges in society. Was it Privilege to die in a war against your will? No, that's obligation. The society and government did not want to burden women unfairly with conscription and duty to die for the country, and many of those opposed to womans suffrage were female -- These women were not interested in politics or the duty that comes with it, and as soon as more women wanted the right to vote than those that didn't the women were granted the right to vote by the all male government that was supposedly oppressing them... These "oppressive males" didn't even require women to take on the duty to die in wars as young men do. That's an oppressive patriarchy? I'm sorry, you've got to weigh benefits and costs before you can speak of oppression. Slaves paid a high price but got little to no benefits for their labors; They were oppressed.
Further, suffrage was not a female only thing. It was typically only the rich and powerful that held sway all through history. Men had just won their freedom from suffrage and the right to vote, and were quick to grant this power to women as soon as they wanted it -- Without requiring any duty to pay for the right to have a say in what wars men should die in. This isn't oppression.
Men paid a high price for their political and parental benefits. Women paid a political price for their parenthood and the benefit of not having to work or die in wars. Women benefited from wealth in the marriage as the man did -- Women were not made to live in the slave house, and men in the palace. Men in the 17th and 18th centuries granted rights to women who wanted to sell their property to be interviewed in private to ensure a man could not force her to sell her property. This is not oppression. Wait, sell property? Yes, single women could own property. Marriage is a legal union, the two become one, and each half has rights and responsibilities to the other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feme_covert
Wikipedia on Coverture said:
A feme sole had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name. A feme covert was not recognized as having legal rights and obligations distinct from those of her husband in most respects. Instead, through marriage a woman's existence was incorporated into that of her husband, so that she had very few recognized individual rights of her own.
The union had these rights. The male had few individual rights of his own either. The man was held responsible for the actions of the woman. If she robbed, he could be jailed for her crime. In trade men took on the burden of supporting her and providing for her. The man did not have the right to NOT provide for her, this was the woman's privilege afforded her in marriage.
Think about Marriage -- That institution vilified by Feminism as oppressive to women. Men are fertile through all their life, but women aren't. Men's utility to a woman, his social standing, and ability to provide for and protect her are genetically favorable to the woman -- Rich strong men have rich strong kids. The husband would put his children to work and also benefit by their labors until they struck out on their own. When a woman becomes infertile later in life, she can no longer provide children. Lifelong Marriage ensures the man can not just accumulate wealth and status, then leave his wife for a woman more fertile, attractive, and younger. His status and wealth would indeed be attractive to other women. Yet Feminist Theory says that Patriarchy privileged only men? Why ignore the women's rights if you're a Feminist?
For Feminists to say that women have always been oppressed is to outright ignore reality and the privileges and powers women have always held. I can not believe in Feminism's Theories because they strip power from the woman of history and claim to be victims. This ploy is evil. It preys on all our genetically predisposed tendency to come running when a woman cries for help, without thinking, and to sacrifice men for the genetic imperative to protect women and children for the advancement of the species. Men have always given women whatever they want and need because women have the ultimate power of procreation.
Feminism exploits our instincts. It's dishonest. What do we do when Feminists claim they are oppressed? We don't think, eh? We come running to their aide and give them what they want, we put down whatever evil they point at... Not because we objectively survey the situation and determine if they are correct. No, we just acquiesce to the demands of Feminism because they claim to represent the interests of Females.
Feminism is Sexism in Disguise. It's just like drumming up fear about blacks raping women, and blacks committing crimes and the social construct of blackness being the cause of the white woman's woes. Save the White Women against Black Rape! Segregation! No. That's not good science. Feminists lobby for more protection and rights for women, yet do not seek equal protections and rights for males. They haven't shown their claims of supporting Gender Equality to be true. It's dishonest.
Men are dying. Men are the greater victims of violent crimes in general, and in the crimes claimed to affect woman more than men, women are only 8% more likely than men to suffer them. Feminism is a Movement. The Feminist Movement claims to be about gender equality, but it is not. That is a ruse, they lobby against female genital mutilation, while male genital mutilation is institutionalized and the norm. What gives?
Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary Evidence. The Feminist Movement claims to support Gender Equality. They have not proven this to be true. I see only evidence to refute their claims. I don't believe it. I wouldn't believe a white supremacist if they claimed to be supporting Racial Equality either.
Feminism is bogus. It's a web of unfounded beliefs that are easy to believe because they exploit everyone's genetic predisposition to protect women and children at the expense of men. Feminists and Feminist Apologizers exhibit blatant Confirmation Bias. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias]
Wikipedia said:
Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.[Note 1][1] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.
First, it actually does. Look at the footnote. They had enough incidents in their sample to estimate an annual rate for women, but not enough for men. In other words, the annual rape rate for men was statistically indistinguishable FROM ZERO.
Not having enough samples to make a solid prediction does not mean you get to predict that the rate would be near zero. It means you can not make a prediction. That is all.
I've been beaten to within an inch of my life and nearly died. I've also been raped. I would rather be raped than killed. I really can't tell which is worse. They're equally important statistics in my eyes.
Domestic violence against men is so prevalent that it trumps the rape statistic for women when considered alone, yet you condone not citing statistics of domestic violence against men along side violence that affects women even though, all things considered, men are raped and abused only 8% less often than women?
VortexCortex said:
Combine this with the social stigmas associated with rape, especially male rape and it's reasonable to consider that they might not have enough data about male rape even if it were occurring frequently.
First, victim stigma also exists for women. Second, this study is a survey of people's past experiences, not a collation of police reports, so the under-reporting rate would be much smaller. Third, do you realize how many fewer men would have to report rapes in this survey for male and female rape to be comparable?
What is your fucking point? That rape is more important because it's violence that affects women more than men? That's gender equality? Are you fucking serious? No. Seriously. What IS your point? Do you have a sexist agenda? Are you a Feminist?
The Feminist Movement produces literature about Masculinity, and Feminism self selectively identifies gender stereotypes in culture, with no evidence to back their claims for their existence, then assigns societal worth to their self selected stereotypes, and proceeds to critique Masculinity unreasonably. These easy to believe lies are not founded in fact or objective research, but the opinions of those who belong to the Feminists Movement.
TL;DR: Feminism is all bullshit. We don't need Feminism to have Equal Rights Activists.
- Why would i give you a citation about a male protagonist being turned down for being expected to provide less sales? That would be shooting myself in the foot. The whole argument i'm making is that based on costumer demographics male protagonists are more likely to sell better and hence why publishers favor them. So why would i need to cite a source in which a male gets replace by a female?! What would that prove?
Simply put it'd prove that male protagonists have that decision made against them, too. But you can't, or won't provide such evidence. This means that the decision is leveled against female heroes exclusively. Hence the decision is made based on SEX, and thus SEXism.
Until male and female representation can stack up equally in terms of problems, there's no equality.
Until female representation is looked at in the same light as male representation, there's no equality.
And the way I see it, things are heavily unequal on the female sex.
Until men can have babies there will be no equality! No. This is silly. You're making a bunch of assumptions about the motives. We don't make any assumption without evidence. We don't have to provide evidence there is no sexism. Seriously. If you claim there is something, say sexism, then it is up to you to do an unbiased random sampling -- a survey of motives, tropes, etc. and prove your claim unequivocally.
What if I said there were a china teapot orbiting between mars and earth but it was too small to ever be seen by any of our most powerful telescopes?
It's right there, that's the general vicinity. As you can see from the image there are Over Nine Thousand rational people talking about the teapot on one site alone! No one can prove the teapot isn't there. I must be correct. This teapot is evidence of a galactic conspiracy to cause humanity to produce tea, the aliens will arrive soon to harvest the tea. The teapot is a beacon that detects our tea reserves! We must reduce the tea production to between 1% and 10% so that the evil tea craving aliens will not eradicate us all!
What more proof do you need? You probably have tea in your cupboard right now! This is a serious problem, you must believe me. We have to act. You can not prove this theory to be false. Think of the Women and Children! Is tea so important that we will risk our lives -- Nay! Our Civilization -- just to keep drinking it?! The teapot alien invasion is a far greater risk than sexism! We won't be around to debate sexism if we don't throw all our tea into the sea! We had to do this once before to save the planet. It's time we do so again.[footnote]This message brought to you by the Cthulhu Cult for Cephalopod Caffeination.[/footnote]
The burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary Evidence. That decisions are being based on gender alone is an unproven claim. If the decisions are not based on gender but on other criteria, it's not sexist.
- http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7qDd2i/www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-28-bioware-female-characters-will-follow-commercial-success. Again a link which proves nothing. It merely talks about "accepted wisdom". It doesn't prove said wisdom is wrong.
It talks about the mentality a lot of producers have. They won't support female protagonists only games until it has a financial success. Problem is, it's not likely to happen because virtually every game made by major industry names is made to sell in the millions, and be AAA, and they simply won't support the games with female protagonists they put out setting themselves up for failure.
It talks about the some producers. Not all of them, nor a random sampling that is representative of them all. You say "it's not likely to happen". What do you base this likelihood on? Couldn't a higher number of female game players in the market they're targeting cause their market research to indicate more female centered games would be profitable? If romance novels aren't sexist for pandering to females, then why is gaming sexist for pandering to males? Aren't you being sexist here? You're saying that women don't like games with male protagonists? Who is preventing games being made about females? No one is oppressing anyone here. If you spent the amount of time talking to game developers [http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php] as you do in these forums you could organize a kickstarter campaign and make a game with female protagonists in it.
The bottom line is: We don't have evidence to prove there is a problem. No one is preventing anyone from taking action to create the games with female protagonists. Without evidence you can not sway the minds of others.
Think. If you had evidence that there were some sexism in the game industry, do you think these sexists would change because of the evidence? The KKK wear white hoods and speak about the evils of blacks. Do you think you can collect enough evidence to prove that they are racist and cause them to change?
It's a vicious cycle, you see:
Game with female protagonist doesn't get marketed well, the game doesn't do well, it reinforces the stereotype that female protagonists don't do well, Game with female protagonist doesn't get marketed well, the game doesn't do well, it reinforces the stereotype that female protagonists don't do well, ad infinit.
Marketing does not directly result in the success of a game. Some games that aren't marketed well, and do quite well. These are just more speculations. Please. You seem smart enough and motivated. Focus on the Solution, not the Problem. You can never solve a problem without a solution! Get to making some female centered games. Even if all you can do is approve / disprove art and story elements, that would help, eh? There are game devs who hang out and say: Hey, I've got some time but no good ideas, what game should I make? Seriously, I'm not joking. Where are you? Go help them!
And that doesn't even include the other factors that a game can fail because of! Bad gameplay, bad writing, glitches, too niche, and so forth.
Every time a game fails it ALL gets blamed on the female protagonist. They're all getting condemned because of this.
Now wait just a minute. You're saying that every failed game with a female protagonist is blamed on the female protagonist? That's playing an infinite stack of victim cards.
Stop for just a second, I'm on your side: What would a compelling story having a female protagonist be like? Got an idea? Now, Execute on it, with Extreme Prejudice. What if I told you there were a bunch of forums where game developers just sat around talking about things like "What is left unexplored in writing?" [http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=26569.0], and looking to converse and spark cool ideas but you were wasting your time here instead?
What if you could make the game that broke the mold? You Can.
- Why would i give you a citation about a male protagonist being turned down for being expected to provide less sales? That would be shooting myself in the foot. The whole argument i'm making is that based on costumer demographics male protagonists are more likely to sell better and hence why publishers favor them. So why would i need to cite a source in which a male gets replace by a female?! What would that prove?
Simply put it'd prove that male protagonists have that decision made against them, too. But you can't, or won't provide such evidence. This means that the decision is leveled against female heroes exclusively. Hence the decision is made based on SEX, and thus SEXism.
Until male and female representation can stack up equally in terms of problems, there's no equality.
Until female representation is looked at in the same light as male representation, there's no equality.
And the way I see it, things are heavily unequal on the female sex.
Until men can have babies there will be no equality! No. This is silly. You're making a bunch of assumptions about the motives. We don't make any assumption without evidence. We don't have to provide evidence there is no sexism. Seriously. If you claim there is something, say sexism, then it is up to you to do an unbiased random sampling -- a survey of motives, tropes, etc. and prove your claim unequivocally.
What if I said there were a china teapot orbiting between mars and earth but it was too small to ever be seen by any of our most powerful telescopes?
It's right there, that's the general vicinity. As you can see from the image there are Over Nine Thousand rational people talking about the teapot on one site alone! No one can prove the teapot isn't there. I must be correct. This teapot is evidence of a galactic conspiracy to cause humanity to produce tea, the aliens will arrive soon to harvest the tea. The teapot is a beacon that detects our tea reserves! We must reduce the tea production to between 1% and 10% so that the evil tea craving aliens will not eradicate us all!
What more proof do you need? You probably have tea in your cupboard right now! This is a serious problem, you must believe me. We have to act. You can not prove this theory to be false. Think of the Women and Children! Is tea so important that we will risk our lives -- Nay! Our Civilization -- just to keep drinking it?! The teapot alien invasion is a far greater risk than sexism! We won't be around to debate sexism if we don't throw all our tea into the sea! We had to do this once before to save the planet. It's time we do so again.[footnote]This message brought to you by the Cthulhu Cult for Cephalopod Caffeination.[/footnote]
The burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary Evidence. That decisions are being based on gender alone is an unproven claim. If the decisions are not based on gender but on other criteria, it's not sexist.
1: First off, you again? Didn't we agree to stop this the last time we went around a few pages ago since none of us could change the other's opinions? We made our points. I thought it was over. I was glad it was over, honestly.
Am I that fun to argue with? Are you bored? I really hate arguing with bored people. You never did really elaborate why you picked a fight with me even though you're not opposed to female protagonists, though you did insist on me needing to convince you to make one. To which I replied that you shouldn't need convincing. I more or less said if you wanted to make one, make one. If you did there shouldn't be anyone in your way that wouldn't be in your way if there was a male protagonist instead.
2: Funny how you equate pregnancy as a "problem," nevermind a problem in the videogame industry on par with being told it's not even an option. And it's not like science isn't already working on a way for men to get pregnant, or at least theorizing about it. Wikipedia is a decent start on the whole topic if you're -really- interested.
Further, I'm certainly not trying to make men pregnant by a long shot even if it -was- relevant to the topic at hand.
I only looked it up since you brought it up. If a guy wants to get pregnant that's on him.
3: I'm not making assumptions. It's been talked about in interviews, it's been reported, it's out there. I've linked -you- to the incidents NUMEROUS times. I'm more willing to believe it happened than it didn't happen, and you already failed to convince me it hasn't before.
Women -are- facing problems differing, and I feel are more numerous, from men IN THE VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY... Which really has little to do with pregnancy. Few games even touch pregnancy, and I'm okay with that.
So you really went out there on this one. Zoomed way out of the point. Are we even on the same topic? I'm trying to stay rational, and focused on videogames, and here you are ... doing what you're doing.
4: He makes claims to the contrary, which -are- claims no matter how you slice it, which should be backed up beyond personal anecdotes. A level of anecdotesthat both you, and he dismiss, yet used. If he doesn't want to believe, and it's become really obvious I don't agree with him, it's time to pack it up, and move on. Find someone else that might be more agreeable. Here's some advice. Learn from history, and do the same.
- http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7qDd2i/www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-28-bioware-female-characters-will-follow-commercial-success. Again a link which proves nothing. It merely talks about "accepted wisdom". It doesn't prove said wisdom is wrong.
It talks about the mentality a lot of producers have. They won't support female protagonists only games until it has a financial success. Problem is, it's not likely to happen because virtually every game made by major industry names is made to sell in the millions, and be AAA, and they simply won't support the games with female protagonists they put out setting themselves up for failure.
It talks about the some producers. Not all of them, nor a random sampling that is representative of them all. You say "it's not likely to happen". What do you base this likelihood on? Couldn't a higher number of female game players in the market they're targeting cause their market research to indicate more female centered games would be profitable? If romance novels aren't sexist for pandering to females, then why is gaming sexist for pandering to males? Aren't you being sexist here? You're saying that women don't like games with male protagonists? Who is preventing games being made about females? No one is oppressing anyone here. If you spent the amount of time talking to game developers [http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php] as you do in these forums you could organize a kickstarter campaign and make a game with female protagonists in it.
The bottom line is: We don't have evidence to prove there is a problem. No one is preventing anyone from taking action to create the games with female protagonists. Without evidence you can not sway the minds of others.
Think. If you had evidence that there were some sexism in the game industry, do you think these sexists would change because of the evidence? The KKK wear white hoods and speak about the evils of blacks. Do you think you can collect enough evidence to prove that they are racist and cause them to change?
... It talks about some producers who won't support female protagonists, thus will likely prevent any female protagonists from appearing if they have any say in the matter.
I've provided links to games you both you, and generals3 where the female protagonist was replaced by a male one out of fear she'd harm profits, and more! It's more evidence than people have shown otherwise to try and convince me otherwise. They just make flimsy excuses, and defend the gaming industry. Blindly at times.
Why do I say it's not likely to happen? The links I offered, the talk of the "conventional wisdom" against female protagonists which isn't really questioned, they haven't done it already.
And, we're re-treading this? Am I saying women don't like male protagonists? Of course not. I like Batman enough to buy his games now and then. I liked John Marston from Red Dead Redemption even though I couldn't relate to him at all. I like Deadpool, so I have my eye on his upcoming game.
Thing is, I'm sure sooner or later a some women playing the male protagonists, swimming in a sea of games where they have no choice but to play as a male protagonist are going to wonder "Hey, why can't I be my own gender?"
I know I did! And it was well before the internet got into full swing.
When romance novels are actively saying "no" and try to interfere with a writer's desire to make a male PoV romance novel, and oppress the art of it, then YES, that's SEXISM. And like the gaming industry, I don't care -why- it happens, it's happening, and it's wrong.
If no one wants to create male PoV romance novels, I'm not going to force them to, nor would I force anyone to make a female prtagonist in a videogame lest I am in charge of the project. Funny thing is, there's people who wanted to make female protagonists, and had roadblocks put in front of them. Again, I've linked you to many examples the last time we talked. Way to ignore them! Female protagonists, and the people who want to create them -are- being oppressed.
That said, I don't want to talk about romance novels for several reasons:
1: I already did with someone else in another topic, and I don't want to retread it.
2: Any scenario involving it doesn't fly with me.
3: It has not a THING to do with this topic, being videogame related.
Also, thanks for the link. I had NO idea this existed, and am looking into it. Instead of bludgeoning me over the head with nonsense, you could've lead with that, and been much more helpful!
Kickstarter? We've been over this. I'll go over it again at the end of the post since you mention it there, too.
So the sexism in the game industry is on par with KKK menbers, now? I don't think it's -that- bad, though I'm fairly certain it exists. We have had some female protagonists which I think would be on par with the KKK allowing some members to be black.
Remember Me, and Last of Us is something of a success story I hope to see more of in the future. Where producers say "no," the developers can use leverage to get their way, or just go to another producer.
It's a vicious cycle, you see:
Game with female protagonist doesn't get marketed well, the game doesn't do well, it reinforces the stereotype that female protagonists don't do well, Game with female protagonist doesn't get marketed well, the game doesn't do well, it reinforces the stereotype that female protagonists don't do well, ad infinit.
Marketing does not directly result in the success of a game. Some games that aren't marketed well, and do quite well. These are just more speculations. Please. You seem smart enough and motivated. Focus on the Solution, not the Problem. You can never solve a problem without a solution! Get to making some female centered games. Even if all you can do is approve / disprove art and story elements, that would help, eh? There are game devs who hang out and say: Hey, I've got some time but no good ideas, what game should I make? Seriously, I'm not joking. Where are you? Go help them!
Marketing can help overcome bad reviews (which are opinions, and not gospel), and help people actually know the game exists, and what it's like. 2 things I feel are really important.
Not everyone has a solid internet connection, the drive to keep their fingers on the pulse of gaming, cable, the care to see what's going on at events like the GDC, or E3. The most information they might get is word of mouth in person, or television.
There's no doubt a vast majority of people who have no idea "Remember Me," a game out now, exists. They sure as heck weren't aware of it when footage was shown in assorted sources like Jimquisition.
It's certainly not the end all, and be all, but to deny it is important to success in some cases?
Sure, there's Minecraft which is about all I know of that actually made it without TV commercials, and such, but it's part of an incredibly small minority of games that did.
And I'll get to the whole "make your own game" thing at the end of the post. Bear with me.
And that doesn't even include the other factors that a game can fail because of! Bad gameplay, bad writing, glitches, too niche, and so forth.
Every time a game fails it ALL gets blamed on the female protagonist. They're all getting condemned because of this.
Now wait just a minute. You're saying that every failed game with a female protagonist is blamed on the female protagonist? That's playing an infinite stack of victim cards.
Stop for just a second, I'm on your side: What would a compelling story having a female protagonist be like? Got an idea? Now, Execute on it, with Extreme Prejudice. What if I told you there were a bunch of forums where game developers just sat around talking about things like "What is left unexplored in writing?" [http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=26569.0], and looking to converse and spark cool ideas but you were wasting your time here instead?
What if you could make the game that broke the mold? You Can.
[/quote]
Essentially, yes, I am saying the game industry is blaming a game's failing on the female protagonist regardless of anything else. That whole "conventional wisdom" thing, the links that state that some producers are actively against female protagonists, the dearth of female protagonists in general, the lack of agency the female protagonists get, and such do point towards the conclusion as far as I'm concerned. If not, it may as well be for all the good it's doing.
If it did not exist, then a female protagonist would not be singled out for change, would it? If you want evidence that they are being singled out, look a few pages back, will ya?
And, now, the whole thing about why I'm not making my own game, even though I've been over this with several other people in this very thread:
Do you really belive I have the talent to do such a thing? You don't know me, my talents, or my skills, where I am, my financial situation, my resources for videogame making, my connections to people with the talent, etc.
My laptop is sub-ar (a 4.1 rating on windows, and through experience with it), I don't know anyone with the artistic talent to make videogame graphics, I don't have the financial income, I don't grasp code all too well, and I don't even have a clear vision of what I want!
Hell, you don't even remember arguing with me on the matter for several pages less than what, A week or two ago?
That said who am I to start a kickstarter? For anything? I'm not known by anyone. I have nothing to back up why people should believe in me beyond the passion on the subject at hand.
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, rather I'm misnathropic) for crying out loud! Hell, I wouldn't even trust myself to lead a parade, nevermind a kickstarter.
I know full well I can be pretty damn unreliable on top of that.
I'm pretty ill equipped for the whole kickstarter route.
If I were to make a game, yes, I'd want the game to be amazing, and mold breaking. Infact I'd want it to be -amazing-, and AAA worthy.
I'd want the dudebros to envy the hell out of the game for what it is, and want to play it, and possibly even play it despite having no option other than to play as a woman.
I would certainly hope to have strong reasons why my female protagonist can't be switched out for a male protagonist since I really don't want that to happen. I'd be gutted if my ideas were used on yet another game where you have to be a guy.
I want it to be the financial success that shatters the "conventional wisdom" that women as a hero in their own game aren't profitable!
I'm not too sure an indie game can handle that, though, but hell, you provided some resources, I'll give it a try, and not even for the fame of it, or the money, but just to see what I can do.
I certainly hope that more people in the future provide resources to actually be helpful as opposed to simply say "make your own game!" in an effort to shut someone up, and pretend it's that easy. Those people ignoring the untold numbers of failed indie games.
IMO, used in malice too often, the whole notion of one "making your own game" can become tarnished, seen as a cop-out, and used as a weapon by people defending the status quo for what ever reason to silence the people who speak out against the game industry.
Like I did, LuisGuimaraes who took note of our debate, I thank you, too, for actually giving some help in the matter as opposed to basically telling me to make my own game and leaving me at that... even though you essentially did that last time we debated the matter.
Honestly, like gamejams I had no idea something like this link existed, period. To the point that I didn't even consider looking for it, nevermind how to look for it.
Still, I've so many real reasons I can't make my own game that I can't list them all off the top of my head, but thanks to you, I can offer some help to others in the matter. I do appreciate it.
Now to get by this unspecefied error that's preventing me from registering.
Nevermind, I got it after some reasearch.
[snips]
Simply put it'd prove that male protagonists have that decision made against them, too. But you can't, or won't provide such evidence. This means that the decision is leveled against female heroes exclusively. Hence the decision is made based on SEX, and thus SEXism.
Until male and female representation can stack up equally in terms of problems, there's no equality.
Until female representation is looked at in the same light as male representation, there's no equality.
And the way I see it, things are heavily unequal on the female sex.
VortexCortex said:
Until men can have babies there will be no equality! No. This is silly.
I would like to thank you sincerely for your insight into the female perspective. You've helped me to bridge the gap I was grappling with in trying to come to grips with why females are under represented in the game industry.
I've been pushing for more female inclusion, and insisting that females were not being oppressed. I see oppression as an act that unfairly takes the labor or lives of a subset of people and does not give them a fair reward.
My position is that since no one is preventing women from being in the game industry, and that what few women do make a job of game development find it as difficult and rewarding as men do, that women aren't being oppressed.
However, after further examination, and careful consideration of your response I think I see the issue far more clearly now.
Rebel_Raven said:
VortexCortex said:
The burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary Evidence. That decisions are being based on gender alone is an unproven claim. If the decisions are not based on gender but on other criteria, it's not sexist.
1: First off, you again? Didn't we agree to stop this the last time we went around a few pages ago since none of us could change the other's opinions? We made our points. I thought it was over. I was glad it was over, honestly.
Am I that fun to argue with? Are you bored?
Please don't think we can't change each other's minds, you've caused many changes in my mind, and I change yours even if only in a small way when you understand these words. I do find you interesting to debate with, and, no, you're not boring at all, quite the opposite is true.
I'm just saying that we shouldn't shame the entire game industry. Perhaps go after individual instances of sexism that there is evidence for? How do you think we could engage the publishers that are being sexist? For the more general female representation issue I think there is another problem than just sexist publishers...
Rebel_Raven said:
You never did really elaborate why you picked a fight with me even though you're not opposed to female protagonists, though you did insist on me needing to convince you to make one. To which I replied that you shouldn't need convincing. I more or less said if you wanted to make one, make one. If you did there shouldn't be anyone in your way that wouldn't be in your way if there was a male protagonist instead.
I believe the reason humans have all the technology they do is because of this one instinct:
- An observation in opposition to one's belief is worth exploring.
I think we're having a back and forth because we've both observed something about the game industry that is in opposition to our belief about it. We must explore this. For Science!
Rebel_Raven said:
2: Funny how you equate pregnancy as a "problem," nevermind a problem in the videogame industry on par with being told it's not even an option.
I find your choice of words interesting. I didn't mention pregnancy as a problem, but I really wanted a female's perspective on the situation. It seems you're quite right: The "Problem" is that pregnancy in the videogame industry isn't even an option!
I admit that my initial statements were a bit tricky: "Until men can have babies there will be no equality! No. This is silly." This is a rhetorical device I use to get people thinking about something deeply; I call this a Quantum Entangled Ironic Pairing.
The construction is thus: Two possibly related statements where the second is ambiguous and may be taken as in reference to the first or to some other statement ('male pregnancy is silly' vs 'your statements are silly'); The first statement can be taken as ironic or not ironic (male pregnancy being a requirement for gender equality). This has a good chance of causing high cognitive load because the ironic superposition can not be collapsed to determine if the statements were being serious or not without additional information. Ambiguity of the second increases the potency of the first without collapsing the quantum ironic field. The effect is proportional to the degree of difference in ridiculousness and seriousness when considered true vs false.
I'm sorry for being a bit tricky, but I think it was important since it was the primary rhetorical device you latched onto.
I was half joking in that it would be silly to think we can't have equal rights if only women have babies, but I was also serious in that having babies is the cause of many equality issues and the primary cause of gender roles. Pregnancy issues are also most important to the deepest levels of our ancient minds.
And it's not like science isn't already working on a way for men to get pregnant, or at least theorizing about it. Wikipedia is a decent start on the whole topic if you're -really- interested.
Indeed. Stem cell research is amazing too. Some day the poor folks with gender dissonance may actually get fully functional sexual organs with their sex change operations. Retroviruses can even change a person's DNA and allow them to produce proper hormones naturally. This is beside the point, however. The important thing is that we started thinking about the issue of parenting in relation to the game industry.
Further, I'm certainly not trying to make men pregnant by a long shot even if it -was- relevant to the topic at hand.
I only looked it up since you brought it up. If a guy wants to get pregnant that's on him.
Interesting point. Isn't the fact that men in the game industry don't get pregnant VERY relevant to this topic? What would change in the game industry if half those men did get pregnant? Which is another way of saying: What would be the implication of having an equal 50/50 women and men percentage among workers in the game industry?
3: I'm not making assumptions. It's been talked about in interviews, it's been reported, it's out there. I've linked -you- to the incidents NUMEROUS times. I'm more willing to believe it happened than it didn't happen, and you already failed to convince me it hasn't before.
The assumption I was getting at is that you seem to think the problem is caused by men, whereas I think the problem is caused by the lack of women. Being a naturally competitive male who can't have babies I just couldn't get my head around why the game industry wasn't at least half full of women (or more, since they excel in liberal arts). It's not like anyone is keeping women out of the game industry, right? They have the opportunity to work there just the same as men do. This belief is seemingly in conflict with some subconscious observations...
Women -are- facing problems differing, and I feel are more numerous, from men IN THE VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY... Which really has little to do with pregnancy. Few games even touch pregnancy, and I'm okay with that.
I always take notice where people use words like "I feel". The wisdom of feelings is underrated among most rational thinkers, but not me. People who ignore feelings and only focus on logic are fools. Feelings are our earliest and strongest memories, encoded in our genes through evolution. Feelings are inherently rational because evolution found the emotional responses to be beneficial far more often than not, i.e., feelings are statistically significant subconscious reasoning which must be taken as seriously as logic to achieve maximum progress.
Note: I'm over explaining my thought processes not because I think them important to you, but for the benefit of any who might read this not thinking emotions have any place in logical decision making.
I know you meant to distinguish videogame industry from the romance novel industry, but what's more important is the fact you capitalized the words. This is an indication of emotionally charged words -- Emotions are how our ancestor's genetic imperatives make themselves known to us. Our feelings are the wisdom of the ancient ones who first felt them, and they were handed down to us from one generation to the next over millions of years. Feelings are the birthright of all humans.
So you really went out there on this one. Zoomed way out of the point. Are we even on the same topic? I'm trying to stay rational, and focused on videogames, and here you are ... doing what you're doing.
Well, I apologize. I assure you I'm being sincere with you. Sometimes you have to cast a wide net and see what turns up. The teapot alien was a reference to a famous logical argument first made by Bertrand Russell [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot]. Although I seem silly sometimes, it's just a ruse; I actually take you very seriously because women can think in ways that are hard for me to consider. I rely on women for a woman's perspective because it's usually a different outlook than my own. It's not sexist, it's just human nature because of our sexually dimorphic ancestry -- We share a common ancestor with chimps at about six million years ago. We were once as they are now: A territorial tournament species where males compete with each other to win mates, and females value the social status of males when considering mates... We're very different now, but those instincts are still with us in the back of our minds, literally: thalamus and amygdala, esp.
Considering a female perspective, it seems there could be a problem with the territory of the video game industry that women might feel strongly about.
If he doesn't want to believe, and it's become really obvious I don't agree with him, it's time to pack it up, and move on. Find someone else that might be more agreeable. Here's some advice. Learn from history, and do the same.
So that got me thinking about history, and specifically about women entering predominantly male workplaces, and the implications that entails; I went looking for similarities to the game industry.
Because Feminism has its roots in communism it trains us to focus on fighting against those we perceive are in positions of power. However, Feminism's core flaw is that for every powerful man it spotlights as a target at the top of society, it shamefully ignores a million men at the bottom of society. Feminists typically don't cry out for equal representation in jobs at the bottom of the social ladder; They point at a glass ceiling and ignore the glass cellar upon which they stand.
Think of all the really crappy, dirty and dangerous jobs. Coal Miners, Garbage Collectors, Brick Layers, Lumber Jacks, Plumbers and Sewage Treatment Technicians, Janitors, etc. They're male dominated jobs too. Women don't typically want those jobs, but they are necessary to fill, so men do them. These jobs are hard, and largely thankless, many are so physically demanding that a woman wouldn't be advised to do the work while they were pregnant. Women can do these jobs as well as men, but our genetic wisdom causes us to instinctively protect women and children from danger at all costs -- which isn't sexist, it's survival of the species, evolution.
During the first world war women entered the workplace and filled many jobs left by the men who went to war. The women performed above and beyond the call of duty but some jobs like factory work were dangerous and hard. Factory work had always been dangerous, but it wasn't until women entered those positions that we demanded higher workplace safety standards, and won better workers rights for both men and women factory workers through our ancient and wise instinct to protect women...
Rebel_Raven said:
- http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7qDd2i/www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-28-bioware-female-characters-will-follow-commercial-success. Again a link which proves nothing. It merely talks about "accepted wisdom". It doesn't prove said wisdom is wrong.
It talks about the mentality a lot of producers have. They won't support female protagonists only games until it has a financial success.
Problem is, it's not likely to happen because virtually every game made by major industry names is made to sell in the millions, and be AAA, and they simply won't support the games with female protagonists they put out setting themselves up for failure.
Well, I think that if there were more female game developers and producers then the problem would just solve itself. So, why is it that there aren't many women game developers? Women and men are on equal footing when it comes to being clever and creative.
Rebel_Raven said:
Am I saying women don't like male protagonists? Of course not. I like Batman enough to buy his games now and then. I liked John Marston from Red Dead Redemption even though I couldn't relate to him at all. I like Deadpool, so I have my eye on his upcoming game.
Thing is, I'm sure sooner or later a some women playing the male protagonists, swimming in a sea of games where they have no choice but to play as a male protagonist are going to wonder "Hey, why can't I be my own gender?"
I know I did! And it was well before the internet got into full swing.
Well, men are genetically predisposed to be competitive and warrior like. If we look at the armed forces, we'll find mostly men, especially on the front lines. Art usually reflects life, even in works of fiction. I do agree that games are a different beast. Games include the player so we need to be more considerate about who the players are, and how they'll feel in the roles we script them in.
Here are some of my favorite games over the years.
Jill of the Jungle
You play as a strong female protagonist to rescue the helpless Prince.
Lunar - Silver Star Story - Complete (ps1)
Oh man, I LOVE this JRPG, Luna's singing made such an impression on me, she really makes this game.
The cast has plenty of important female characters, you play everyone through the course of it.
One Must Fall - Female robot pilots? Yep.
Spin Jam - Addictive puzzle game. A female boxer, super intelligent baby, even a Furry in a costume in there.
My ultimate favorite competitive arcade game: Virtual On.
Even has pink and blue seats, and both 'male' and 'female' fighting robots.
Two female characters on the cover. It's been over a decade since I played it so I don't remember the names, but the dark armored women dragoon was my best and favorite character.
Damn that's a big hammer.
Super Puzzle Fighter 2 (turbo) -- Also Streetfighter, and Mortal Kombat, female characters. Darksiders, etc.
I didn't cherry pick, these were the first games that my random-game-selector program spit out from among my favorites collection (excluding a couple ASCII text games like LoRD and Zork). The full list has plenty of 8 bit and 16 bit and modern AAA games and indie games too... I could go on, and on, but I'd say at the very least half of the games have a female protagonists or female playable characters, most have at least strong female characters, and the rest are split between a single male lead or just don't have humans.
Maybe that just says something about me and the games I like to play? I never really wondered why I couldn't play as the prince in Jill of the Jungle. Don't get me wrong, I agree there need to be more females in games, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the game industry I know being overtly sexist against females. That's not to say some publishers aren't discriminating, but I just think it's possible there could be some other explanations too since in the past the industry was even more heavily saturated with male game developers, and they didn't seem to have a problem with females in games.
Rebel_Raven said:
When romance novels are actively saying "no" and try to interfere with a writer's desire to make a male PoV romance novel, and oppress the art of it, then YES, that's SEXISM. And like the gaming industry, I don't care -why- it happens, it's happening, and it's wrong.
Well, IMO, a few 'No's wouldn't necessarily mean folks were being sexist. It would have to be a repeated theme of a studio, not a bunch of different examples from different studios. We'd need to do a survey of the number of times someone wanted to put strong female characters / protagonists into games vs the number of times they were denied. Maybe such a thing could be proposed? I wouldn't know who to contact, maybe someone at GDC [http://www.gdconf.com/] could run such an anonymous survey? Oddly, I feel they'd actually be more receptive if it were a woman asking them to do it.
Rebel_Raven said:
Again, I've linked you to many examples the last time we talked. Way to ignore them! Female protagonists, and the people who want to create them -are- being oppressed.
Oh, I didn't ignore them. I just didn't comment about them specifically. I'd need an actual study before I start calling people sexist outright, because libel laws could be used against me and false accusations could kill my software business and livelihood. It's not that I think you're wrong, just that I don't know either way, so I'm trying to focus on finding a safe solution.
Game devs always want to put more stuff in games than they have time for, there's never enough time, bugs always get left in, features always get cut. In fact, they have to work like mad, sometimes for months at a time 7 days a week, 80+ hours a week, it really sucks!
Also, thanks for the link. I had NO idea this existed, and am looking into it. Instead of bludgeoning me over the head with nonsense, you could've lead with that, and been much more helpful!
You may also enjoy the gamedev subreddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/], and especially check the side bar for engines, resources, and other communities. Good place to ask questions about gamedev problems, programming bugs, mechanics and story, or just to engage the game dev community and ask them to put some strong female roles in their games.
Gamedev.net [http://www.gamedev.net/page/getstarted.html] is decent, but they can be pretty abrasive at times, it's not a gender thing but a pompous "know-it-all" thing; They're getting better.
Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/] has lots of in-depth articles by industry veterans.
Not everyone has a solid internet connection, the drive to keep their fingers on the pulse of gaming, cable, the care to see what's going on at events like the GDC, or E3. The most information they might get is word of mouth in person, or television.
Hmm, you might check out ScreenShotSaturday.com [http://screenshotsaturday.com/] they pull from twitter's #screenshotsaturday and reddit has a dedicated thread once a week on saturday to show off progress and get a bit of attention. If you give feedback it's always appreciated.
Rock Paper Shotgun [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/] does a weekly summary of select interesting indie's (usually) and Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/] picks up on things from #screenshotsaturday sometimes too. Of course folks can just hit up #screenshotsaturday on Twitter [https://twitter.com/search?q=%23screenshotsaturday] directly. IMO, indies are probably most receptive and are going to take over everything anyway now that publishers are obsolete: Publishers don't add any value to the game, really, and we can now fund game devs directly via Kickstarer or Indiegogo [http://www.indiegogo.com/], etc. I think croudfunding is a better model because it gives gamers a chance to give feedback on the games during development, and the projects that don't get funded are just crappy games that no one would buy anyway (so devs don't waste time making crap games). Kickstarter is basically free advertizing and market research, sooo, yeah, I think traditional publishers are going to have a hard time keeping up as this stuff snowballs. MS better wise up.
The point is: It's an exciting time for gamers. There's tons of opportunity. A Girl Gamedev Group could really kick some ass, IMO.
Rebel_Raven said:
Essentially, yes, I am saying the game industry is blaming a game's failing on the female protagonist regardless of anything else. That whole "conventional wisdom" thing, the links that state that some producers are actively against female protagonists, the dearth of female protagonists in general, the lack of agency the female protagonists get, and such do point towards the conclusion as far as I'm concerned. If not, it may as well be for all the good it's doing.
If it did not exist, then a female protagonist would not be singled out for change, would it? If you want evidence that they are being singled out, look a few pages back, will ya?
Speaking of being singled out, maybe those publishers or studios need to be singled out. I think petitioning them to get more women in their ranks and on the covers of the game would help. If nothing else it could show them how many gamer girls and guys actually do want to play female protagonists. Even an open letter endorsed by a bunch of folks might turn the heads of those greedy bastards. Really, their market research is so bad and they're so stupidly secret about everything that they don't have a good dialog with gamers -- I think they've still got a dumb view of the game industry from the 90's where the playerbase WAS just a sausage fest.... but they managed to get good female roles in a good portion of the games I played back then, so it all just seems odd to me.
Rebel_Raven said:
And, now, the whole thing about why I'm not making my own game, even though I've been over this with several other people in this very thread:
Do you really belive I have the talent to do such a thing? You don't know me, my talents, or my skills, where I am, my financial situation, my resources for videogame making, my connections to people with the talent, etc.
My laptop is sub-ar (a 4.1 rating on windows, and through experience with it), I don't know anyone with the artistic talent to make videogame graphics, I don't have the financial income, I don't grasp code all too well, and I don't even have a clear vision of what I want!
If I were to make a game, yes, I'd want the game to be amazing, and mold breaking. Infact I'd want it to be -amazing-, and AAA worthy.
Yeah, but I think you're underestimating yourself. If you did have time to make a game you probably could. Folks have to work up to AAA levels over time, so my advice to folks just starting out is always to start with something very small and simple first and make the next game a bit bigger and make a series of increasingly more challenging to create projects. Going all in on something huge is usually folly unless you've got some veterans on the team. Collaboration threads on TIGSource are a good place to find folks with art or music or programming skills, even folks just looking to do stuff to get experience. There's also classifieds on gamedev.net.
I've got a 6 year old laptop that I use for playtesting games as my 'minimum system requirement' rig. Since my code is cross platform (linux,mac,windows) I sometimes do some quick coding [http://www.geany.org/Download/Releases] and compiling [http://www.mingw.org/] and even 3D modeling [http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/] on it instead of going back and forth between my main dev machine. It doesn't take a beastly machine to make even moderately demanding games. Hell, the current gen consoles are pretty craptacular compared to even an older PC.
Everyone has to start somewhere, I always start with tetris when I pick up a new programming language, it's got all the very basics covered (input, animation, sound, etc). Once I've got the tools all working and the bases covered, I just start over and experiment with stuff and see if something fun comes out. Lots of games, like Portal, started out as just an abstract accidental experimental mechanic and then everything grows organically from that. "Portal Engine" was a whole class of game engines from the 90's, a rendering technique for connecting areas without noticeable seams, but in Portal the game (then Narbacular Drop) they just tried to use the rendering engine feature as an actual game mechanic...
Rebel_Raven said:
IMO, used in malice too often, the whole notion of one "making your own game" can become tarnished, seen as a cop-out, and used as a weapon by people defending the status quo for what ever reason to silence the people who speak out against the game industry.
Like I did, LuisGuimaraes who took note of our debate, I thank you, too, for actually giving some help in the matter as opposed to basically telling me to make my own game and leaving me at that... even though you essentially did that last time we debated the matter.
Honestly, like gamejams I had no idea something like this link existed, period. To the point that I didn't even consider looking for it, nevermind how to look for it.
Still, I've so many real reasons I can't make my own game that I can't list them all off the top of my head, but thanks to you, I can offer some help to others in the matter. I do appreciate it.
Then I got to thinking: What sorts of problems would keep women from becoming game developers? The fact that Men Don't Get Pregnant! Or, more specifically: Women Do. I think that's the core of the problem right there. The AAA game industry mostly SUCKS to work in for Everyone! [http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html] Just like the dangerous and difficult factory jobs before there were any women factory workers, game developers have really bad working conditions!
Humanity's ancestors were territorial. Our feelings inform us what areas feel safe, and also warn us to leave a place if there's some sort of danger or when we're doing things that are stressing us out too badly. First and foremost our instincts uphold that prime directive: Protect Women and Children. Procreation is what matters most to our hind-brains.
I believed that women had just as fair a shot at making games as men do in the AAA game industry, but my subconscious observed some contradiction that was worth exploring -- A fact I knew that just didn't match up with my belief. My feeling that things are more complex than simple sexism stems from the fact that the game industry is a hostile working environment for raising kids.
I think the ultimate solution to the problem of female representation in games would be to make the working conditions in AAA games better for family life and more friendly for female (and male) game developers: Publishers have to stop the crap that is "crunch time". I'm sure the publishers know how planning works [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy]. The Publishers are being oppressive pricks... Right? The folks making the games are working really hard, but they're not getting the benefit of a safe and comfortable worklife, or job security. Because of the way Publishers take big gambles with the future of the studios it's destroying the game industry with worker churn, and driving down the pay grade as well. Crunch time isn't really needed, they just cut production costs so damn close that it makes their budgets too tight. IMO, game devs need a union.
If you keep pulling the kind of shit that Publishers get away with in any other business, then all the workers will revolt or leave. Why would anyone agree to work under these horrible conditions? Because the bright light of interactive art draws humanity like moths to a flame. Every new expressive communicative power has had the same effect in the past. Right now if you want to make the biggest boldest brainiest games, and contribute to the active cultural mind (as opposed to the ancestral one), then folks have to put up with the crap the Publishers dish out. That needs to change.
To me it seems everything wrong between women and the game industry actually does have to do with pregnancy and raising kids. No doctor in their right mind would agree that a pregnant women should work under those conditions. Women can't just take off for 9 months because the job is needlessly stressful. The sad thing is, overworked folks perform like shit [http://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer]. Having well rested folks would probably increase their productivity rather than pushing people so hard like they do in "crunch time". It's almost like they want to get every last drop of energy out so folks will be glad when they get laid off after the game is done...
To fix the problem with representation of women in games, we might have to advocate for those mens' rights first. We need to pressure publishers to stop being slave drivers! I'm not sure how to make that happen, but maybe we could point out the fact that their workplace is so hostile that no sensible women could justify it as a career if she ever plans to have kids. If it's destroying the family-lives of men, it would be even worse for women: I mean, it would be nearly impossible for a single mother to work those crunch-time hours.
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But yeah, they're a small sliver of the gaming world that does well for not being a violent set of games.
