Tropes vs Women in video games

[Bananamatic]

Yeah but watch the video. It's not like it's a one off. I suppose these games are 100% marketed toward men, but jeez, does every single one have to have some chick being punched in the face, maimed, butchered or brutalised as window dressing? :shrugs:

I watched the whole video and only found some of the stuff really distasteful, like the corpses, strip bar levels and the God of War achievement.

Still don't know why violence against women should be really that off limits in AAA macho games that are immature to begin with, full of mass murder and absurd stuff that's off limits in the real life. Plus 99% of the characters doing it are clearly depicted as the bad ones. The writing is definitely nothing amazing though

He's not saying that - he's saying games are supposed to be escapist fantasy. It's fucking nonsense. It's not even superficially convincing. The only way you can make it superficially convincing (but still sloppy and weak) is to twist his words into something else, which is what you're doing.

I didn't really know that escapist fantasy is supposed to be convincing(or if it even needs to be convincing to the 15 years olds who scream profanities on xbox live)

It's not that I'm against the message that people suck and willfully propagate problematic ugly cultural memes, and need to try a little harder - I'd be the last person on Earth to say that.

You'd be the first if it gave you the needed publicity and a decent load of cash

To be honest sometimes I don't even think she's a feminist, she just perfectly hits the hot topic on the internet these days(feminism) and talks about the thing that gives her both trolls(publicity, seen as the victim) and white knights(blindly feed her cash, with the trolls helping this even more). Then you discover that "she's not really a gamer" and she took her footage from let's players - so costs for recording and video games are out. What is the starting 6k bucks for? When you ask that much money for something other people do on the internet for perfectly free, I'd expect something really fucking amazing, not 20 minute videos every 6 months with some taken footage.
And if she actually went through the fuckton of AAA games, props to her I guess

[Drum]

He's not saying that - he's saying games are supposed to be escapist fantasy. It's fucking nonsense. It's not even superficially convincing. The only way you can make it superficially convincing (but still sloppy and weak) is to twist his words into something else, which is what you're doing.

I didn't really know that escapist fantasy is supposed to be convincing(or if it even needs to be convincing to the 15 years olds who scream profanities on xbox live)

Oh shut the fuck up.

[trap15]

Why not explain your position, since I'm in the same boat as Bananamatic. You just seem angry without a point.

[Skykid]

I watched the whole video and only found some of the stuff really distasteful, like the corpses, strip bar levels and the God of War achievement.

So you're down with chicks being gang raped on the side of roads, prostitutes being knifed in the face, and women being punched unconscious for talking too much?

I thought the strip bar stuff was tame.

[Drum]

Why not explain your position, since I'm in the same boat as Bananamatic. You just seem angry without a point.

I am honestly not sure I can make it any simpler or explain it any clearer, but I'll try. How are games 'supposed to be' escapist fantasy? It's an absurd assertion (even if it is made often enough). Just because they very often are means nothing. They can be whatever people want them to be, and what people want them to be can be criticised and attitudes can be changed.
I was saying - and this should be quite clear - that the statement that he made is not convincing. I was not saying anything about whether or not fantasy should be convincing or not. Please pay more attention.

[nasty_wolverine]

Why not explain your position, since I'm in the same boat as Bananamatic. You just seem angry without a point.

I am honestly not sure I can make it any simpler or explain it any clearer, but I'll try. How are games 'supposed to be' escapist fantasy? It's an absurd assertion (even if it is made often enough). Just because they very often are means nothing. They can be whatever people want them to be, and what people want them to be can be criticised and attitudes can be changed.
I was saying - and this should be quite clear - that the statement that he made is not convincing. I was not saying anything about whether or not fantasy should be convincing or not. Please pay more attention.

um, games (video or not) in general are escapist. It lets you escape the "rules of real life" to the "rules of the game".

[system11]

What a cartoonishly stupid argument.

About as stupid and obvious as "GTA has bad things" is
Sometimes you want to be the bad guy surrounded by lots of half naked women
Can't deny that it's a male power fantasy, but it's perfectly legal and it sells, therefore it exists

He's not saying that - he's saying games are supposed to be escapist fantasy. It's fucking nonsense. It's not even superficially convincing. The only way you can make it superficially convincing (but still sloppy and weak) is to twist his words into something else, which is what you're doing.

It wasn't phrased very well, change 'be' into 'contain'. Most modern mainstream games of the type being complained about are story based, like interactive films. Even the famous GTA sandbox is really just a story with a toybox attached. Their purpose is to allow a player to play through a fictional place and time, hence escapism and fantasy. Even if we look at 'games' in the wider sense though, Gradius let you fly a spaceship and Outrun let you drive a car you will never own in places you will never see. That last one was never about beating the timer as much as it was about the "beautiful journey".

I found it particularly interesting that the latest video used a clip from Metro Last Light, because while that does include a brothel, the vast majority of women portrayed in the game are plainly dressed and living out a dull and depressing existance just like most of the male ones. The video also heavily cherry picks, for example showing female NPCs in games running away. Newsflash, male NPCs mostly cower and try to run away too. Go on, try it. And showing the Red Dead achievement? It's a joke poking fun at film/cartoon history. These are bad examples. A good example is the amazingly clumsy attempt at 'dating' via strip clubs in GTAV.

My core argument though is that I don't care, and while I'm not tired of Anita having her say, I'm truly tired of the media bandwagon telling me that I should be ashamed for enjoying scantily clad women decorating my games. Well guess what? I'm not in the least bit ashamed and they should get back to reviewing games instead of trying to pass moral judgement on them on behalf of the entire female species like some kind of bizarre white knighting exercise. I believe we were informed WK'ing is bad a while back.

[Skykid]

My core argument though is that I don't care, and while I'm not tired of Anita having her say, I'm truly tired of the media bandwagon telling me that I should be ashamed for enjoying scantily clad women decorating my games. Well guess what? I'm not in the least bit ashamed and they should get back to reviewing games instead of trying to pass moral judgement on them on behalf of the entire female species like some kind of bizarre white knighting exercise.

Can't say I disagree with this. It has become tiresome.