EPT'GTFO', New Documentary about Female Gamers - Page 44
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Millitron
United States2611 Posts
On March 12 2015 23:47 Plansix wrote: Although you are correct that is seems risky, that assumes that men won't buy a game with a woman as the main character. Just like plenty of women will enjoy a show here the main character is male, there is no reason why men wouldn't enjoy a game where the main character is a woman. If the argument is "women should be able to enjoy games where the main character is male," the argument can be applied to a game where the main character is a woman as well. And if that is the case, the game should sell well. Unless you have some other argument why it wouldn't. After our discussions earlier, I hate to say this, but I think you're on the right track. There is a problem with female secondary characters being little more than damsels in distress. I don't have a problem with it because it's sexist or whatever. I have a problem with it because it's lazy writing. Many videogames are stuck being interactive action movies, where there are barely any characters at all. Like the old Chuck Norris movies. The protagonist has no personality and exists solely to kill mooks; the villain is a caricature, and anybody else is lucky if they get two lines. Sure, not every game needs to be Citizen Kane: The Game, but it'd be nice if now and then there were good secondary characters, male or female. I would, and have, bought games with female leads. I have two copies of Mirror's Edge for instance. I think the real thing that causes the lack of female playerbase for games that are more than Farmville is just a lack of competitivity, but games would still benefit from better secondary characters. | ||
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tokinho
United States792 Posts
The comments like so what if they are abused everyone is abused? or its because the boys are 15-20 that are playing. Or that girls have to toughen up. Gender hate, is one of the biggest problems in games among the racism, nationalism and hate speech that comes up on every single sc2 stream. Examples of streams where i've seen dozens of gender comments being livibee's stream, kaitlyn's stream, spyte's stream, scarlett's stream, thousands of pornographic links on destiny's stream. So yeah, you repeatedly see comments about getting naked on stream, or very hateful gender comments and to ignore this fact I find disgusting. There are pornographic streams where that sexual comments matches content, but the hate comments really have no place. Personally, if I were a TL moderator, i'd warn about 1/3 posts in this thread for deviating on this. Travis, Milltron, Jiexian, zeo, oBlade, castleeMg, Omigawa, etc. I would have warned for their posts. I think this documentary is warranted for the community and it should be made very public that it is against the twitch terms of service and should not be ignored but should always be reported. This individual documentary i think isn't necessarily top knotch, i support the idea. I think that it is relevant in modern day culture and i think its well enough presented here that i would recommend it. | ||
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Darkwhite
Norway353 Posts
On March 13 2015 00:06 Plansix wrote: If we are going go down that route of "the free market dictates what the main character will be" then developers can will just have to deal with the criticism from female fans and guys life myself. As long as they are making the money, they shouldn't care right? So not point in asking people to stop complaining about it. If you go down the free market route, you realize that the developers are really constrained by the customer base, as to what they can make. So you have completely innocent game developers, being blamed for the fact (in this hypothetical) that women don't buy enough games to support the development of games catered towards them. Or, you have to assume that the developers are simply choosing to not make these profitable, female oriented games. In this case, it is hard to see why the blame lies with a particular developer choosing to focus on something else, and not the rest of the people on this planet who aren't making these games either. Sure, they are making other games instead. Other people are selling hot dogs instead. Exactly whose obligation is it to make these games? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On March 13 2015 00:20 Darkwhite wrote: If you go down the free market route, you realize that the developers are really constrained by the customer base, as to what they can make. So you have completely innocent game developers, being blamed for the fact (in this hypothetical) that women don't buy enough games to support the development of games catered towards them. Or, you have to assume that the developers are simply choosing to not make these profitable, female oriented games. In this case, it is hard to see why the blame lies with a particular developer choosing to focus on something else, and not the rest of the people on this planet which aren't making these games either. Sure, they are making other games instead. Other people are selling hot dogs instead. Exactly who has the responsibility for making these products? I don't care. Go make accounting software if your feeling get hurt because someone criticizes your work and its diversity. If you decided to ignore the requests of a demographic because you think another demographic will make you more money, deal with people complaining. Also I would like to point out that most developers are not complaining about criticism. Most of the responses from devs have been "we could do better for sure" and then they move on. The only people trotting out to defend their feelings by proxy are fans who also happen to be male and like games made being made for them. Weird how that works. Its almost like projection. | ||
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
On March 13 2015 00:20 Darkwhite wrote: If you go down the free market route, you realize that the developers are really constrained by the customer base, as to what they can make. So you have completely innocent game developers, being blamed for the fact (in this hypothetical) that women don't buy enough games to support the development of games catered towards them. Or, you have to assume that the developers are simply choosing to not make these profitable, female oriented games. In this case, it is hard to see why the blame lies with a particular developer choosing to focus on something else, and not the rest of the people on this planet who aren't making these games either. Sure, they are making other games instead. Other people are selling hot dogs instead. Exactly whose obligation is it to make these games? No they're not. Developers choose to cater to a certain population. They have every opportunity to cater to a larger or different customer base, especially since that exact customer base is criticizing them for their depictions in the first place. And, as has been recently pointed out, that doesn't even mean diluting the product. All but the most sexist of men can enjoy a game with a female main character or competent female characters in general. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to see the massive criticism of the depiction of women in games and yet still say, "The market doesn't want women to be more diversely depicted!" I've repeated this maybe four times now. No one is saying that a game has to be made specifically to be a feminist title. All that needs to be done is for there to be some diversity. If Ubi Soft just put that two days worth of work into it and there were some options for female characters in AC, then it would've been perfectly fine, and there are similar examples in plenty of other games where it would've been feasible to have more female options/not portray every women in an incredibly sexualized way. This really reminds me of gun nuts that think that any kind of legislation about guns automatically results in a nationwide gun registry that tracks every single person that owns a gun. It's an utterly ridiculous logical jump from A->Q when all that's being said is A->B. | ||
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tertos
Romania394 Posts
Trash-talk is a weapon wielded sometimes without impunity. When you are perceived different you get twice as much flak as everyone else. Be it you are a woman or black, or jewish or russian, unskilled, or simply slow (and the stereotypes can go on for ever) people will use that against you. And the only way to hurt someone over the internet is to trow words. So people hurl everything at you until they sense a weakness. And only then the real "fun" begins. Remember Scarlet's fan thread? the amount of bans there goes over the roof. And keep in mind that THIS community is one of the closest one to civilization. It is well moderated and well groomed over the years. Imagine one community where moderation is close to zero and you are not inclined to come back there tomorrow or you would never() meet the same persons again. If my mother would of read 3 minutes of my Dota1 chat back in the days, I would of lived in a hole with the highest tech technology allowed in the form of a rock. I the end you cannot expect to descend into a cesspit and come out smelling like lavender. To all female that aspire to a career in this particular field I say: quote from GOT: "Tyrion: Let me give you some advice bastard. Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." | ||
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Darkwhite
Norway353 Posts
On March 13 2015 00:30 Stratos_speAr wrote: No they're not. Developers choose to cater to a certain population. They have every opportunity to cater to a larger or different customer base, especially since that exact customer base is criticizing them for their depictions in the first place. And, as has been recently pointed out, that doesn't even mean diluting the product. All but the most sexist of men can enjoy a game with a female main character or competent female characters in general. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to see the massive criticism of the depiction of women in games and yet still say, "The market doesn't want women to be more diversely depicted!" I've repeated this maybe four times now. No one is saying that a game has to be made specifically to be a feminist title. All that needs to be done is for there to be some diversity. If Ubi Soft just put that two days worth of work into it and there were some options for female characters in AC, then it would've been perfectly fine, and there are similar examples in plenty of other games where it would've been feasible to have more female options/not portray every women in an incredibly sexualized way. This really reminds me of gun nuts that think that any kind of legislation about guns automatically results in a nationwide gun registry that tracks every single person that owns a gun. It's an utterly ridiculous logical jump from A->Q when all that's being said is A->B. I read your post, but I'm not going to respond in full. The very first sentence you wrote is factually wrong, unless you want game developers to be charities. The rest is essentially you claiming you know better than most game developers how games should be made. This is not necessarily false, but somewhat unlikely, and only time will tell. | ||
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Millitron
United States2611 Posts
On March 13 2015 00:30 Stratos_speAr wrote: No they're not. Developers choose to cater to a certain population. They have every opportunity to cater to a larger or different customer base, especially since that exact customer base is criticizing them for their depictions in the first place. And, as has been recently pointed out, that doesn't even mean diluting the product. All but the most sexist of men can enjoy a game with a female main character or competent female characters in general. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to see the massive criticism of the depiction of women in games and yet still say, "The market doesn't want women to be more diversely depicted!" I've repeated this maybe four times now. No one is saying that a game has to be made specifically to be a feminist title. All that needs to be done is for there to be some diversity. If Ubi Soft just put that two days worth of work into it and there were some options for female characters in AC, then it would've been perfectly fine, and there are similar examples in plenty of other games where it would've been feasible to have more female options/not portray every women in an incredibly sexualized way. This really reminds me of gun nuts that think that any kind of legislation about guns automatically results in a nationwide gun registry that tracks every single person that owns a gun. It's an utterly ridiculous logical jump from A->Q when all that's being said is A->B. As I've said, the problem with games being made for the widest audience is that the original core audience of a franchise suffers. It's not because that core demographic wants the series to stay some pinnacle of the patriarchy or whatever. It's because larger demographics have different ideas of what's fun. The new people want different gameplay than the original fans; if they didn't they would've already been fans. So you end up with games being made for the new audience, and the original loyal fans lose out. AC:U is a poor example for either side, it was a pile of shit in general. The lack of female playable characters was because Ubisoft really fucked up the development of the game, not because they are chauvinist bigots or trying to appeal to a core audience. I too would like better female characters, mostly because I'd like better characters in general. The way secondary characters in general are written is lazy and bland. | ||
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bardtown
England2313 Posts
This thread is supposed to be about abuse in COMPETITIVE gaming, so please consider what you're talking about and whether it is in any way relevant. I'm not sure that it is. The female playerbase of competitive games is much smaller than in other genres. | ||
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
On March 13 2015 00:46 Millitron wrote: As I've said, the problem with games being made for the widest audience is that the original core audience of a franchise suffers. It's not because that core demographic wants the series to stay some pinnacle of the patriarchy or whatever. It's because larger demographics have different ideas of what's fun. The new people want different gameplay than the original fans; if they didn't they would've already been fans. So you end up with games being made for the new audience, and the original loyal fans lose out. AC:U is a poor example for either side, it was a pile of shit in general. The lack of female playable characters was because Ubisoft really fucked up the development of the game, not because they are chauvinist bigots or trying to appeal to a core audience. I too would like better female characters, mostly because I'd like better characters in general. The way secondary characters in general are written is lazy and bland. But I explicitly addressed this, and you have even repeatedly said it yourself: making female characters more diverse doesn't take away from the quality of the game because men can appreciate them too. The overarching problem is that stories in games are just bad in general, but a very prominent result from this is that female characters suffer quite a bit from being pigeonholed or otherwise marginalized, and poor writing often comes at the expense of female characters before male characters. Fix female character depiction and you kill two birds with one stone; sexist depiction of women and poor writing overall. The focus is specifically on the depiction of women because "Women are marginalized or sexualized" is a more tangible and observable experience than "the writing is shallow and not creative" and it is also a topic/idea that people can grasp, understand, and work for. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10877 Posts
+the movie/film industry isn't one bit better than the gaming industry. I seriously just have trouble seeing this as a "gaming" related problem. Its our whole culture that paints women in a "sexist" light. I mean.. Where is the outcry at Kim Cardashian for being a walking stereotype of everything whats wrong with women in our media today? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On March 13 2015 01:07 Velr wrote: Its not like man are less stereotpycial than woman +the movie/film industry isn't one bit better than the gaming industry. I seriously just have trouble seeing this as a "gaming" related problem. Its our whole culture that paints women in a "sexist" light. I mean.. Where is the outcry at Kim Cardashian for being a walking stereotype of everything whats wrong with women in our media today? That outcry exists like every day. I don't think there is a day where Mrs. Cardashian isn't taken to task by some critic. And we can't address all of "culture" at once, its to huge. Addressing one thing at at time, starting with the things you are invested in, is a much more productive thing to do. And you're right that men are written equally poorly in video games. A lot of video games stories are based on action movies, which are filled with sexually charged dialogue between men and women at all times. The tension is always when the male and female protagonist are going to get together and there isn't much beyond their relationship than that. Thats fine if you are going for that, but in 20-30 hour games there needs to be a little more depth and people are looking for that. Its why people really ripped on the Shadow of Mordor's shit story, even though they loved the gameplay. | ||
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RuiBarbO
United States1340 Posts
On March 12 2015 20:34 Darkwhite wrote: Yes, I am really suggesting that if an artist creates a female character with astronomical breasts, and if some tiny minority enjoys this art, that you leave them be. If literally nobody appreciates the character, that actually doesn't change anything. The same goes if you find adults who play with model trains or people whose sexual preferences involve licking each other's armpits. Even if you think it's ridiculously stupid. Is this sort of tolerance of other people's preferences a radical concept? How long are you going to keep conflating criticism and shaming? Can you honestly not tell the difference between This does not appeal to me and You should feel ashamed to have made this? Shaming is not an unfortunate choice of words - it's just a crudely straightforward admission that it's about leveraging social pressure against the artists. I stand by calling it vile, but mileages tend to differ. Now this is an interesting question. Art and the public, what is the relationship? I think you might be oversimplifying somewhat. After all, "leveraging social pressure against the artists"---it seems like you're treating artists as a group of people who develop their art in a bubble where there are no social expectations, and then "shaming" is what happens when that bubble pops and society comes flooding in. But a pretty strong argument can be made that every phase of art---from its conception to its execution to its dissemination---is full of societal input. This helps explain why art often appears in historical trends, as reflections of historical events, and there's literature out there (art as cultural product) which covers this in greater depth. Is it really appropriate, then, to begin this hypothetical scenario with "if an artists creates a female character with astronomical breasts," as though that's where everything starts? Or should we also ask, "why did this artist create a female character with astronomical breasts?" Some interesting questions arise from this. For example, we may note that a trend in many games is women with unusually large breasts. Perhaps the artist in question played one or more of these games (League of Legends is pretty popular, I hear) before drawing this large-breasted character. Perhaps it was even the case that these games inspired this character. We begin to see a social trend reemerging in art. Some social trends are problematic or disempowering for certain social groups. This much seems safe to say. If an artist draws inspiration from and reaffirms a problematic social trend, is it really best to say nothing at all? Or is it better to voice criticism? Obviously there's a distinction between criticism and then just shouting someone down, but I think the question still stands. | ||
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Millitron
United States2611 Posts
On March 13 2015 01:05 Stratos_speAr wrote: But I explicitly addressed this, and you have even repeatedly said it yourself: making female characters more diverse doesn't take away from the quality of the game because men can appreciate them too. The overarching problem is that stories in games are just bad in general, but a very prominent result from this is that female characters suffer quite a bit from being pigeonholed or otherwise marginalized, and poor writing often comes at the expense of female characters before male characters. Fix female character depiction and you kill two birds with one stone; sexist depiction of women and poor writing overall. The focus is specifically on the depiction of women because "Women are marginalized or sexualized" is a more tangible and observable experience than "the writing is shallow and not creative" and it is also a topic/idea that people can grasp, understand, and work for. I'm totally ok with fixing the female character depiction, because it's just bad writing. I do not want franchises I like to try to attract wider audiences, male or female, because every time that's happened, the core audience suffers. If I like game A1 for positive features 1, 2, and 3, and the devs want to attract a new audience, they must give up some of the reasons I liked game A1. So game A2 ends up only having positive features 1 and 2, and also has negative features 1 and 2. The negative features were added in an attempt to attract new players. Clearly, game A2 is less attractive to me than game A1. In my case, this isn't because I'm a sexist. The positive features wouldn't be skimpy outfits or a damsel-in-distress plot, and the negative features wouldn't be a strong female lead or whatever. They'd be gameplay mechanics. So basically, I'm totally ok with devs I like attracting female gamers, so long as they like the same style of gameplay the devs were known for. I haven't seen any evidence that there are many female gamers who fit the bill though. The best example I can think of for a dev doing exactly what I'm worried about is Ubisoft and their Silent Hunter franchise. Silent Hunter used to be a serious, realistic WW2 submarine simulator. The most recent game, Silent Hunter Online, is a browser-based, microtransaction-filled arcade game. They clearly wanted a piece of the Farmville audience, and threw away their core audience to get it. | ||
Falling
Canada11504 Posts
I understand your fear of dumbing down a game to increase accessibility. I am after all, likely what Plansix would call a BW hipster  However, I don't think better characters is related at all to dumbing down mechanics or cash-grab micro-transactions. That is more related to gaming companies being run by money men that are not gamers (like dear Bobby Kotick) who's 'artistic vision' is to suck money from gamers even at the expense of gameplay. What you are describing, I think, is simply a different issue. However, I don't at all understand Darkwhite's perspective of a critique free world. Based on what I understand, you couldn't even criticize Silent Hunter Online as long as some people enjoyed it. You couldn't say, 'I wish you had kept the old mechanics' because a) they had the SHO vision and b) people like it. | ||
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Millitron
United States2611 Posts
On March 13 2015 01:37 Falling wrote: What you are describing with Silent Hunter sounds less like an attempt to widen the game's audience and more like an incompetent cash-grab in the vein of EA's Dungeon Keeper 3 pay to play. I understand your fear of dumbing down a game to increase accessibility. I am after all, what Plansix would call a BW hipster However, I don't think better characters is related at all to dumbing down mechanics or cash-grab micro-transactions. That is more related to gaming companies being run by money men that are not gamers (like dear Bobby Kotick) who's 'artistic vision' is to suck money from gamers even at the expense of gameplay. What you are describing, I think, is simply a different issue. It's somewhat related, I think, because they will likely take it too far. I mean, a careless analysis of the market suggests that if you can get women to play, you double your audience and double your income. I fear they will do more than just make good characters to attract women. I fear they will cut down on the competitivity and complexity of their respective series; both multiplayer and singleplayer. I have gotten the sense that not many women like hard, conflict-based games. So devs may, in an attempt to attract women, make their games easier and less rooted in conflict. Neither of which are things I'd be happy with. I'm fine with women playing the same games I play, just please don't corrupt them in an effort to attract more women. | ||
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Falling
Canada11504 Posts
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puerk
Germany855 Posts
On March 13 2015 01:45 Millitron wrote: It's somewhat related, I think, because they will likely take it too far. I mean, a careless analysis of the market suggests that if you can get women to play, you double your audience and double your income. I fear they will do more than just make good characters to attract women. I fear they will cut down on the competitivity and complexity of their respective series; both multiplayer and singleplayer. I have gotten the sense that not many women like hard, conflict-based games. So devs may, in an attempt to attract women, make their games easier and less rooted in conflict. Neither of which are things I'd be happy with. I'm fine with women playing the same games I play, just please don't corrupt them in an effort to attract more women. But that already happens, irrespective of women, just by the logic of easier game = more players = profit. That bent you give it just sounds chauvinistic. But just because the big money is in dumb blockbusters doesnt mean that good games will disappear. It is like saying because there are Transformers Movies there won't be any Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. | ||
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Millitron
United States2611 Posts
On March 13 2015 01:58 puerk wrote: But that already happens, irrespective of women, just by the logic of easier game = more players = profit. That bent you give it just sounds chauvinistic. But just because the big money is in dumb blockbusters doesnt mean that good games will disappear. It is like saying because there are Transformers Movies there won't be any Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I'm not saying women are dumb for not liking complicated, conflict-based games. They just are less interested in them. Women ARE a large, generally untapped demographic. And most don't seem to enjoy difficult, intellectually challenging games. They seem to like games that are more like past-times, while I like games that are more like hobbies. I know this is just an anecdote, but I know quite a few female gamers, and none of them like Europa Universalis. I don't want any new demographic to hurt the games I love, male or female. And sure, there will always be good games. But as games get more expensive to make, more and more will be forced to appeal to wider audiences. | ||
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