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Recently there's been a lot of discussion about female representation in video games. In particular, several media outlets have claimed that the recent backlash against controversial figures like Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian are symptoms of a white, male demographic grumpy at the fact that it is no longer the sole target of video game developers. Video games have expanded into more inclusive realms, the argument goes, and as such they no longer fight so desperately for the love and money of the privileged white boy audience. In response, the privileged white boys harass with vulgarities, hack personal information, and make death threats to force Anita Sarkeesian from her home.
Those privileged white boys are titled "gamers" and we are told to condemn them and leave them behind in the brighter, more inclusive video game future we are creating – thus the reaction against the title "gamer" in many of these articles. This reaction against the term "gamers" ultimately boils down to a pretty simple (if problematic) logic: the people who are harassing and making death threats are gamers, therefore gamers are bad. As Total Biscuit recently pointed out in his discussion on the topic, gamers are also the audience of these media outlets, so they probably aren't doing themselves any favors by condemning the entire demographic so easily.
But the more nuanced idea that video games are going through some kind of demographic transition, and the older kids are upset at having to share mom and dad's attention, is a bit more interesting. The idea is that this jealousy is responsible for all the recent awful behavior – so I decided to look back to a time before there was even a hint of this demographic expansion. Precisely, back to July of 2005.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9RvaN7J.png) Ah, the good old days.
These were the days of Ninja Gaiden and Halo 2. The Xbox 360 had just been announced, and no one knew what a red ring of death was yet. The transition from video game magazines to video game websites had not completed yet, and video game journalism was almost exclusively a buyer's guide (both of which are trends TB talked about). The non-review portions were generally hype pieces, or occasionally fun little tidbits about this or that (e.g. 5 Things You Didn't Know About the Ghost).
Out of this era a piece called "No Gurls Allowed?" subtitled "Is Halo 2 a boy's club? OXM's guys play for the other team to find out." was published in Official Xbox Magazine (link). The writers of the article played several games on Xbox Live with intentionally female-sounding gamertags (the only example visible in the article is "CortanaGal"), pink armor, and female family speaking on their behalf on mics (they named their clan the "Femme Fatales"). Their apparent femininity was met occasionally with disbelief, usually with disinterest, and rarely but vehemently with sexism and harassment. The writers estimated that the truly awful comments were about once in ten games, a pretty normal ratio for hitting awful people on Live in those days.
Interestingly, the writers didn't really approach the subject with social justice in mind. There's no "won't this make gamers look bad?" or "are we responsible for this awful culture we've created, and complicit in the harm it causes?" The objection was purely on the grounds that these guys were being assholes – and justice was administered, in true Halo fashion, by destroying them on the battlefield.
That's not to say sexism didn't exist. The cover of the same issue advertises Dead or Alive 4 with the subtitles "New Screens - New Characters - Hot Girls!" It's actually pretty interesting to just control+f "girl" on old issues of Xbox magazine. Girls don't usually come up, except for the occasional reference to a female character, or a joke about impressing girls with this or your girlfriend nagging you about playing too much of that – extremely typical of guys talking with guys about girls. Many of these jokes would probably be considered insensitive now – at the time, it's almost like they didn't consider the possibility that a girl would be reading the magazine.
I wonder if this piece in Xbox Magazine marks the first ever piece of video game journalism specifically about sexism in games – it was certainly extremely unusual subject matter, unlike now. And it provides a certain grounding for modern discussions. Most notably, the awful specimens we are hearing from now did not only recently start being awful. If anything gamers have improved somewhat in this regard, although I'm sure any girl who plays video games could testify it's still pretty bad. Even so, I think it's hard to argue that it's some recent trend in response to a demographic transition.
Personally I think the awfulness stems mostly from the fact that video games as a hobby have always been appealing as a sort of escape from life and human interaction, meaning social misfits often associate with the title. That unfortunately means some pretty awful specimens have sought refuge in video games, simply because it's one of the only social groups that would take them. Unlike being a cheerleader or a football player or English major or a Mormon, there are no character requirements for being a gamer.
At any rate, I thought the Xbox magazine article was pretty interesting in relation to current events. I'd be interested to hear you guys' thoughts on the article, and the perspective it offers on modern discussions.
  
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i mostly use pink to support breast cancer, not as a feminism movement
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I would hope you are being partially sarcastic with your opening discourse regarding Ms. Sarkeesian.
Answering your topic, though: it is my opinion that commentators these days are building something out of a whole lot of nothing. I find nothing wrong with enticing a male audience with promise of female bodies in a virtual landscape just as I find nothing wrong with steamy romance novels enticing female audiences with chiseled half naked men on their covers. You should be primarily concerned with your target audience and bugger the rest of them. This is where all of these social justice warriors will fail. We have already seen this in Assassin's Creed when the games studio said they could not justify pandering to such a small minority because they will not return dividends.
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Yah. I always wondered why they only have 2 girl characters for every 7 guy characters. It makes no sense. What does this mean? Even in superhero tv shows that go pew pew you have 2 girls for 7 guys.
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On September 15 2014 10:10 EJK wrote:
i mostly use pink to support breast cancer, not as a feminism movement
I use pink because it's a cool color, and people need to stop hijacking colors and rainbows.
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On September 15 2014 10:10 EJK wrote:
i mostly use pink to support breast cancer, not as a feminism movement
On September 15 2014 11:52 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2014 10:10 EJK wrote:
i mostly use pink to support breast cancer, not as a feminism movement I use pink because it's a cool color, and people need to stop hijacking colors and rainbows.
Oh, I think most of the stereotypical "girly" things used to label something as female are dumb –pink, ponytails, etc. That's something I agreed with quite a bit Sarkeesian's 'Ms. Male Character' discussion – gendered identifiers make for boring characters whose femaleness is just about their only character trait.
Frustrating that pink and light blue have to be gendered that way, because they're otherwise nice enough colors.
On September 15 2014 10:36 Parlortricks wrote:
I would hope you are being partially sarcastic with your opening discourse regarding Ms. Sarkeesian.
Answering your topic, though: it is my opinion that commentators these days are building something out of a whole lot of nothing. I find nothing wrong with enticing a male audience with promise of female bodies in a virtual landscape just as I find nothing wrong with steamy romance novels enticing female audiences with chiseled half naked men on their covers. You should be primarily concerned with your target audience and bugger the rest of them. This is where all of these social justice warriors will fail. We have already seen this in Assassin's Creed when the games studio said they could not justify pandering to such a small minority because they will not return dividends.
Sarcastic about what? My only mention of Anita Sarkeesian was mentioning that people have been awful to her and Zoe Quinn in various ways, and that she received death threats and had to flee her home. Oh, and I called both of them "controversial figures," which I don't think anybody would really disagree with. The rest of that opening section was attempting to represent the narrative these articles are suggesting, not me giving my own opinion. Did I imply something unintentionally? What exactly do you disagree with?
As for the latter bit, there are lots of interesting and nuanced discussions to be had in this area, if anyone was willing to have them. Are sexualized characters necessarily bad? Why? Do we need to eliminate sexualized female characters, or just have more female characters of other kinds, too? If girls are an increasingly large part of the demographic, does this kind of social criticism need to happen, or will companies change their policy on their own as girls become a larger market worth catering to?
But it's sort of impossible to have a reasonable conversation about it, which is why most people don't even try. See Dustin Browder desperately trying to back out of a discussion of sexualized characters in video games in the Heroes of the Storm interview with Nathan Grayson.
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I actually remember reading that article, back in the day. I got into video games because of my mother and two female cousins, so I knew it wasn't an exclusive club or something that females couldn't get into, and thus didn't really see anything surprising about it, but it's interesting to read it in retrospective like you said, considering current circumstances.
One of those cousins would go on to play XBL back in the day, playing stuff like Halo and Midnight Club with her boyfriend and his friends. Nobody really made a big deal about it, but it was funny to watch her smash the occasional kid who would make fun of her for being a girl. That wasn't really the majority of the time, though, as people aren't really that interested in having that conversation, and are more interested in just playing the game (hence why they're playing video games and not hanging out at debate club after school). So I got to see what the environment was like for her, second-hand. Which wasn't that bad. I've seen guys whose voices were cracking at puberty get more shit for talking on their mics than she did.
As for the stuff that's been popping up recently, there's plenty of room in video games for everyone, especially with the rise of stuff like crowdsourcing and the increasing popularity of independent development. There's no need to exterminate a characterization you don't enjoy (sexualized or not); there's only a need to have your voice heard, and let it be known that there is a demand for different characters, to which developers can cater if they can figure out how.
People just need to calm down.
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Besides being a reflection of misogyny in our society at large, I think there's something unique about hobbyists or gamers in this case. If your entire identity is centered around what is essentially your hobby, it's very easy to feel threatened by people's perceptions of your hobby and especially their participation.
I can't help but think the people spewing death threats and sexist garbage on twitter are mostly teenagers or shut-ins who had a bad highschool social experience and believe that the sole reason they were excluded is because of their weird or nerdy hobbies. It's funny they'd be so opposed to inclusiveness and feminism in the gaming space since they essentially only function to make people feel less like outsiders and more like human beings within the community. It's not a threat, but for someone who is lonely and delusional, it's invasive.
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I understand the argument you're trying to make, but after the last couple weeks of game journalism ethics witch hunting, are you really citing the Official Xbox Magazine saying Xbox Live totally doesn't have a sexism problem? You realize the piece you read is effectively an ad, not some independent investigative journalism thing, right?
Also from 2005, although focusing on WoW instead of XBL:
The majority of players interviewed experienced sexism on a regular basis,
and this sexism often interfered with their normal game play, in terms of being
followed or harassed for a long period of time, or even in some cases excluded or
discriminated against in group settings. Studying sexism in virtual worlds was
thought to be relevant in virtual worlds by the majority of those interviewed, if for no
other reason than “sexism in any culture or subculture is revealing about the
phenomenon itself.”
Source
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On September 15 2014 20:57 Trumpet wrote:... I understand the argument you're trying to make, but after the last couple weeks of game journalism ethics witch hunting, are you really citing the Official Xbox Magazine saying Xbox Live totally doesn't have a sexism problem? You realize the piece you read is effectively an ad, not some independent investigative journalism thing, right? Also from 2005, although focusing on WoW instead of XBL: Show nested quote +The majority of players interviewed experienced sexism on a regular basis,
and this sexism often interfered with their normal game play, in terms of being
followed or harassed for a long period of time, or even in some cases excluded or
discriminated against in group settings. Studying sexism in virtual worlds was
thought to be relevant in virtual worlds by the majority of those interviewed, if for no
other reason than “sexism in any culture or subculture is revealing about the
phenomenon itself.”
Source
heh, I remember raiding in a guild where no girls were allowed simply to avoid sexist drama
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On September 15 2014 10:36 Parlortricks wrote:
I would hope you are being partially sarcastic with your opening discourse regarding Ms. Sarkeesian.
Answering your topic, though: it is my opinion that commentators these days are building something out of a whole lot of nothing. I find nothing wrong with enticing a male audience with promise of female bodies in a virtual landscape just as I find nothing wrong with steamy romance novels enticing female audiences with chiseled half naked men on their covers. You should be primarily concerned with your target audience and bugger the rest of them. This is where all of these social justice warriors will fail. We have already seen this in Assassin's Creed when the games studio said they could not justify pandering to such a small minority because they will not return dividends.
I'd argue that social justice warriors such as these are not only failing, but also unfortunately by poisoning the well with faulty arguments, they generate a whole lot of ill will. And this is true of both sides... The people who watch Sarkeesian's video are being shown an incredibly biased and cherrypicked perspective on videogaming. This angers the gaming people, who extrapolate those arguments as if it were the entirety of what feminism has to offer. As a result, those who don't bother to actually think just grow to hate a whole bunch of people.
Though you can't really discuss anything without offending at least a few people, these days, I think that if Sarkeesian bothered to nuance her views and if she bothered to be at least a little bit scientific about her approach which has been funded with over $200k, maybe people would listen instead of being amazed at how little she's been able to accomplish with such a huge amount of cash. And that would be nice because she's onto something very important, but it's expressed so incredibly poorly and zealously. It antagonizes men and perhaps society at large instead of exposing symptoms of a society which is still sexist to an extent. Warning: Tits in a videogame does not a sexist make.
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On September 15 2014 20:57 Trumpet wrote:... I understand the argument you're trying to make, but after the last couple weeks of game journalism ethics witch hunting, are you really citing the Official Xbox Magazine saying Xbox Live totally doesn't have a sexism problem? You realize the piece you read is effectively an ad, not some independent investigative journalism thing, right? Also from 2005, although focusing on WoW instead of XBL: Show nested quote +The majority of players interviewed experienced sexism on a regular basis,
and this sexism often interfered with their normal game play, in terms of being
followed or harassed for a long period of time, or even in some cases excluded or
discriminated against in group settings. Studying sexism in virtual worlds was
thought to be relevant in virtual worlds by the majority of those interviewed, if for no
other reason than “sexism in any culture or subculture is revealing about the
phenomenon itself.”
Source
Weird. I never really witnessed these issues within my guilds in multiple games, but then again, it's probably external to guild relations in the majority of circumstances, so it stands to reason that it's not a great measure.
And just because it's from a magazine that's sponsored by the company doesn't mean that article is complete bullshit. It is however, empirical evidence at best (ie completely useless in statistical analysis, which the article never claims to be).
At least its no more bullshit than a video game review given by a company that's beholden to publisher wishes, (the vast majority) or a reviewer who slept with the game dev.
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You realize it's a complete fabrication that anyone who reviewed depression quest slept with zoe quinn right? The single article she's mentioned in isn't a review and was written before their alleged affair. Why do people keep bringing up "reviewers sleeping with devs" for this game rate debacle? It never happened in the first place lol
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On September 16 2014 02:17 DoctorHelvetica wrote:
You realize it's a complete fabrication that anyone who reviewed depression quest slept with zoe quinn right? The single article she's mentioned in isn't a review and was written before their alleged affair. Why do people keep bringing up "reviewers sleeping with devs" for this game rate debacle? It never happened in the first place lol
It wasn't reviewers, it was people writing articles for gaming websites - some of which were about (among other things) her game. So there was still a conflict of interest, and serious journalists would still have decided not to write about that game in that position.
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On September 16 2014 04:00 vOdToasT wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2014 02:17 DoctorHelvetica wrote:
You realize it's a complete fabrication that anyone who reviewed depression quest slept with zoe quinn right? The single article she's mentioned in isn't a review and was written before their alleged affair. Why do people keep bringing up "reviewers sleeping with devs" for this game rate debacle? It never happened in the first place lol It wasn't reviewers, it was people writing articles for gaming websites - some of which were about (among other things) her game. So there was still a conflict of interest, and serious journalists would still have decided not to write about that game in that position.
serious journalists lol
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not sure where you got that info from but i heard she slept with one person (Nathan Grayson) who didn't write about her game after that happened. was she sleeping with other serious journalists too?
In my opinion talking about the issue in development would not be to complain about a woman being portrayed sexually in a video game. but to point out how most women in most games are purely there for sexual / romantic interest with the lead male protagonist and that would probably suck if you were a woman that liked games.
about the harassment they experience while playing; its unfortunate that a woman was driven from her home from death threats and another is enduring a mass online name slurring campaign and vulgar phone calls. even generally open minded sites like teamliquid have users that have been here for 5 years saying "how are girl gamers gonna get viewers if they don't flaunt their boobs? not like they are that good at the games they play" I read your anecdote about how girls only get harassed about their gender once in every ten games and I ponder why that's an acceptable stat when the opposite is never. I counter your anecdotal evidence about your friends with my own. And instead of feeling mad that they are complaining about getting harassed i kinda feel bad for em you know?
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On September 15 2014 20:57 Trumpet wrote:... I understand the argument you're trying to make, but after the last couple weeks of game journalism ethics witch hunting, are you really citing the Official Xbox Magazine saying Xbox Live totally doesn't have a sexism problem? You realize the piece you read is effectively an ad, not some independent investigative journalism thing, right? Also from 2005, although focusing on WoW instead of XBL: Show nested quote +The majority of players interviewed experienced sexism on a regular basis,
and this sexism often interfered with their normal game play, in terms of being
followed or harassed for a long period of time, or even in some cases excluded or
discriminated against in group settings. Studying sexism in virtual worlds was
thought to be relevant in virtual worlds by the majority of those interviewed, if for no
other reason than “sexism in any culture or subculture is revealing about the
phenomenon itself.”
Source
There totally was a sexism problem (and I assume still is) – I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I don't even think this article meant to imply otherwise. One in ten games encountering such horrible comments that they couldn't print them is WAY too often, and it must be total hell dealing with that every time you sign on in a game. I didn't mean to say there wasn't sexism back then. If anything my point was that it's ALWAYS been there, and it's not just a recent response to some kind of demographic transition.
I've heard stories from girls in various games about how awful it was (Edit: and, again, I assume it still is) – occasional harassment, frequent disbelief, all-too-common awkward come-ons and joking marriage proposals. Xbox Live at the time was infamous for having awful people anyway – being a girl just made you a target.
On September 16 2014 02:17 DoctorHelvetica wrote:
You realize it's a complete fabrication that anyone who reviewed depression quest slept with zoe quinn right? The single article she's mentioned in isn't a review and was written before their alleged affair. Why do people keep bringing up "reviewers sleeping with devs" for this game rate debacle? It never happened in the first place lol
Correct. As I understand it she wasn't even accused of getting with anyone besides Nathan Grayson, who only ever wrote about her once when he quoted her in an article, and that was before they dated. Everything the internet has thrown at her as been completely unwarranted and awful, and it's really none of our business who she's sleeping with because there are precisely zero ethical issues.
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On September 15 2014 22:08 Meavis wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2014 20:57 Trumpet wrote:... I understand the argument you're trying to make, but after the last couple weeks of game journalism ethics witch hunting, are you really citing the Official Xbox Magazine saying Xbox Live totally doesn't have a sexism problem? You realize the piece you read is effectively an ad, not some independent investigative journalism thing, right? Also from 2005, although focusing on WoW instead of XBL: The majority of players interviewed experienced sexism on a regular basis,
and this sexism often interfered with their normal game play, in terms of being
followed or harassed for a long period of time, or even in some cases excluded or
discriminated against in group settings. Studying sexism in virtual worlds was
thought to be relevant in virtual worlds by the majority of those interviewed, if for no
other reason than “sexism in any culture or subculture is revealing about the
phenomenon itself.”
Source heh, I remember raiding in a guild where no girls were allowed simply to avoid sexist drama
Reminds me of: http://afkgamer.com/archives/2008/03/13/death-taxes-guild-drama/
I often played a female human holy priest in WoW, and apparently that's a combination that leads people to believe you're female irl and so I often, er, benefited from dimwitted kids trying to defend my honor and favor me with items if there was ever a scuffle in a pick-up group or so. I can see how this sort of attention can be very annoying. I think if you're the only girl in a guild full of people in their early 20's it will kinda inevitably lead to drama. It's not really anyone's fault.
Also, related to the OP, I once read a stat that having a female-sounding tag on the internet makes you subject to like 20x the harassment as having a neutral tag.
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On September 16 2014 05:25 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2014 20:57 Trumpet wrote:... I understand the argument you're trying to make, but after the last couple weeks of game journalism ethics witch hunting, are you really citing the Official Xbox Magazine saying Xbox Live totally doesn't have a sexism problem? You realize the piece you read is effectively an ad, not some independent investigative journalism thing, right? Also from 2005, although focusing on WoW instead of XBL: The majority of players interviewed experienced sexism on a regular basis,
and this sexism often interfered with their normal game play, in terms of being
followed or harassed for a long period of time, or even in some cases excluded or
discriminated against in group settings. Studying sexism in virtual worlds was
thought to be relevant in virtual worlds by the majority of those interviewed, if for no
other reason than “sexism in any culture or subculture is revealing about the
phenomenon itself.”
Source There totally was a sexism problem (and I assume still is) – I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I don't even think this article meant to imply otherwise. One in ten games encountering such horrible comments that they couldn't print them is WAY too often, and it must be total hell dealing with that every time you sign on in a game. I didn't mean to say there wasn't sexism back then. If anything my point was that it's ALWAYS been there, and it's not just a recent response to some kind of demographic transition. I've heard stories from girls in various games about how awful it was (Edit: and, again, I assume it still is) – occasional harassment, frequent disbelief, all-too-common awkward come-ons and joking marriage proposals. Xbox Live at the time was infamous for having awful people anyway – being a girl just made you a target. Show nested quote +On September 16 2014 02:17 DoctorHelvetica wrote:
You realize it's a complete fabrication that anyone who reviewed depression quest slept with zoe quinn right? The single article she's mentioned in isn't a review and was written before their alleged affair. Why do people keep bringing up "reviewers sleeping with devs" for this game rate debacle? It never happened in the first place lol Correct. As I understand it she wasn't even accused of getting with anyone besides Nathan Grayson, who only ever wrote about her once when he quoted her in an article, and that was before they dated. Everything the internet has thrown at her as been completely unwarranted and awful, and it's really none of our business who she's sleeping with because there are precisely zero ethical issues.
Ahh ok, I misunderstood then. Sorry for that! Too many anti-fem rant blogs in the last few weeks and I didn't read as thoroughly as I should have this morning.
About whether that piece was a relatively new topic being explored, my guess is probably not. I'd assume the reason we hear about it more now is that 10 years later women have gotten bigger voices in our community, and more men are listening. I'm sure there were people saying the same things about in 2005, and probably even 1995 (and earlier if you include tabletop/arcade etc)... but I know back then I wasn't listening, at least :/ And seeing as gaming press has only recently started getting out from under the thumb of publisher marketing depts, there probably were few or no gaming oriented outlets to print it.
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On September 16 2014 05:07 ComaDose wrote:
[...]stat when the opposite is never. [...]
That's kind of a double standard. I can't even count how often I was told to suck someone's dick, question about my sexual orientation and whatnot. Only because it seems more acceptable that males engage males with these flames, doesn't make them any less of a sexual assault. Not that'd I'd personally complain about that, I'd just shrug it off.
Aside from that, all the eGender related topics bore me. People actively seeking fights online just for the fight's sake ("to be right") just have too much time. There are far worse real problems related to gender than game design, "serious esport journalism" (huge lol here), or any human vs. troll conduct debates or the endless idiocy surrounding "the correct" phrasing of cis-/trans-/pan- blabla.
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EPT
