I agree. Attack the argument, except wait... video games are sexist.
Just because you like them, doesn't make them less so. I love video games, but I'm not going to defend how badly many treat women and how they are predominantly aimed at straight men. As a straight man who is not a sexist violent psychopath, I ask more from the computer games industry.
I think some computer games have moved on, and are capable of being intelligent story driven pieces as well as challenging and interactive. They still have a long way to go as a genre.
People defending games and attacking this women personally, as biased and dubious as some of her argument are, just confirm that she's pretty much correct in the basic truths. If you can't hardly the sexist aspects of games with suitable perspective, then you shouldn't be playing.
Well said.
I should feel bad for quoting the entire post with just that one line as my response, but I don't. Your post is definitely worth risking some posters' willingness to kick me in the head.
How do you think I am excusing a form of sexism that favours women?
I never asked for 'girly' games. I am not asking for adrodgeny either.
I am not suggesting aiming games at women by making them pink and sparkly
I am suggesting not to alienate them, and to include more rounded female characters.
"Men" and "women" don't have different tastes. People have all kinds of tastes, and there's just no need to exclude anyone by mindless stereotyping. Why should the taste for sexism be catered to at all?
If a girl wants to kill zombies, good. Why should she have to sit through a lap dance cut scene first?
That is what I'm trying to get across.
We all know, that the 'free market' just leads to click bait rage, violence and tits. This is why we all have to ask for better quality and be selective.
***
Your reasoning that girls don't play games because they don't want to is totally the wrong way round.
Firstly, many do. And it's a tribute to their intelligence that they can look beyond the sexism and still enjoy games despite it being fairly endemic. One of my favourite youtube gamers is Hannah of the Yogscast.
And secondly, even as far as 'girly games' go, it's still untapped and neglected market as FarmVille and The Sims proves. Most girly games are ridiculous stabs at what a computer nerd who has never met a woman thinks girls like.
It's untapped as I said before, people don't understand how to market games widely, because they are lazy and mainly blokes. Call that a generalisation if you wish, but it's true.
I would have thought that if women were that interested in video games, many would also be developing/creating them. Let's face it, the gaming market is largely a market where development/creation is done by males, aimed at a mainly male audience. And anyway, there is a big difference between the portrayal of fictional characters, than how one portrays people in real life, i.e. one is fictional and the other reality. I worry about people that can't see the difference.
I mean you've got games like Manhunt, Hitman etc. where the objective is to kill people. 99.99999999% of people who play these games are not going to re-enact what they've played in real life and the same applies to games where women are treated badly or demeaned.
How do you think I am excusing a form of sexism that favours women?
I never asked for 'girly' games. I am not asking for adrodgeny either.
I am not suggesting aiming games at women by making them pink and sparkly
I am suggesting not to alienate them, and to include more rounded female characters.
"Men" and "women" don't have different tastes. People have all kinds of tastes, and there's just no need to exclude anyone by mindless stereotyping. Why should the taste for sexism be catered to at all?
If a girl wants to kill zombies, good. Why should she have to sit through a lap dance cut scene first?
That is what I'm trying to get across.
We all know, that the 'free market' just leads to click bait rage, violence and tits. This is why we all have to ask for better quality and be selective.
***
Your reasoning that girls don't play games because they don't want to is totally the wrong way round.
Firstly, many do. And it's a tribute to their intelligence that they can look beyond the sexism and still enjoy games despite it being fairly endemic. One of my favourite youtube gamers is Hannah of the Yogscast.
And secondly, even as far as 'girly games' go, it's still untapped and neglected market as FarmVille and The Sims proves. Most girly games are ridiculous stabs at what a computer nerd who has never met a woman thinks girls like.
It's untapped as I said before, people don't understand how to market games widely, because they are lazy and mainly blokes. Call that a generalisation if you wish, but it's true.
I'd bet my house that you won't be able to provide evidence to support any of that, except by plumbing the depths of the perpetually outraged feminist demographic.
About the only thing I can agree with you about is that people's tastes are all different and, as a result, you'll always find extremists whining about perceived injustices.
The only way to avoid doing stuff that might offend somebody is to make everything so dull and bland that it'd appeal to nobody.
Sure, some games do have sexist elements (as is the case in the music, movie and advertising industry etc) but, seriously, do you think any female gamer has ever said "Y'know, I was really looking forward to playing the new GTA game (or whatever) but now I've realised it depicts scenes of sexism I'm going to burn my bra, put on some dungarees and get very cross"?
Probably about the same as the number of male gamers who've been outraged at all the men Lara Croft has killed and decided to put on a Spiderman outfit in order to go and climb something in protest.
The only people getting pissed-off about this stuff are the same people who'll always get pissed-off with every perceived injustice that they discover while, at the same time, refusing to acknowledge any opinion that doesn't endorse their own.
I don't think it's news to anyone that a fair number of video games are sexist or misogynistic to varying degrees. I think this needs to change,
I've experienced it myself on the gaming forums here. Agree, the treatment of women in games need to change. As for the video, I found it creepy and disturbing.
I think this is ill informed and rather uneducated. Yes there is rape in GoT, but it also has more than it's fair share of strong, female characters who have complex personalities. I was much more offended by the Wolf of Wall Street, a film that treated women not just to be used as sexual objects but as if they had no personality or importance.
The truth is that we have a complex culture, some misogeny, some ridiculing men for their emasculation (you see this mostly in adverts I.e silly dad, husband can't cook, man makes stupid mistake etc etc). Rape on screen does not offend me any more than other types of violence as long as it is part of the narrative.
There are no strong women in GOT. Well, maybe Cersei but even then she's an idiot.
There are no strong women in GOT. Well, maybe Cersei but even then she's an idiot.
Deanerys, Brienne, Catelyn Stark, Margery Tyrell, her grandmother, Ayra Stark, even Sansa and Gilly, all show great strength of character. Being strong isn't just about kicking ass and being the one in charge; it's enduring, making sacrifices and surviving in adverse conditions.
Deanerys, Brienne, Catelyn Stark, Margery Tyrell, her grandmother, and Ayra Stark, even Sansa all show great strength of character. Not to mention Craster's women, you'd have to be strong to endure that. Being strong isn't just about kicking ass and ruling, it's knowing how to endure, sacrifice and survive adverse conditions.
Daenerys, the Stockholm Syndrome victim? Raped by her husband on her wedding night and many more nights afterwards and then swoons over him as he vows to rape his enemies' women and kill their children? That Daenerys? Yeah, OK.
Ayra Stark is a child. Young, naive, hasn't been through anywhere near the trials and tribulations her sister has and seems to have endless luck when it comes to getting out of rough spots at its climax.
I'd bet my house that you won't be able to provide evidence to support any of that, except by plumbing the depths of the perpetually outraged feminist demographic.
About the only thing I can agree with you about is that people's tastes are all different and, as a result, you'll always find extremists whining about perceived injustices.
The only way to avoid doing stuff that might offend somebody is to make everything so dull and bland that it'd appeal to nobody.
Sure, some games do have sexist elements (as is the case in the music, movie and advertising industry etc) but, seriously, do you think any female gamer has ever said "Y'know, I was really looking forward to playing the new GTA game (or whatever) but now I've realised it depicts scenes of sexism I'm going to burn my bra, put on some dungarees and get very cross"?
Probably about the same as the number of male gamers who've been outraged at all the men Lara Croft has killed and decided to put on a Spiderman outfit in order to go and climb something in protest.
The only people getting pissed-off about this stuff are the same people who'll always get pissed-off with every perceived injustice that they discover while, at the same time, refusing to acknowledge any opinion that doesn't endorse their own.
You don't really seem open to debating, just trotting out feminist stereotypes. What are you asking for proof of, while providing none yourself anyway? You didn't even reply to what you were accusing me of, so I don't know.
I wasn't talking about causing offence, again, I feel like I'm having a totally different conversation to the one you are having. I only mentioned inclusion and fair portrayal.
If you think having some more female, black or gay characters who are not simply one dimensional stereotypes will make it bland then I don't know what to say to you.
Again, the Last of Us and Walking Dead are incredibly UN-bland, yet they feature key gay, black and female characters. This is what I'm talking about, more of this.
GTA is just a lazy example that Daily Mail readers like to use as an example of how society has crumbled and forget to mention that prostitute killing etc is fairly voluntary. It's another debate really, and I feel it's not the worst by far.
Again, I don't think you can narrow this debate to one incident, it's an endemic lack of decent portrayal and exclusion really.
How do you think I am excusing a form of sexism that favours women?
I never asked for 'girly' games. I am not asking for adrodgeny either.
I am not suggesting aiming games at women by making them pink and sparkly
I am suggesting not to alienate them, and to include more rounded female characters.
"Men" and "women" don't have different tastes. People have all kinds of tastes, and there's just no need to exclude anyone by mindless stereotyping. Why should the taste for sexism be catered to at all?
If a girl wants to kill zombies, good. Why should she have to sit through a lap dance cut scene first?
That is what I'm trying to get across.
We all know, that the 'free market' just leads to click bait rage, violence and tits. This is why we all have to ask for better quality and be selective.
***
Your reasoning that girls don't play games because they don't want to is totally the wrong way round.
Firstly, many do. And it's a tribute to their intelligence that they can look beyond the sexism and still enjoy games despite it being fairly endemic. One of my favourite youtube gamers is Hannah of the Yogscast.
And secondly, even as far as 'girly games' go, it's still untapped and neglected market as FarmVille and The Sims proves. Most girly games are ridiculous stabs at what a computer nerd who has never met a woman thinks girls like.
It's untapped as I said before, people don't understand how to market games widely, because they are lazy and mainly blokes. Call that a generalisation if you wish, but it's true.
Yeah, I'd go with this. And with regard to who plays... That's a significan demographic which even on business grounds it would be wrong to alienate.
Yeah, I'd go with this. And with regard to who plays... That's a significan demographic which even on business grounds it would be wrong to alienate.
Does that not suggest that females don't feel especially alienated by the gaming industry as it currently stands?
Or, are we to assume that these females are all playing a tiny handful of games while cursing the sexism which prevents them also playing the vast majority of other games?
Seems like, on the one hand you've got a small number of games which genuinely do have overtly sexist elements while, OTOH, the other complaint is more about general "inclusion" in gaming.
In the case of the former, sure, such games probably are disturbing to the perpetually outraged, in just the same way as movies like Bitch Slap or (dare I say it?) the Race For Life also are.
As for the latter, I doubt that stuff like male characters in games has ever stopped females from playing in exactly the same way that I've never avoided playing Metroid or Tomb Raider games because the character is female.
Deanerys, Brienne, Catelyn Stark, Margery Tyrell, her grandmother, Ayra Stark, even Sansa and Gilly, all show great strength of character. Being strong isn't just about kicking ass and being the one in charge; it's enduring, making sacrifices and surviving in adverse conditions.
I mean you've got games like Manhunt, Hitman etc. where the objective is to kill people.
Games really aren't a good target anyway except for one or two which really need to 'man up' as it were and draw a line. Then put everyone who complains on a watch-list.
I've has a look at my games collection and aside from one or two in the 'obviously written by boys' category, anything else only falls down in being not absolutely egalitarian, primarily due to limitations of the storyline or inflexibility of the graphics engine (the 'damsel in distress' remark above covers both of these).
Oh and if you ban 12-year-old boys from using any voice communications in online games you'll probably clear a huge problem right away...
That's not strictly true. Research consistently shows that women tend to prefer non-violent games, and certain types of games such as racing games, action RPGs, strategy games and first person shooters are played mostly by men. Story based/adventure RPGs and fantasy MMOs tend to have a more balanced audience, but I play EVE Online and only 4% of its players are women.
I've experienced it myself on the gaming forums here. Agree, the treatment of women in games need to change. As for the video, I found it creepy and disturbing.
So did I. Like the Dragon Age: Origins scene with the dead elf on the floor and the three guards talking about raping her corpse. How could Anita suggest that this was for 'sexual titillation' purposes? What a sick mind she must have!
That's not strictly true. Research consistently shows that women tend to prefer non-violent games, and certain types of games such as racing games, action RPGs, strategy games and first person shooters are played mostly by men. Story based/adventure RPGs and fantasy MMOs tend to have a more balanced audience, but I play EVE Online and only 4% of its players are women.
When I was a regular FPS gamer years ago, I used a male persona in the community.
I did it to avoid dealing with the crappy side of the gaming culture. I'm willing to bet some female players adopt a male persona for this reason as well.
Rape and misogyny occur in real life so it's no surprise that they should feature or be alluded to in a disrespectful manner in video games largely created by young men who spend the bulk of their time online or with other men. The creation will always reflect on the creator.
Sometimes in life you just have to avoid the things you don't like whether it's the violence of Game Of Thrones, the sexism of whatever the big video game is at the moment, or the ****ed up morality of Flannery O'Connor (that's a very personal one for me), or the mind-numbing banality of the latest fresh-out-of-Disney pop star.
I don't like games like GTA and the more modern ones so don't take this as a defence of them. All I play are online chess, football manager about once every 6 months, and tetris.
Rather than hate the thing you dislike it's easier just to ignore it. You invest less of yourself in the thing - whatever that thing is by thinking about it less.
When I was a regular FPS gamer years ago, I used a male persona in the community.
I did it to avoid dealing with the crappy side of the gaming culture. I'm willing to bet some female players adopt a male persona for this reason as well.
There's just as many examples of guys taking on a female persona just to enjoy all the extra attention it brings.
There's just as many examples of guys taking on a female persona just to enjoy all the extra attention it brings. ...
At risk of having entirely misunderstood, I'm assuming that 'community' is referring to the non-game environment, i.e. IRC/chatrooms? My exposure to those was fairly limited* so aside from very occasional obvious over-politeness I didn't see anything objectionable. The main problem we had was over-enthusiastic people coming back into the chat 'lobby' from a game of Kingpin and not leaving the language behind.
Kingpin was pretty much the exception, in the game everybody was unforgivably rude to everybody else, hence taking a minute or two to calm down and having to be reminded by the mods and/or anyone else with a better 'recovery time'.
From a purely personal experience, I never saw anybody who particularly cared whether someone chose a female in-game character model, regardless of what gender they may or may not have been outside (hence my above remarks).
I guess it depends on where we end up, not always a matter of easy choice.
* being the sysadmin for the game server clusters there was always someone whining about performance even though it was nearly always their rubbish ISP's fault but you had to check anyway
The great irony being that amongst this apparent saturation of oversexualised imagery, sex crime rates have been declining for years.
If feminists want to see more sexy men or less sexy women in games, perhaps they should try and encourage women to actually play them.
No wonder sex crimes have been declining if authorities have been stonewalling 1400 complaints in one area and politicians have been burying dossiers! I wouldn't trust anyone's statistics right now in the current climate.
You make a good point though. Do more serious crimes get committed in societies which censor heavily or those which don't censor? I have no idea.
And believe me, after seeing Sarkeesian's latest video, there's a lot of things I'd like to comment on her video... oh, wait, she's disabled comments so I can't scrutinize her work in a mature and civilised manner.
I'm sure you would but unfortunately a huge number of gamers apparently cannot respond to this debate in a sensible way without misogynistic comments, rape threats and promises of violence. Not sure why they think that's an okay way to respond but I can understand why it's just easier for her to turn off the comments.
I know what you mean, I couldn't bring myself to call myself a "feminist" even if I agreed with the majority of what feminism stands for. The word itself has become a stick to beat people with in a way, like the word "liberal".
I would totally call myself a feminist. I believe in 3rd wave feminism and throwing out all the old patriarchy which harms both men and women.
I've seen vids like Thundef00ts that cry that feminism is a poison and destroying atheism, let's just say it's not his finest moment. ;-)
Yeah I would exactly champion him and I side eye anyone who does!
Is there a problem with how games represent women? Yeah, I think there is. Do I think that all gamers therefore are horrible misogynists and should be ashamed of themselves and all women should hate them? Hell no! I think it's a debate worth having. I think it's important to point out some really crappy representation of women and how often they're prizes, victims or motivation in games for men. That sort of insidious social conditioning should be pointed out because it effects how we view women. Similarly men must always be the strong heroes in these things and that attitude is equally harmful. Hopefully pointing this out will encourage developers to think 'yeah, lets do something different'. Young women are now the biggest consumers of games after all.
As a female gamer I don't agree with everything FF says but I wouldn't dream of sending her a rape threat or threatening her. Some gamers REALLY take what she says as a personal affront and that's pretty sad tbh.
I mean I love the God of War series but I understand what she's saying about Kratos's wife and daughter being fridged for his development and how commonly this happens. I don't subsequently feel bad for liking the game and like I need to defend myself but I recognise it's the frequency of these roles for women that make them problematic rather than the individual stories. It's about balance, isn't it? I love the ladies in Uncharted - yeah sometimes they need saving or help but at the same time they're also shown to be excellently competent and smarter than Drake. On the other hand I choose to avoid trash like GTA that I find fairly objectionable.
To me the conclusion of the FF videos isn't 'gaming is a terrible place' but more 'there's a disproportionate amount of this and a balance needs to be more actively sought'.
EDIT: To add based upon what someone said above - yes the comments you get in online play as a woman are predictably gross. I mean, without fail. Crude, nasty sexual comments and misogynistic bullying. Hence I don't go into online play any more. I tend to just assume these are weak little boys who have self esteem issues don't know how to interact with women.
Don't be silly, she sits on thrones and rocks with her dragons looking all powerful and stuff, she has to be a strong female character!? Certainly looks that way to the naive, and part of the massive problem with that show. Brainwashing at it's finest from HBO.
She often looks like she's posing for an advert for cologne...
C.K. ThrOne For Him. For Her. For Dragons.
It's funny that Anita picks out the Mafia 2 game, because there is a similar scenario in one of HBO's other shows, Boardwalk Empire, where a woman is shot dead during sex, and two males have a gunfight over her naked body. It's like HBO rounded up all the misogynistic writers they could find and then threw a ton of money at them.
It's also interesting that Whedon is involved now, I know a lot of people are fans of his work, from Buffy to Firefly and The Avengers etc. I wonder what The Avengers would be like on HBO, Black Widow would have been naked and r***ed by now I sadly suspect. It's character development for females according to HBO.
At risk of having entirely misunderstood, I'm assuming that 'community' is referring to the non-game environment, i.e. IRC/chatrooms? My exposure to those was fairly limited* so aside from very occasional obvious over-politeness I didn't see anything objectionable. The main problem we had was over-enthusiastic people coming back into the chat 'lobby' from a game of Kingpin and not leaving the language behind.
Kingpin was pretty much the exception, in the game everybody was unforgivably rude to everybody else, hence taking a minute or two to calm down and having to be reminded by the mods and/or anyone else with a better 'recovery time'.
From a purely personal experience, I never saw anybody who particularly cared whether someone chose a female in-game character model, regardless of what gender they may or may not have been outside (hence my above remarks).
I guess it depends on where we end up, not always a matter of easy choice.
* being the sysadmin for the game server clusters there was always someone whining about performance even though it was nearly always their rubbish ISP's fault but you had to check anyway
Mainly in game chat. WoW was pretty terrible for it at first... 'what? you're a real girl? awesome!! Yes of course you can join our guild!'
Other games before WoW were even worse, especially male oriented games such as multiplayer air combat games.
Get a female playing those and it often turned weird with certain males refusing to engage combat, others going out of their way to target them, and others aiding them. Whatever the outcome, you certainley got a lot more attention as a female in those games, so much so that guys sometimes pretended to be girls. Obviously something lacking in thier lives.
Comments
Well said.
I should feel bad for quoting the entire post with just that one line as my response, but I don't. Your post is definitely worth risking some posters' willingness to kick me in the head.
I would have thought that if women were that interested in video games, many would also be developing/creating them. Let's face it, the gaming market is largely a market where development/creation is done by males, aimed at a mainly male audience. And anyway, there is a big difference between the portrayal of fictional characters, than how one portrays people in real life, i.e. one is fictional and the other reality. I worry about people that can't see the difference.
I mean you've got games like Manhunt, Hitman etc. where the objective is to kill people. 99.99999999% of people who play these games are not going to re-enact what they've played in real life and the same applies to games where women are treated badly or demeaned.
Simply. It's a game.
I'd bet my house that you won't be able to provide evidence to support any of that, except by plumbing the depths of the perpetually outraged feminist demographic.
About the only thing I can agree with you about is that people's tastes are all different and, as a result, you'll always find extremists whining about perceived injustices.
The only way to avoid doing stuff that might offend somebody is to make everything so dull and bland that it'd appeal to nobody.
Sure, some games do have sexist elements (as is the case in the music, movie and advertising industry etc) but, seriously, do you think any female gamer has ever said "Y'know, I was really looking forward to playing the new GTA game (or whatever) but now I've realised it depicts scenes of sexism I'm going to burn my bra, put on some dungarees and get very cross"?
Probably about the same as the number of male gamers who've been outraged at all the men Lara Croft has killed and decided to put on a Spiderman outfit in order to go and climb something in protest.
The only people getting pissed-off about this stuff are the same people who'll always get pissed-off with every perceived injustice that they discover while, at the same time, refusing to acknowledge any opinion that doesn't endorse their own.
I've experienced it myself on the gaming forums here. Agree, the treatment of women in games need to change. As for the video, I found it creepy and disturbing.
There are no strong women in GOT. Well, maybe Cersei but even then she's an idiot.
Deanerys, Brienne, Catelyn Stark, Margery Tyrell, her grandmother, Ayra Stark, even Sansa and Gilly, all show great strength of character. Being strong isn't just about kicking ass and being the one in charge; it's enduring, making sacrifices and surviving in adverse conditions.
Daenerys, the Stockholm Syndrome victim? Raped by her husband on her wedding night and many more nights afterwards and then swoons over him as he vows to rape his enemies' women and kill their children? That Daenerys? Yeah, OK.
Ayra Stark is a child. Young, naive, hasn't been through anywhere near the trials and tribulations her sister has and seems to have endless luck when it comes to getting out of rough spots at its climax.
I'll give you Sansa, Brienne and Margery though.
You don't really seem open to debating, just trotting out feminist stereotypes. What are you asking for proof of, while providing none yourself anyway? You didn't even reply to what you were accusing me of, so I don't know.
I wasn't talking about causing offence, again, I feel like I'm having a totally different conversation to the one you are having. I only mentioned inclusion and fair portrayal.
If you think having some more female, black or gay characters who are not simply one dimensional stereotypes will make it bland then I don't know what to say to you.
Again, the Last of Us and Walking Dead are incredibly UN-bland, yet they feature key gay, black and female characters. This is what I'm talking about, more of this.
GTA is just a lazy example that Daily Mail readers like to use as an example of how society has crumbled and forget to mention that prostitute killing etc is fairly voluntary. It's another debate really, and I feel it's not the worst by far.
Again, I don't think you can narrow this debate to one incident, it's an endemic lack of decent portrayal and exclusion really.
Yeah, I'd go with this. And with regard to who plays... That's a significan demographic which even on business grounds it would be wrong to alienate.
Does that not suggest that females don't feel especially alienated by the gaming industry as it currently stands?
Or, are we to assume that these females are all playing a tiny handful of games while cursing the sexism which prevents them also playing the vast majority of other games?
Seems like, on the one hand you've got a small number of games which genuinely do have overtly sexist elements while, OTOH, the other complaint is more about general "inclusion" in gaming.
In the case of the former, sure, such games probably are disturbing to the perpetually outraged, in just the same way as movies like Bitch Slap or (dare I say it?) the Race For Life also are.
As for the latter, I doubt that stuff like male characters in games has ever stopped females from playing in exactly the same way that I've never avoided playing Metroid or Tomb Raider games because the character is female.
There are plenty of shoot-em-ups where you can "safely" indulge in gratuitous violence by killing as many people and / or zombies as you like.
You then walk away and, most likely, don't end up killing people.
Even Ygritte and Catelyn.
I've has a look at my games collection and aside from one or two in the 'obviously written by boys' category, anything else only falls down in being not absolutely egalitarian, primarily due to limitations of the storyline or inflexibility of the graphics engine (the 'damsel in distress' remark above covers both of these).
Oh and if you ban 12-year-old boys from using any voice communications in online games you'll probably clear a huge problem right away...
That's not strictly true. Research consistently shows that women tend to prefer non-violent games, and certain types of games such as racing games, action RPGs, strategy games and first person shooters are played mostly by men. Story based/adventure RPGs and fantasy MMOs tend to have a more balanced audience, but I play EVE Online and only 4% of its players are women.
So did I. Like the Dragon Age: Origins scene with the dead elf on the floor and the three guards talking about raping her corpse. How could Anita suggest that this was for 'sexual titillation' purposes? What a sick mind she must have!
When I was a regular FPS gamer years ago, I used a male persona in the community.
I did it to avoid dealing with the crappy side of the gaming culture. I'm willing to bet some female players adopt a male persona for this reason as well.
Sometimes in life you just have to avoid the things you don't like whether it's the violence of Game Of Thrones, the sexism of whatever the big video game is at the moment, or the ****ed up morality of Flannery O'Connor (that's a very personal one for me), or the mind-numbing banality of the latest fresh-out-of-Disney pop star.
I don't like games like GTA and the more modern ones so don't take this as a defence of them. All I play are online chess, football manager about once every 6 months, and tetris.
Rather than hate the thing you dislike it's easier just to ignore it. You invest less of yourself in the thing - whatever that thing is by thinking about it less.
There's just as many examples of guys taking on a female persona just to enjoy all the extra attention it brings.
People can be strange.
Kingpin was pretty much the exception, in the game everybody was unforgivably rude to everybody else, hence taking a minute or two to calm down and having to be reminded by the mods and/or anyone else with a better 'recovery time'.
From a purely personal experience, I never saw anybody who particularly cared whether someone chose a female in-game character model, regardless of what gender they may or may not have been outside (hence my above remarks).
I guess it depends on where we end up, not always a matter of easy choice.
* being the sysadmin for the game server clusters there was always someone whining about performance even though it was nearly always their rubbish ISP's fault but you had to check anyway
If feminists want to see more sexy men or less sexy women in games, perhaps they should try and encourage women to actually play them.
No wonder sex crimes have been declining if authorities have been stonewalling 1400 complaints in one area and politicians have been burying dossiers! I wouldn't trust anyone's statistics right now in the current climate.
You make a good point though. Do more serious crimes get committed in societies which censor heavily or those which don't censor? I have no idea.
I'm sure you would but unfortunately a huge number of gamers apparently cannot respond to this debate in a sensible way without misogynistic comments, rape threats and promises of violence. Not sure why they think that's an okay way to respond but I can understand why it's just easier for her to turn off the comments.
I would totally call myself a feminist. I believe in 3rd wave feminism and throwing out all the old patriarchy which harms both men and women.
Yeah I would exactly champion him and I side eye anyone who does!
Is there a problem with how games represent women? Yeah, I think there is. Do I think that all gamers therefore are horrible misogynists and should be ashamed of themselves and all women should hate them? Hell no! I think it's a debate worth having. I think it's important to point out some really crappy representation of women and how often they're prizes, victims or motivation in games for men. That sort of insidious social conditioning should be pointed out because it effects how we view women. Similarly men must always be the strong heroes in these things and that attitude is equally harmful. Hopefully pointing this out will encourage developers to think 'yeah, lets do something different'. Young women are now the biggest consumers of games after all.
As a female gamer I don't agree with everything FF says but I wouldn't dream of sending her a rape threat or threatening her. Some gamers REALLY take what she says as a personal affront and that's pretty sad tbh.
I mean I love the God of War series but I understand what she's saying about Kratos's wife and daughter being fridged for his development and how commonly this happens. I don't subsequently feel bad for liking the game and like I need to defend myself but I recognise it's the frequency of these roles for women that make them problematic rather than the individual stories. It's about balance, isn't it? I love the ladies in Uncharted - yeah sometimes they need saving or help but at the same time they're also shown to be excellently competent and smarter than Drake. On the other hand I choose to avoid trash like GTA that I find fairly objectionable.
To me the conclusion of the FF videos isn't 'gaming is a terrible place' but more 'there's a disproportionate amount of this and a balance needs to be more actively sought'.
EDIT: To add based upon what someone said above - yes the comments you get in online play as a woman are predictably gross. I mean, without fail. Crude, nasty sexual comments and misogynistic bullying. Hence I don't go into online play any more. I tend to just assume these are weak little boys who have self esteem issues don't know how to interact with women.
Don't be silly, she sits on thrones and rocks with her dragons looking all powerful and stuff, she has to be a strong female character!? Certainly looks that way to the naive, and part of the massive problem with that show. Brainwashing at it's finest from HBO.
She often looks like she's posing for an advert for cologne...
C.K. ThrOne
For Him. For Her. For Dragons.
It's funny that Anita picks out the Mafia 2 game, because there is a similar scenario in one of HBO's other shows, Boardwalk Empire, where a woman is shot dead during sex, and two males have a gunfight over her naked body. It's like HBO rounded up all the misogynistic writers they could find and then threw a ton of money at them.
It's also interesting that Whedon is involved now, I know a lot of people are fans of his work, from Buffy to Firefly and The Avengers etc. I wonder what The Avengers would be like on HBO, Black Widow would have been naked and r***ed by now I sadly suspect. It's character development for females according to HBO.
Mainly in game chat. WoW was pretty terrible for it at first... 'what? you're a real girl? awesome!! Yes of course you can join our guild!'
Other games before WoW were even worse, especially male oriented games such as multiplayer air combat games.
Get a female playing those and it often turned weird with certain males refusing to engage combat, others going out of their way to target them, and others aiding them. Whatever the outcome, you certainley got a lot more attention as a female in those games, so much so that guys sometimes pretended to be girls. Obviously something lacking in thier lives.