Violence in games vs Sexism in games?

[The Lunatic]

No...

No it's not.

You could not sell a romance novel with the first as its cover. The prince is covered in scars, he's dirty, his face is pretty ugly, he's scowling. I'll go ask some female friends if any of that is a turn on at all.

What? Not at all?! What madness is this? Maybe we should move on to the next most popular example, Kratos. That sexy, scarred, bloodstained, eternally scowling, unhappy ball of anger.

Spoiler

... Beautiful

Hairs only need to be split so finely.

If you think so, but, I'd wager mostly everyone would disagree.

 

[generals3]

Do people argue that? The "playing sexist games makes people mistreat women"? Maybe they do but I find that when most woman discuss their problems with it it's this:

It makes ladies uncomfortable.

That's about it. Think of it this way as a dude (I assume you are a dude)...

You're playing Ultra Awesome New Third Person Shooter! The only characters you are allowed to choose is greased up muscle men in speedos. That's what you get to look at all day and all night while playing the game. No, you can't choose another character; greased up speedo man or you don't get to play.

Now think of it this way; 75% of games (random number, that has no basis in fact) you get to play involve nothing but greased up speedo guys...

How long would it take before you started complaining about the game industry?

It's got nothing to do with desensitization or brain control; it just sucks to have nothing to play as except for a greased up speedo guy.

Well. One could ask the big question: why aren't 75% of the male characters in speedos? With the answer probably being: because the consumers don't want it. Which also implies that if 75% (although i severely doubt that number is close to being real) of women are in bikinis is because that's what the market wants. It sucks to be a minority consumer in a market (as in: has a taste only shared by a minority) but you can't force the market to screw itself just to give everyone an equal amount of what they seek.

But an other point i want to make is that a man in a speedo is actually not necessarily the equivalent portrayal of women in bikini armors or lara croft outfits. And the reason why is because clothes are perceived differently on men and women. Take for instance those extremely short jeans shorts i see quite often on women in the summer. On a woman it makes them look sexy. Now put that on a man and it makes him look weird/like an idiot.

And since consumers are real people from the real world the different perceptions regarding clothes and gender has to be taken into account. This makes the whole point "How would you feel if male characters were dressed like female characters?" moot. It is based on an assumption which is not true in the real world, the one that a certain type of clothes has the exact same effect on both gender. Until fashion becomes 100% Unisex these points shouldn't be made.

 

[Smeatza]

You're playing Ultra Awesome New Third Person Shooter! The only characters you are allowed to choose is greased up muscle men in speedos. That's what you get to look at all day and all night while playing the game. No, you can't choose another character; greased up speedo man or you don't get to play.

Isn't that quite an accurate description of wrestling?
Aren't wrestling fans mostly male?

OT: I was under the impression it was a potential issue of diversity.
I myself have never had any trouble avoiding sexualised or exploitative characters of either gender so it's an issue I find it hard to get on board with.

To me it seems like complaining about movies because they all feature Bruce Willis.
In reality they don't, only the most popular action movies feature Bruce Willis. They're not indicative of movies as a whole.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

If we are discussing which one is worse, I'd find it hard to say: Violence is more of a creative problem in the sense that so many AAA games made nowadays are so violent that it becomes a bit boring, and also silly.

Case in point: Assassin's Creed, the counter technique allows you to kill 100+ soldiers incredibly easy, and there is barely any in game punishment for doing so, as if the game encourages these sort of juvenile power fantasies.

Before any of you decide to pounce on me as if I am some sort of "think of the children" moral guardian, I mean that violence has saturised our medium from a creative perspective: nothing interesting is done about amongst the AAAs, so the connection between gameplay and story becomes weaker for it. The few times we do get something interesting done about the over-abundance of violence in games, we get some true gems like Call of Duty 4's nuke scene and the entirety of Spec Ops The Line.

Sexism however, is a lot more subtle, and it is more of a perspective problem, and what I choose to think is a symptom of lazy writing in games. Often, the big games have very little focus given to the actual writing, and thus we end up with incredibly revealing and backwards presentations of women.

That, however, can cause problems for the younger demographics. I won't mince words: teenagers(<18) do play games like CoD and Assassin's Creed etc. and they are likely the driving force behind the sales. They are a considerable demographic right now, and I feel that they can misinterpret games very easily. Since they are also mostly male teenagers, it can lead to real problems in their perception towards women.

For example(I know its bad practice to use anectodal evidence, but I feel it is somewhat relevant, and I won't extrapolate), in my old secondary school, a lot of the guys there played the sorts of games I mentioned: CoD, Fifa, etc.They had very negative perceptions towards women,(I think I remember one instance where they casually asked a girl if she would give them a blowjob out of nowhere) in part, it could be due to other factors(such as general insecurity), but it does show that they were easily influenced by possible factors at home, or "adult entertainment".

In that particular case, it can show that they can be easily influenced because they lack critical thinking or a guiding hand, no one there to tell them that what happens in "those videos" is not representative of real life, and is just a fantasy. Whilst the example isn't as related to games, I still feel that there is a possibility that lazy writing which results in sexist depictions of women can be problematic.

I cannot say if it will result in real-world misogyny, but it is something that can worry me.

Ideally, the solution to these problems would be to avoid lazy writing, but that is too simplistic a solution, and I am afraid that I cannot think of an immediately plausible one.

 

[Uhura]

@The_Kodu
The characters I picked came from your earlier post in this thread. From your other examples I would agree with Dante. Prince/Jan are debatable and Monkey looks like another really ott roided up character. Again a male character that doesn't really fit in with the romance cover guys.

Now, I'll admit that I don't exactly get hot and heavy over Kratos, but aren't you sort of boiling down what women find attractive in a man to a single ideal? If I went "All men find busty, curvaceous women with thick blonde hair, plump lips, and a perpetual 'orgasm voice' attractive, and that's all they ever find attractive" you'd probably fight me on it, wouldn't you? Same goes here. A wide variety of men can appeal to a wide variety of women - there's no single ideal, and a lot of women can find wildly different types of men attractive, just like a lot of men do.

I mean, Geralt has been mentioned as a grizzled scarred sort that no straight woman would want, but hey, I think he's pretty good-looking. Not a bombshell by any means, but still attractive. As a matter of fact, I've noticed I actually have a bit of a propensity for the grizzled, gravelly-voiced bad ass.

The discussion was about sexualization and sexualization and attraction are two different things. There are people who find older women sexy, that doesn't mean that doctor Chakwas in Mass Effect was a sexualized character. Some people find older guys hot, that doesn't mean that Admiral Hackett in ME was a sexualized character.

 

[Byte2222]

The violence and sexism arguments are different. The violence is everywhere, callously thrown in - if it was used properly, it should turn the player's stomach every time a spurt of blood appears. The sexism is more... insidious. The fact that we're arguing over it should be proof enough. I think the thing we should really be focusing on is being responsible, using violence as a carefully-applied tool and thinking about whether things truly are equal for everyone (the answer is almost always 'no', even in real life).

Snip

I agree with this guy a lot

 

[WindKnight]

I think an interesting observation on this came from an article on the Mary Sue where one of the contributors noted that the main difference when recommending a game to female friends rather than male friends (leaving aside taste, etc) was that in a lot of cases she was having to give warnings to female friends about how something was probably going to leave them feeling uncomfortable due to how it treated or portrayed a female character.

Compare this to Remember Me where the creator notes one of the specific reasons used to say the game shouldn't have had a female character was in response to her having a male love interest she kisses.

'You can't do that,' said the publisher, 'You're making a dude (the player) kiss another dude, and that will make them uncomfortable.'

 

[Evonisia]

Do people argue that? The "playing sexist games makes people mistreat women"? Maybe they do but I find that when most woman discuss their problems with it it's this:

It makes ladies uncomfortable.

That's about it. Think of it this way as a dude (I assume you are a dude)...

You're playing Ultra Awesome New Third Person Shooter! The only characters you are allowed to choose is greased up muscle men in speedos. That's what you get to look at all day and all night while playing the game. No, you can't choose another character; greased up speedo man or you don't get to play.

Now think of it this way; 75% of games (random number, that has no basis in fact) you get to play involve nothing but greased up speedo guys...

How long would it take before you started complaining about the game industry?

It's got nothing to do with desensitization or brain control; it just sucks to have nothing to play as except for a greased up speedo guy.

This argument has been debunked so many fucking times its not even funny. The number of "greased up muscle men in speedos" games out there is so fucking low in the grand scheme of things. Don't believe me? Heres Gamespots top 10 games list for today, a website that loves to cater to the dudebro crowd.

1. Battlefield 4
2. COD Ghosts
3. Dark Souls II
4. Titanfall
5. Elder Scrolls Online
6. Pokemon X
7. Pokemon Y
8. Assassins Creed 4
9. Arkham Origins
10. Dead Rising 3

Theres lots of dumb shallow shit in there, but the only one that shuts out women specifically and not people who can't be entertained by watching random shit explode for more than an hour in general is COD: Ghosts. On the front page of the German PC Games the first games that jump out are ESO, Goat Simulator, The Witcher 3 and Mario Cart. Wow, I bet women feel so fucking shut out by those. Then I jump on Facebook and I have 10 women sending me invites to minigames every hour.

Call of Duty: Ghosts barely shuts out women in singleplayer (though their portrayal could have been more frequent), in multiplayer it's the first instalment to allow you to play as a woman. I'd argue BF4 and Assassin's Creed IV are worse in the scheme of "greased up males" and shutting out women.

 

[josemlopes]

The actual problem with sexist games is that they actively discourage women from playing games, or entering the game industry. 50% of the population is literally being given every reason to want nothing to do with the industry on any level. That's bad.

So, does Tomb Raider, Mirrors Edge and Beyond Good and Evil discourage men from playing their games? As a man, the gender of the character plays a very little role in the game when your objective becomes saving the world, your friends or yourself (something where your gender as nothing to do with the game).

In Gears of War 3 there is a chapter where you play as Anya, it was still the same game with the same purpose of saving the world.

 

[WindKnight]

The actual problem with sexist games is that they actively discourage women from playing games, or entering the game industry. 50% of the population is literally being given every reason to want nothing to do with the industry on any level. That's bad.

So, does Tomb Raider, Mirrors Edge and Beyond Good and Evil discourage men from playing their games? As a man, the gender of the character plays a very little role in the game when your objective becomes saving the world, your friends or yourself (something where your gender as nothing to do with the game).

In Gears of War 3 there is a chapter where you play as Anya, it was still the same game with the same purpose of saving the world.

Most gamers, male or female, don't care what gender their character is when they play a game so long as its good/tells a story they want to play. Nonetheless, many female gamers find themselves in situations where they are left feeling disgusted, insulted, or flat out uncomfortable by the way a female character is portrayed, or treated in the game. the publishers have no issue at all including material in the game these players would find unpleasant and possibly even offensive, and if I may again point out Remember Me, freaked out at the idea of including something innocuous (a female player character kissing a male non player character) lest it makes the poor sensitive mens feel uncomfortable by making them kiss another man.

As to your point, lets say you have ten men who will only play as a male character in a game, and ten women who will only play as a female character in a game. The ten men have a whole smorgasbord of games they can play as, while the women will have a very tightly restricted list of games they can play, and will often run into the same content that made the female gamers who don't care what gender they played as feel uncomfortable.

 

[josemlopes]

The actual problem with sexist games is that they actively discourage women from playing games, or entering the game industry. 50% of the population is literally being given every reason to want nothing to do with the industry on any level. That's bad.

So, does Tomb Raider, Mirrors Edge and Beyond Good and Evil discourage men from playing their games? As a man, the gender of the character plays a very little role in the game when your objective becomes saving the world, your friends or yourself (something where your gender as nothing to do with the game).

In Gears of War 3 there is a chapter where you play as Anya, it was still the same game with the same purpose of saving the world.

As to your point, lets say you have ten men who will only play as a male character in a game, and ten women who will only play as a female character in a game. The ten men have a whole smorgasbord of games they can play as, while the women will have a very tightly restricted list of games they can play, and will often run into the same content that made the female gamers who don't care what gender they played as feel uncomfortable.

Its not the devs fault some gamers have tight restrictions, those gamers are missing out but its their own fault. With that then what about midgets? Are devs going to have to make now a shit ton of games to compensate for the lack of games that let you play as a midget?

PS: (also I dont really know what is the politically correct english word for midget so I am not using that word without any kind of hurtfull intent)

 

[WindKnight]

The actual problem with sexist games is that they actively discourage women from playing games, or entering the game industry. 50% of the population is literally being given every reason to want nothing to do with the industry on any level. That's bad.

So, does Tomb Raider, Mirrors Edge and Beyond Good and Evil discourage men from playing their games? As a man, the gender of the character plays a very little role in the game when your objective becomes saving the world, your friends or yourself (something where your gender as nothing to do with the game).

In Gears of War 3 there is a chapter where you play as Anya, it was still the same game with the same purpose of saving the world.

As to your point, lets say you have ten men who will only play as a male character in a game, and ten women who will only play as a female character in a game. The ten men have a whole smorgasbord of games they can play as, while the women will have a very tightly restricted list of games they can play, and will often run into the same content that made the female gamers who don't care what gender they played as feel uncomfortable.

Its not the devs fault some gamers have tight restrictions, those gamers are missing out but its their own fault. With that then what about midgets? Are devs going to have to make now a shit ton of games to compensate for the lack of games that let you play as a midget?

PS: (also I dont really know what is the politically correct english word for midget so I am not using that word without any kind of hurtfull intent)

And what about the publishers who have no problem excluding female gamers with such a tight restriction, but bend over backwards to cater for male gamers with such restrictions? We've had devs being told they cant have a female main character and actively forced into making it male, and again, Remember Me had a very hard time finding a publisher because they wouldn't lose the female main character.

 

[Zhukov]

Kratos looks dead, his skin is gray and his muscles are over the top. Geralt is really pale too and his face is kinda busted up. Can' say much about Sam Fisher since I didn't find any shirtless pics of him.

How the fuck are Kratos and Geralt male power fantasies? Maybe I'm missing something, but honestly, my aspiration in life is not to become a creepy dude with dead looking skin and weird tattoos.

Really?

You honestly can't see it?

You're really not being just the tiniest bit disingenuous here?

Kratos and Geralt are tough badass guys who are able dominate their enemies and impose their will through strength and martial prowess (Kratos especially, since Geralt's world tends to be a bit more complicated than killing whoever looks at him funny). They have attractive and amorous women throwing themselves at them on a regular basis.

That has no appeal whatsoever to you? And I mean appeal as a fantasy, not as a real life aspiration since that would be unlikely and impractical.

You've never wished you were stronger, strong enough that nobody would mess with you? You never wanted to be sought after by attractive women?

Obviously I have no idea what you fantasise about, but I'd be rather surprised if something along those lines had never cropped up.

 

[josemlopes]

The actual problem with sexist games is that they actively discourage women from playing games, or entering the game industry. 50% of the population is literally being given every reason to want nothing to do with the industry on any level. That's bad.

So, does Tomb Raider, Mirrors Edge and Beyond Good and Evil discourage men from playing their games? As a man, the gender of the character plays a very little role in the game when your objective becomes saving the world, your friends or yourself (something where your gender as nothing to do with the game).

In Gears of War 3 there is a chapter where you play as Anya, it was still the same game with the same purpose of saving the world.

As to your point, lets say you have ten men who will only play as a male character in a game, and ten women who will only play as a female character in a game. The ten men have a whole smorgasbord of games they can play as, while the women will have a very tightly restricted list of games they can play, and will often run into the same content that made the female gamers who don't care what gender they played as feel uncomfortable.

Its not the devs fault some gamers have tight restrictions, those gamers are missing out but its their own fault. With that then what about midgets? Are devs going to have to make now a shit ton of games to compensate for the lack of games that let you play as a midget?

PS: (also I dont really know what is the politically correct english word for midget so I am not using that word without any kind of hurtfull intent)

And what about the publishers who have no problem excluding female gamers with such a tight restriction, but bend over backwards to cater for male gamers with such restrictions? We've had devs being told they cant have a female main character and actively forced into making it male, and again, Remember Me had a very hard time finding a publisher because they wouldn't lose the female main character.

Maybe if people didnt made a big deal out of the gender of the characters the publishers and devs wouldnt either, like you said, there are people that only play games with a characters of the same gender and since there are more male gamers then female then it makes sense the they would try to cater to the male audience with the gender choice. With that said no game excludes any gender out of it and it all falls down to the fact that some gamers arent open-minded enough to play something that isnt the same gender as theirs (or even sexuality).

Basicly if people played games for their gameplay and actual story merits rather then for some need of self inserting in stories that arent for self inserting, things would be much better.

 

[The Lunatic]

Apparently all men aspire to be stoic muscle bound murders whom only role in life to to gain power by killing people.

That's not sexist at all.

 

[WindKnight]

Basicly if people played games for their gameplay and actual story merits rather then for some need of self inserting in stories that arent for self inserting, things would be much better.

I disagree. People play games for various reasons, and should be free to do so, and more importantly, feel comfortable doing so.

Apparently all men aspire to be stoic muscle bound murders whom only role in life to to gain power by killing people.

That's not sexist at all.

Gee, you might want to tell that to the men selling that fantasy to other men.

 

[Saetha]

The discussion was about sexualization and sexualization and attraction are two different things. There are people who find older women sexy, that doesn't mean that doctor Chakwas in Mass Effect was a sexualized character. Some people find older guys hot, that doesn't mean that Admiral Hackett in ME was a sexualized character.

No, the discussion was on whether or not a woman would and could find the man in this picture attractive. I weighed in, saying that yes, a woman could and very much did. The discussion at large is about sexualization, yes, but I wasn't commenting on that, simply this one argument in it.

 

[The Lunatic]

Apparently all men aspire to be stoic muscle bound murders whom only role in life to to gain power by killing people.

That's not sexist at all.

Gee, you might want to tell that to the men selling that fantasy to other men.

Yeah, arguing who's more on fire whilst your house burns isn't exactly a good use of time.

 

[Saetha]

Basicly if people played games for their gameplay and actual story merits rather then for some need of self inserting in stories that arent for self inserting, things would be much better.

I disagree. People play games for various reasons, and should be free to do so, and more importantly, feel comfortable doing so.

What exactly are these games that are making women uncomfortable? Not attacking, I'm just simply curious. I can't remember ever being made to feel uncomfortable over the way a game treated a female character - the only games I can think of are either non-western games like Dead or Alive, or games that are generally regarded as awful, such as Ride to Hell. Isn't the biggest problem - and the biggest discussion - not that women are made to feel uncomfortable by the games, but that they are simply excluded from them?

I mean, the only time a game ever really made me uncomfortable as a woman was the Broodmother in Dragon Age, and you'd be hard-pressed to find any real misogyny in that game.

 

[generals3]

And what about the publishers who have no problem excluding female gamers with such a tight restriction, but bend over backwards to cater for male gamers with such restrictions? We've had devs being told they cant have a female main character and actively forced into making it male, and again, Remember Me had a very hard time finding a publisher because they wouldn't lose the female main character.

Well since they're business partners who invest millions i think it's normal they can pressure the devs to make the more profitable choices? The publishers don't care about catering to all types of consumers equally, and thankfully otherwise they'd all be bankrupt, they care about the project actually making (a lot of) money.

And that's why i'm a great proponent of: voting with your wallet.