Tropes vs Women in video games

[BIL]

Am I the only one who finds most of those games incredibly uninteresting?

No. "Awesome stuff you just bought" thread = insane jealousy nerdboner. That stack of bland = shriveled indifferent nerdweiner. At least PAL Xbox Madden collections are funny.

And I detest hoop earrings! Seriously.



"Oi! Rickayyy! Wot - you wot?! YOU SHTUPID SHTUPID CAO "

[mesh control]

Am I the only one who finds most of those games incredibly uninteresting?

Crackdown is the best game this generation..

[mesh control]

I am also going to try to get her to post.

[Ed Oscuro]

You know what? Fuck this fucking nonsense, all of it.

[trap15]

Nope, you're not. They're all extremely generic blah-blah AAA titles. Who gives a shit about those games except bros.

[Hagane]

I didn't hear about any female chess masters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polgar

[Skykid]

I am also going to try to get her to post.

That would be awesome, although under the circumstances she's probably not going to be particularly willing to engage with members of the videogame community.

I, for one, would really like to ask a few questions about the research and thinking that went into the construction of her argument for damsels in distress, because it's difficult to identify much integrity in it.

The components are ill thought-out: Why Zelda, of all examples to choose? She's always been a female character of strength and personality, unlike your average Princess floozy, and an exception to the rule.

Why criticise Miyamoto for seeing potential for a Starfox game in an unfinished product: it's all business at the end of the day, nothing sinister. Starfox Adventures is such shit it's best left forgotten anyhow, making it an obscure and worthless choice to illustrate sexism in gaming. The fact Krystal even survived the transition of IP is actually a positive.

And where's Final Fight? You can take a dig at Mario and Zelda, but when it comes to Jessica's hostage plea, stripped to her bra and paraded in-front of her father, insinuating that she's been the victim of some sexual molestation or even rape, it doesn't even register. And at the finale, she's all dressed to the nines, curvy like Jessica Rabbit, in the clutches of a wheelchair stricken gangster degenerate who has enough money to have any woman he wants, but instead decides to fight to the death for this particular blonde. What does that say about the way men objectify women?

Finally, when addressing Double Dragon, hitting home the point that the gut-punch appears in every iteration of the game (can't see how that's odd when they're ports of the original), she tars it as "Regressive Crap". To have your argument taken seriously, you really can't use personal anger to instruct your audience as to what their feelings should be on the subject. Simply presenting the facts is enough. The comment took me so by surprise I had to rewind to see if I'd heard it right: that's the sort of thing that you might expect to appear in a high school essay. Besides, why is the fact lost that Billy and Jimmy fight uphill and down dale getting the absolute shit kicked out of them by sweaty hulks, chicks with whips, and greasy bastards with machine guns, just to save her? Her gut punch is minor compared to the brutality they endure on her behalf.

Finally, the theme itself - damsels in distress - really feels like a moot point in 2013, and a moot point full stop, primarily because the argument ignores its simplicity as a plot device, and the fact the chivalrous behaviours - protecting the safety, honour and wellbeing of a female victim - is a component that has helped women's rights to be liberated to the point they're at today.

If you're going to really identify sexism in videogames, she got off to a bad start.

[Ganelon]

I think it's odd how there's no discernible ordering to those stacks of games.

[Mero]

Am I the only one who finds most of those games incredibly uninteresting?

No, you ain't. I wouldn't piss on most if they were on fire to be honest

[Koa Zo]

The creation of this video/song is a timely coincidence. A Chinese member from Sega-16 just made it.

[Friendly]

Are you actually still debating this nonsense? Haven't you seen WarGames?
"The only winning move is not to play"

[Bananamatic]

I want to see her play dark souls

[Edmond Dantes]

Am I the only one who finds most of those games incredibly uninteresting?

No 16-Bit games, not interested.

[louisg]

The components are ill thought-out

I got the impression she was in "angry college kid who just discovered politics" mode. It's like when I checked out a couple Students Against War meetings, but then realized they had no intention of doing anything constructive and just wanted to do dumb stuff like crash the job fair. OK, maybe not completely like that, but you know what I mean.

Are you actually still debating this nonsense? Haven't you seen WarGames?
"The only winning move is not to play"

Precisely. Sometimes when it comes to modern feminism (or at least the Internet variety) I feel like I'm caught between angry assholes and angry assholettes. You wouldn't believe some of the ill-concieved garbage my acquaintances post on Facebook sometimes. And that's being pretty charitable.

2: My belief is that video games are art, and are capable of every reaction and emotion that art is capable of. I believe art is universal and capable of being enjoyed by all human beings, so to pass off games as "not for woman" is wrong IMO.

I agree completely. And for the most part, most of the games I play don't really have an explicit gender bias. They're typically pretty abstract. There's a ton of good stuff out there that's not just about humans with insanely exaggerated features shooting each other in the head, but it gets less press.

On recent games with crappy female portrayal, I like the SA piece replacing Lara with Indy in the new Tomb Raider. I guess this is part of the positive change in the game industry.

IIRC, in some variation of the Robin Hood legend, Robin Hood throws up the first time he realized he's killed someone. Maybe it was in one of the Victorian-era stories. I don't think humanizing a character and showing that they are vulnerable is a bad idea, but it shouldn't be restricted to portrayals of female characters. But from what I've seen of the new Tomb Raider (which is not very much), she *does* seem to spend a lot of time tied up, and I can't help but think that's just in there as some kind of wack fantasy.

[Marc]

Am I the only one who finds most of those games incredibly uninteresting?

Crackdown is the best game this generation..

Crackdown is fucking awesome and I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not.

[manatworks]

I want to see her play dark souls

that's one hell of EQUALITY right there, male or female, you died anyway.

(ok, probably not when you know how to play it)

[Squire Grooktook]

Demon's/Dark Souls is a universe, in both story and gameplay, where everyone gets fucking wrecked equally.

[Ed Oscuro]

in b4 "Catherine is a game featuring a subplot about the gays trying to steal the womenhood"

THE PLOT THICKENS (like the soup in your favorite greasy spoon diner)

or not. really this whole thing is quite regrettable for humanity

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

[Ed Oscuro]

well speaking of black and white

impeccably dressed...AND MALE

also I daresay the artist of this one has some sense of perspective and rendering mechanical objects (Mr. Churchill's all steel and can bench a Stuka on each eyebrow)

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Yeah

[Ed Oscuro]

BUT THEN

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

http://youtu.be/rH0Tdxybvic

[Reed]

"Well, women don't play games because..."
"But they do, and in large numbers, look at these statistics!"
"Well those aren't real games"

Well, if you define "real games" as AAA shooters, action games, and other such dreck, of course women are going to be underrepresented as fans. why would they play games that treat their gender as objects to be lusted after, or imbeciles to be rescued?

If you are going to define Angry Birds as "not a game" because it doesn't fit your interests, what is stopping them as defining Dodonpachi as "not a game" for the same reason? In fact, if you look very superficially at the process of learning a shmup, it seems like less "play" and more "work/obsession".

re: Sarkeesian - my main beef with her is this:
She got paid $160,000 in cash money to make these [bland, superficial, lacking in true insight] videos. Is some lady tilting at broken-down windmills [face it, mario does not represent current gender relations] and restating things we already realize with no new insight worth that money?

In fact, it actually does harm to her argument when, asked to show how women are being hurt by the game industry, this is the best she can come up with.

She should give the money to someone who can do a better job at this than she can.

One wonders why a $6 grand kickstarter was necessary for the video initially, since it presents about three hours worth of research.

this^

[louisg]

"Well, women don't play games because..."
"But they do, and in large numbers, look at these statistics!"
"Well those aren't real games"

Well, if you define "real games" as AAA shooters, action games, and other such dreck, of course women are going to be underrepresented as fans. why would they play games that treat their gender as objects to be lusted after, or imbeciles to be rescued?

Seriously. By those standards, *I'm* not a real gamer either, and I'm really damn serious about videogaming. Remember the days when if a game like Angry Birds (or Katamari!) came out for the PS1/2/whatever, it'd be "wow, look at this quirky crazy game"? Now you get it for $5 and it's "too casual". I think a lot of it is that by making games into cheap downloads that we've devalued them not just in terms of cost but in terms of prestige (if that's the right word).

But it's really too bad the most visible games are the equivalent of The Expendables. I hate comparisons of videogames with movies, but imagine if someone had never seen a movie before, and all they see are trailers of movies about burly dudes with guns, shit blowing up, and sexy chicks. They'd assume it's all just for teenage boys. I think that's definitely an image problem games have as a somewhat new medium.

[O. Van Bruce]

the problem with this woman is that she's using a bunch of "assholettes" as someone said here to scam the majority of feminists on the internet.

If that wasn't enough, she's scamming so much people by presenting videogames in a biased and incomplete view. This will be seen not only by gamers but also by non-gamers and the consequences will bunpredictable but probably negative for gaming.

we would probably end seeing more cases like the R-18 "Extreme sexual violence" from the australian censors on Atelier

[Hagane]

"Well, women don't play games because..."
"But they do, and in large numbers, look at these statistics!"
"Well those aren't real games"

Well, if you define "real games" as AAA shooters, action games, and other such dreck, of course women are going to be underrepresented as fans. why would they play games that treat their gender as objects to be lusted after, or imbeciles to be rescued?

It's clear that the point is that women are an extreme minority in skill based / competitive genres. Which are purer, "real" games, as opposed to stuff like Angry Birds, social games or random JRPG X where skill is mostly irrelevant, so bringing them up to support the claim that women can perform as well as men is pointless.

[louisg]

It's clear that the point is that women are an extreme minority in skill based / competitive genres. Which are purer, "real" games, as opposed to stuff like Angry Birds, social games or random JRPG X where skill is mostly irrelevant, so bringing them up to support the claim that women can perform as well as men is pointless.

I'm not sure if I understand your point because of the punctuation, but... I haven't played an RPG in a long time, but the entire point used to be that to get past an obstacle, you can keep leveling up your character and buy equipment. In other words, *you* don't improve at the game; your character does. And one of the last "real" games I tried was BioShock, a game so hideously undemanding that they stuck respawn points in the middle of battles. Think about that for a second. Many AAA games generally are about absorbing a linear cinematic experience than actually becoming better at a game. IMO, "hardcore" gamers don't have a leg to stand on with the argument that mainstream games are about a skill contest, unless they're talking Call of Duty or Halo online play or something along those lines.

People like us who play shmups or fighting games, or even play tight skill-based puzzle games like Tetris? *That's* a minority right there.

[Squire Grooktook]

Basically, Hagane is saying that there aren't many woman playing skill based games.

Louisg is saying that there aren't many people playing skill based games at all these days, and that these games are a minority even among men.

Am I following this right?

[evil_ash_xero]

I want to see her play dark souls

She'd probably get offended that you have to save Dusk in the DLC.

Unless you play as a girl. Then I guess that'd be OK. Right?

Who gives a fuck?

Anyway, I know a few girls who play games. They tend to gravitate towards RPGs and AAA games. Zelda and Mario tend to be favorites, almost always. Damn sexist games!