Tropes vs Women SECOND VIDEO - "Damsel in Distress: Part 2"

[klaynexas3]

Here's my major beef with her videos so far. She gives plenty of evidence that the trope exists, but then when she actually starts to even allude to a point, she jumps to her next part about the trope or a related trope. When it finally ends, I have no idea what her major point was, besides maybe that the industry lacks creativity. We got evidence last time, and had she done her job well, that evidence should have sufficed. It didn't because most of it was talking about just a few select series, so we got more evidence this time instead of a legitimate point. We could watch this video as a part 1, forget the last one, and most likely get the idea of the part in the series in which we actually get a total point to it all(which I'm doubting will be any time soon). Seriously Anita, I can't agree or disagree with your damn point until you get to the damn point.

 

[Eddie the head]

I've noticed something weird: the universe doesn't alter itself to make what I think less correct when I casually insult someone. Freaky, right?

What you mean like ignoring what I said, doesn't make what I said wrong? You're still using an "ad hominem" fallacy witch doesn't help your point at all. And your still being confrontational witch causes people to become stronger in there options. So at best you're not helping and at worst you're a causing harm to your own cause.

You're correct to say it doesn't make you any less right, but your not demonstrating your right with ad hominem attacks.

 

[LetalisK]

What about the post above mine where he claims that because one person didn't like the video he's going to worry for our species and where he also claimed any hate for the video would be irrational?

He was not pointing out to one person in that post, and in fact recognized their comment was tongue-in-cheek and actually in support of what would be considered his "side". Now, I would also point out that it's possible to be angry against irrational hatred for something, particularly when the subject at hand is the those that mass report a video because they disagree with it, without being angry at those that disagree but don't go to such lengths. However, I would admit I am also confused at this point how far he takes this demonization, as indicated by my previous post. Though, I think it is ultimately irrelevant as he is far from the only person in the chat who can and/or has attempted to start a conversation. The discussion is there, it's up to you whether or not you're going to throw the whole thread away as a lost cause or engage with someone. Perhaps I'll start this off with a question.

Did you find the examples she used in the video to be outliers of trends in gaming story telling? Can you think of a good game that involves women as non-protagonists but don't feature them in the Damsel in Distress trope or some variant thereof? I also ask this out of personal interest because, mind you, I'm not one to think Damsel in Distress is an inherently bad thing, it's simply a writing tool. My main complaint with it, if any, would be its overuse and I prefer a breadth of stories.

 

[generals3]

Can you think of a good game that involves women as non-protagonists but don't feature them in the Damsel in Distress trope or some variant thereof?

While one example doesn't prove anything (and i myself am not refuting the use of tropes) but a very popular game that comes to mind is MGS. Meryl in MGS4 is an independent character which only had to be saved in one instance (when her nanomachines were controlled by psycho mantis)(and after that she was in charge of keeping the enemies away from Snake so it kind of even outs). Naomi herself played on all sides and while at first she may have appeared as a damsel in distress it was all a little game she played to manipulate Snake and Otacon. But i guess my example also shows a typical problem with the tropes. The tropes are usually used to give a meaning to a story in a simplistic manner, MGS being extremely story intensive it doesn't need to rely on easy-to-make tropes to give meaning to the story. I guess what people should lobby for are less simplistic plots.

 

[NihilSinLulz]

I really liked this video and look forward to the third one. Truth be told, I wasn't a fan of her previous YT material as I felt it was lazy and lacked depth. However, I was impressed by her first Tropes v. Women in video games episode as it was clear she did her homework though my only complaint is that it felt too introductory and added nothing to the broader discussion. This one was just right A lot of great examples, good analysis and some interesting points. As I said, I look forward to the third video.

 

[ItouKaiji]

I thought the video was well put together and had some interesting points, but most of those points didn't make me think about sexism or misogyny, but think that story telling in gaming just kind of sucks right now. I'd probably have more to say but the last few minutes of the video where she even states she doesn't think it's anything malicious and generally gives a more balanced view clears up any concerns I had while watching it. And I don't really think anything she pointed out is anything more than developers using cheap devices to get a knee jerk emotional response out of players and the only response that gets out me is a wish for better writing in games which would be good for everyone.

 

[klaynexas3]

Did you find the examples she used in the video to be outliers of trends in gaming story telling? Can you think of a good game that involves women as non-protagonists but don't feature them in the Damsel in Distress trope or some variant thereof? I also ask this out of personal interest because, mind you, I'm not one to think Damsel in Distress is an inherently bad thing, it's simply a writing tool. My main complaint with it, if any, would be its overuse and I prefer a breadth of stories.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'd like to participate in discussion also, so I'll take it upon myself to start a discussion rather than wait.

As an answer, I can think of a good game series that avoids the trope relatively well. The Jak and Daxter series. While I cannot remember entirely, I can only recall two points in all the games(and I'm only talking about the trilogy, not the other ones) in which you are actually out to even help a girl. One of the times you don't even know it's a woman until after the fact, and she either kicks some ass or saves yours during the encounter(memory is a bit fuzzy). The second time you only go to help out, and she helps too. Hell, at the points when there are legitimate kidnappings, it's happening either old men, and a woman is a part of the kidnapping, and the other time the hero himself is held captive, to only escape two years later after being rescued by a rodent. If there are any blatant moments in the games with the trope in it, please tell me as I may have missed those, but for the most part the series well avoided that trope.

 

[LetalisK]

Can you think of a good game that involves women as non-protagonists but don't feature them in the Damsel in Distress trope or some variant thereof?

While one example doesn't prove anything (and i myself am not refuting the use of tropes) but a very popular game that comes to mind is MGS. Meryl in MGS4 is an independent character which only had to be saved in one instance (when her nanomachines were controlled by psycho mantis)(and after that she was in charge of keeping the enemies away from Snake so it kind of even outs). Naomi herself played on all sides and while at first she may have appeared as a damsel in distress it was all a little game she played to manipulate Snake and Otacon. But i guess my example also shows a typical problem with the tropes. The tropes are usually used to give a meaning to a story in a simplistic manner, MGS being extremely story intensive it doesn't need to rely on easy-to-make tropes to give meaning to the story. I guess what people should lobby for are less simplistic plots.

I've never played the MGS series besides a long time ago when I was younger and I don't remember it much besides the camera alarm sound, so I can't really speak to this example. However, it's a side-topic, but would you recommend the MGS series for play today? Do all the games hold up or are there some that should be skipped?

Also, as far as this particular trope not being used, I would put up the Mass Effect series, which I have the feeling is going to cause consternation among some simply because it's Mass Effect, but since I'm about to go do laundry and go running, I'll get more into it when I get back. To give a short synopsis, I find that the games do some things that appear to be damsel in distressy, but either it's just a facade or it slips in and out of it in a way that makes it so it's not really being used as a trope.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I thought this video was excellent. She backed up her points with plenty of examples. I liked how she said that this trope isn't good for men either because it tends to normalize men using violence to overcome the feeling of being powerless.

I don't know if I would say excellent, considering she made only one real point and spent most of the time showing examples of it. What would be helpful is if in each video she at least provided her thoughts on how to improve the situation in general. Seeing as how we're probably in for a couple of months wait on it, because so far some people seem to think she's just targeting them and telling them off for using the trope (I get the feeling she thinks it shouldn't exist at all, that there's no place for it.) or playing games that have it and not at least addressing on how to improve it along the way.

If I recall, because her kick-starter got such a huge amount, she added to her list of videos one on the positive side of things. I still get the impression she more or less wants a one sided discussion, saying "This is bad, so you should feel bad if you have liked any of it." blocking comments is a surefire way to make people feel that way. Not addressing criticisms on her blog thingy, and instead deleting those comments is also is also not helping that at all.

 

[Batou667]

Just watched it. My first thought is that it doesn't need a trigger warning, it needs a damn spoiler warning. A whole fistful of games endings spoiled, many of them fairly recent, just to prop up Sarkeesian's often tenuous points. Not impressed.

Apart from that, I was fairly nonplussed. A few observations:

Almost all of the games that she casts her beady eye on this episode are unashamedly male power fantasies, almost all are action (read: violent) games, almost all are Teen/Mature/15/18 (whatever your classification is). And she then proceeds to berate them for being gory, violent, male power fantasies. Way to cherry-pick.

She notes that gaming doesn't exist within a vacuum - but fails to realise that this holds true both ways. Many of the games on her list can't help but reflect existing tropes as that's an integral part of their cultural legacy or source material. Max Payne is a homage to gritty noir films. Splatterhouse is a cheerfully OTT homage to the splatter genre of horror movies. These are games that exist to typify and reflect a genre, not to challenge stereotypes and push a progressive agenda.

She criticises that many video game damsels aren't real female characters in a meaningful sense, they're just stereotyped and two-dimensonal caricatures of femininity that serve as a plot device. I agree. But this also holds true for the male characters, often including the damn protagonist. Video games, especially FPS and action ones, aren't known for their intelligently and meaningfully-developed characters. Surely a "lifelong video game buff" like Sarkeesian realises this?

The ad-hoc suggestion that violence against women in games is in any way linked to domestic abuse is a cheap shot and needs a huge *CITATION REQUIRED* sign in flashing neon. I could use the same shitty logic to tar a genre with real-world grime to support an agenda. Watch:

The GTA series has sold nearly 100 million games[footnote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_%28series%29#Sales[/footnote] (look, I'm citing my sources and everything, that makes me a respected academic, right?). These games glorify car chases, speeding in urban areas and vehicular destruction. Every 30 seconds, somebody is killed in a road traffic accident[footnote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate[/footnote]. Is this OK? Is this amusing entertainment? We feminists condemn this "Automobile death culture" and encourage games that promote safe driving, following traffic signals, and maybe even exploring non-vehicular modes of transport. Here's a great indie game about walking on a sidewalk and only crossing the street at designated crossing points, doesn't it look fun! I wouldn't know as I haven't played the cruddy thing, but neither have 99% of my viewership so nobody will call me out on it. Oh yeah, here's the donate button, peace out motherf*ckers, see you in another two months.

She calls the damsel trope an "easy default motivation" for the male protagonist. Yes, that's exactly what it is. However I don't agree with her conclusion that this taps into the male player's "desire" to possess, control, beat up or otherwise Patriarchally oppress women - isn't it more reasonable to think that maybe it provides the protagonist with a context for embarking on the perilous adventure (because caring about and wanting to protect your loved ones is, y'know, quite admirable) and handily demarcates the villain (because kidnap and murder are quite clearly bad things to do). It's like the lazy old gaming fallback of having the enemies be Nazis. Or zombies. Or Nazi zombies. It's a trope - storytelling shorthand - that allows the game to dispense with the grand backstory and character development and just let us get on with popping caps in asses. In a more story-driven game Sarkeesian might have a point. But in an action game? Expect the story and characters to be shitty, it's par for the course.

And finally - she's against "violence against women", but does she not realise the vast majority of violence in videogames is directed at males? She admits herself that in a game where the primary mechanic is shooting, slicing or punching, violence is going to be present. And if females are present then they're going to be part of that violent scenario (and of they weren't present, then you can guarantee she'd level charges of under-representation).

Perhaps the problem is that Sarkeesian is talking about a genre of games she just plain doesn't like - she's against male power fantasy, she's against violence - and she's unfairly finding ways to weave her own agenda in while criticising something that she just isn't the target audience of. She phrases almost all her "suggestions" in the negative (stop doing this, less of that) and presents scant few actual positive examples. But hey, I guess that's coming in Part 3.

 

[Erttheking]

What about the post above mine where he claims that because one person didn't like the video he's going to worry for our species and where he also claimed any hate for the video would be irrational?

He was not pointing out to one person in that post, and in fact recognized their comment was tongue-in-cheek and actually in support of what would be considered his "side". Now, I would also point out that it's possible to be angry against irrational hatred for something, particularly when the subject at hand is the those that mass report a video because they disagree with it, without being angry at those that disagree but don't go to such lengths. However, I would admit I am also confused at this point how far he takes this demonization, as indicated by my previous post. Though, I think it is ultimately irrelevant as he is far from the only person in the chat who can and/or has attempted to start a conversation. The discussion is there, it's up to you whether or not you're going to throw the whole thread away as a lost cause or engage with someone. Perhaps I'll start this off with a question.

Did you find the examples she used in the video to be outliers of trends in gaming story telling? Can you think of a good game that involves women as non-protagonists but don't feature them in the Damsel in Distress trope or some variant thereof? I also ask this out of personal interest because, mind you, I'm not one to think Damsel in Distress is an inherently bad thing, it's simply a writing tool. My main complaint with it, if any, would be its overuse and I prefer a breadth of stories.

I think in reality the majority of them were AAA games, and really the writing in those games are just considered to be shit in general, not just when it comes to women. People may praise those games, but it's not usually for the story, it's more about the gameplay.

Ok let me think. Well there's Mass Effect, Fallout, Skyrim, the Walking Dead (I guess you could count Clementine but I let her off the hook on account of being nine) the Halo games, the two Bioshock games, Persona 4, my friend has been showing me Suikoden II and so far I haven't seen anything like that there. It's funny because most of these games (I said most Skyrim) are the ones that tended to get praised for stories. Really I think the problem is less that there's a stigma against women in the industry (Although that one Jim episode showed that that IS a problem) I think it's just more of a problem of video games still being only a couple of decades old and many developers are still learning to write good stories. I don't like the Damsel in Distress trope either, but not because it's misogynistic. It's just plain lazy. I'm sure a talented writer could pull it off in an interesting way, but most AAA game writers kinda phone it in.

 

[generals3]

I've never played the MGS series besides a long time ago when I was younger and I don't remember it much besides the camera alarm sound, so I can't really speak to this example. However, it's a side-topic, but would you recommend the MGS series for play today? Do all the games hold up or are there some that should be skipped?

Also, as far as this particular trope not being used, I would put up the Mass Effect series, which I have the feeling is going to cause consternation among some simply because it's Mass Effect, but since I'm about to go do laundry and go running, I'll get more into it when I get back. To give a short synopsis, I find that the games do some things that appear to be damsel in distressy, but either it's just a facade or it slips in and out of it in a way that makes it so it's not really being used as a trope.

Well being a huge MGS fan i'd say, off course it's worth. But more objectively it depends. If you like 3rd person shooters with stealth elements and don't mind spending half your time watching cutscenes or listening to codec conversations than definitely. Otherwise maybe not. Personally i loved them all and playing them all actually increases the joy (to have a full grasp of the sometimes insanely complex story). I'd suggest to start with MGS3 though (my favorite but also the one which story-wise happens first (with the exceptions of the PSP MGS's and the two Metal Gears).

 

[blackdwarf]

This video was a improvement compared to the first, because she gave better and more recent examples of her points. Although she has a point overall, there is still a lot I disagree with.

I find the idea of tropes really shortsighted, because they only look for parts of a certain trope, but don't consider the whole context of the game. Yeah, there is a moment in the game where the female character is captured and imprisoned for awhile, so this game has the damsel trope. Doesn't matter the female character is awesome the rest of the game or making the choices herself, the points of the trope are present and tropes are bad!

I also find that some examples are more based of upon her interpretation of a situation, which she pushes forward as the way it is meant to be interpreted. Max Payne is crying about the lost if his family, which happened to be both female, and is beating himself up because he couldn't perform according social-norm of protecting his female companions in life? Why would he think that? I see it more as hating the fact he lost his family. Like he is really the character that cares what society thinks about him.

And lastly I find the "violence against women" issue too easily used. I find it a bit double standard of saying that the social norm of male protecting wife is weakening the female image, but at the same time saying that violence against women is wrong just because they are female. AND I WANT TO MAKE CLEAR THAT AGREE WITH BOTH THESE SOCIAL NORMS MENTIONED, but you shouldn't use it as a argument then, especially if you act all knowing about it. and again, once any form of violence is used against a character that happens to be female, suddenly it is wrong, even though their gender can be completely irrelevant to the reason of the violence.

 

[The Lyre]

First off, the whole flagging thing is nothing new, on either side of the issue. The whole Feminism vs MRA thing is particularly rife with this - people who are seen as radicals of either side frequently have their videos flagged for inciting hatred or, even more bizarrely, privacy violations, but it happens to pretty much every channel that discusses gender issues at some point - they're always doing it to each other.

Related to the video, I'm still really confused by this woman's views;

Spoiler: Rather long, spoiler'd to save thread space

She doesn't seem to understand why a game series called Max Payne is about the life of Max Payne, from the point of view of Max Payne. She frequently points out how supporting characters are merely used as tools to move the plot along for the sake of the protagonist or main cast, but I fail to see how this isn't true of every story ever written - this isn't specific to gender; the supporting cast, the setting and any events that occur within that setting are all there to frame the narrative of the main cast, to act as catalysts that move that main plot onwards.

If her problem is that, in her opinion, secondary characters die too often or are killed in cheap, obvious ways, then isn't her problem with bad writing in general - why is it so specific to female characters dying? Just looking at my shelves, I'm pretty damn confident that more male supporting characters die per game/movie/novel/comic than female supporting characters, so why is cheaply killing characters for plot development specifically misogynist, rather than simply bad writing?

Furthermore, on a more fundamental level - what does any of this have to do with women?

I'm seriously asking this, I'm not trying to be idiotic, or ironic; since when did fictional characters represent an entire gender in the real world?

When did this happen? When did Peach suddenly become the official videogame-realworld ambassador for females everywhere? Does Kratos now represent my gender, too? I don't want Kratos as my ambassador, can I have a new one? Since when did fictional characters - pixels on a monitor, no less - suddenly become representative of over half of the human race?

When women are killed by demons or men are killed by xenomorphs, I do not immediately think to myself "Yes, this is how the world works. This is what actually happens. This is what is supposed to happen This is how the developer wants me to see humanity, myself, and the world in general."

I just find this whole thing so confusing. I understand and agree that many of these examples display cheap, obvious cliches, even outright bad writing in some cases, but I don't understand why that means video game developers secretly want me to hate women. In most of these games the male protagonists are just as vapid, shallow and meaningless as the supporting cast, but I don't take that to mean that as a man, I am being called vapid, shallow, and meaningless.

Individuals in real life do not represent genders. Why are fictional individuals now representatives of our genders?

Edit; watched the last five minutes of the video. She claims to be aware of the fact that the huge majority of humans do not replicate immoral acts they see on television or in video games.
She then says that it's going to make men aggressive and dominant anyway because there's a lot of it. Okay.

She also says that male characters are sad when female characters die because the men see the dead women as possessions wrongfully taken from them and this means that they are not masculine and must get their masculinity back by killing things.

So, don't worry, I get it now - this woman is a sociopath.

 

[LetalisK]

I've never played the MGS series besides a long time ago when I was younger and I don't remember it much besides the camera alarm sound, so I can't really speak to this example. However, it's a side-topic, but would you recommend the MGS series for play today? Do all the games hold up or are there some that should be skipped?

Also, as far as this particular trope not being used, I would put up the Mass Effect series, which I have the feeling is going to cause consternation among some simply because it's Mass Effect, but since I'm about to go do laundry and go running, I'll get more into it when I get back. To give a short synopsis, I find that the games do some things that appear to be damsel in distressy, but either it's just a facade or it slips in and out of it in a way that makes it so it's not really being used as a trope.

Well being a huge MGS fan i'd say, off course it's worth. But more objectively it depends. If you like 3rd person shooters with stealth elements and don't mind spending half your time watching cutscenes or listening to codec conversations than definitely. Otherwise maybe not. Personally i loved them all and playing them all actually increases the joy (to have a full grasp of the sometimes insanely complex story). I'd suggest to start with MGS3 though (my favorite but also the one which story-wise happens first (with the exceptions of the PSP MGS's and the two Metal Gears).

I generally enjoy stealth games like Splinter Cell, Thief, etc and tend to play games as a stealthy and/or long range sniper-like characters if given the chance, ie Alpha Protocol, Hitman series, Dishonored, etc. Though I couldn't make it through Mark of the Ninja, I just didn't enjoy it. I might give it a second chance, though.

In an amendment to my previous post, I'll throw out that I'll address Mass Effect if anyone cares, and it may not be a controversial opinion that Mass Effect doesn't cow-tow to the DiD trope. I'll think of some more games on my run.

 

[Auron]

She criticises that many video game damsels aren't real female characters in a meaningful sense, they're just stereotyped and two-dimensonal caricatures of femininity that serve as a plot device. I agree. But this also holds true for the male characters, often including the damn protagonist. Video games, especially FPS and action ones, aren't known for their intelligently and meaningfully-developed characters. Surely a "lifelong video game buff" like Sarkeesian realises this?

Publicly admitting to that would undermine her meaningless campaign she would never do that, male characters don't require a debate because they're all awesome and that's it.

The ad-hoc suggestion that violence against women in games is in any way linked to domestic abuse is a cheap shot and needs a huge *CITATION REQUIRED* sign in flashing neon. I could use the same shitty logic to tar a genre with real-world grime to support an agenda. Watch:

The GTA series has sold nearly 100 million games[footnote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_%28series%29#Sales[/footnote] (look, I'm citing my sources and everything, that makes me a respected academic, right?). These games glorify car chases, speeding in urban areas and vehicular destruction. Every 30 seconds, somebody is killed in a road traffic accident[footnote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate[/footnote]. Is this OK? Is this amusing entertainment? We feminists condemn this "Automobile death culture" and encourage games that promote safe driving, following traffic signals, and maybe even exploring non-vehicular modes of transport. Here's a great indie game about walking on a sidewalk and only crossing the street at designated crossing points, doesn't it look fun! I wouldn't know as I haven't played the cruddy thing, but neither have 99% of my viewership so nobody will call me out on it. Oh yeah, here's the donate button, peace out motherf*ckers, see you in another two months.

Couldn't be more right.

She calls the damsel trope an "easy default motivation" for the male protagonist. Yes, that's exactly what it is. However I don't agree with her conclusion that this taps into the male player's "desire" to possess, control, beat up or otherwise Patriarchally oppress women - isn't it more reasonable to think that maybe it provides the protagonist with a context for embarking on the perilous adventure (because caring about and wanting to protect your loved ones is, y'know, quite admirable) and handily demarcates the villain (because kidnap and murder are quite clearly bad things to do).

Modern relativism allows her to analyse the situation from her own point of view and background which apparently relates everything to power struggles and rape. It's the rational individual's responsibility to call her out on that or just not care about it, either would do. Sadly the people who disagree with her point of view are all branded senseless haters and the ones who agree throw money at her on kickstarter so she got two awesome incentives to keep doing it, sticking it to the men everywhere while profitting sounds awesome. She chooses to showcase as "anti-feminist" tropes many story elements that from my point of view are timeless conventions of fantasy storytelling for a variety of historical reasons that should be studied and understood instead of demonized for example. The only really valid point she has by now is about female characters with no depth but like you pointed out it holds pretty strongly for male characters as well, but she would never notice that.

That said, considering the amount of devotion this topic gets over here, shouldn't it be in religion and politics by now? Or perhaps we need a forum just for feminism threads.

 

[ShiningAmber]

I thought it was well done.

Bring on the raging males.

 

[Commissar Sae]

She did a much better job with this video than what we saw in the last one and her usual videos. She clearly put a lot of thought into it and did her research well, exploring several facets and interpretations of the trope. While it isn't perfect it does show quite a bit of promise.

I honestly think a lot of the "damsel in distress" trope comes down to lazy writing, but as a character motivation it is time honoured.

 

[Raioken18]

Tag, I'll watch this later and make my own judgement. But from what I've heard so far it sounds like it could be interesting. I'm interested in this topic because I have a hobby of drawing manga and I'm wondering if there is a way to depict women in the "Correct" way without it seeming unnatural or forced. Recently I quite enjoyed Attack on Titan's (It's an anime) depiction of women though it did have a moment where the heroine needed to be saved, but... she wasn't defined by that moment, and subsequently kicked ass.

I suppose that's the thing I fail to understand about some of the examples from the first video, it took single moments and defined characters entirely by those moments and not as a whole. Anyway when I get time to watch this vid I shall, though I would love if we only had a single thread about it this time...

 

[Yuuki]

Ah, so finally she progresses past just pointing-out tropes and actually tries to give a reason as to WHY these tropes should change - because violence against women happens in real-life, and video games aren't helping the situation so it's a developers' responsibility to make sure that they don't keep following the trope otherwise...they'll make...real life violence...worse...?

Am I getting that correctly??

Because I'm not really bothered by any of these tropes since they exist to serve an audience which (overall) seems to respond well to such a thing, and more importantly they're entirely fictional. If the Damsel In Distress trope is really supposed to be a relic of the past and is perpetuating violence against women in real life (I know, bear with me), then why is it still working for the industry? How are games that use that trope even remotely capable of getting positive reviews and positive feedback?

Otherwise said tropes would've never even exist in the first place, creators/developers aren't going to repeatedly keep using something that doesn't WORK (logical, duh). Proof is in the pudding.

Also a huge number of games today actually don't follow any of these formulae so before someone comes along and says "but EVERY game is like that!!", come out of your cave, these games are not as common as Anita has you think. Look up the last 100 games released across all platforms if you want, I'm willing to bet the majority of them are free of these tropes which means developers ARE trying different shit.

Also, incoming 20-page thread, heeeeere we go!

She isn't wrong about things, I mean women are almost entirely used for motivation in games.

Urgh, it's like people are only just realizing this. See above, I'm well past the "realization" stage