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Please don't go calling people racist, misogynists, or any combination therein. Don't start throwing around words like "white Knight" or SJW, these words are at this point used in a derogatory manner regarding this debate. You can discuss that these terms exist, but do not attribute them to any individual user or group of users on this website.
Try to have a serious discussion about the topic at hand without resorting to personal attacks and we will all be the better for it. Breaking this rule will result in an automatic temp ban the length of which will depend on the comment you make.
This thread started not so bad. It is getting worse. If you want to have this discussion on TL be respectful of your fellow users, we all live in the same house.
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On October 18 2014 23:51 Xiphos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 23:48 Dunnobro wrote:
I believe there's too much focus on "stop doing this" and not enough focus on finding out what to do instead. People are not only assuming what women don't want, or like, but they're not even catering to them or fixing the issue. They're just hurting the ability to cater to men.
And the fact is, women aren't really complaining en masse about sexism in video games. Not the ones who actually play games and would buy them if you actually "fixed" the issue anyway. That's why i think what TFYC was doing is so important, proper content creation and not content critique. Ofc they aren't. Only a small minority are complaining. The rest don't care that much. And that's why the demand isn't there.
I wouldn't say there isn't demand, just less. Certainly not so little it should go ignored. Really it wouldn't be much different than making a game a specific genre to aim it towards women. Women seem to like PC and MMO games most, though. I don't think they'll ever get into FPS and Action beatemups like guys do. Which is a bit of a catch22 as those are the most popular games generally and get the most flack.
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On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote:
I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
But you see, this thread is in no means part of the "gamergate "movement"", it just shows the little piece people latch onto when discussing it. And any 3rd party discussing anything should be held accountable for it's actual knowledge on the subject, as to keep people from talking out their ass imo.
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On October 18 2014 23:54 Dunnobro wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 23:51 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 23:48 Dunnobro wrote:
I believe there's too much focus on "stop doing this" and not enough focus on finding out what to do instead. People are not only assuming what women don't want, or like, but they're not even catering to them or fixing the issue. They're just hurting the ability to cater to men.
And the fact is, women aren't really complaining en masse about sexism in video games. Not the ones who actually play games and would buy them if you actually "fixed" the issue anyway. That's why i think what TFYC was doing is so important, proper content creation and not content critique. Ofc they aren't. Only a small minority are complaining. The rest don't care that much. And that's why the demand isn't there. I wouldn't say there isn't demand, just less. Certainly not so little it should go ignored. Really it wouldn't be much different than making a game a specific genre to aim it towards women. Women seem to like PC and MMO games most, though. I don't think they'll ever get into FPS and Action beatemups like guys do. Which is a bit of a catch22 as those are the most popular games generally and get the most flack.
Yeah, didn't mean to be absolute about it.
This still end up being a supply and demand problem.
It explains why there are less games that those minority of women are complaining about.
So the reason why there aren't as many of those video games that these minority of women are complaining about is purely based upon the forces of a competitive market.
Can't force the producers to make those type of games that want to play when in the end, the producers will get way less revenue.
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On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? On October 18 2014 13:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 18 2014 13:01 Dunnobro wrote:
A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not. Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved. It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die. The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is. Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while. See this is the perfect examples here. If y'all so want for those two characters to have more "empowered influences" in the games, then why don't you go ahead, work through the ranks as a programmer/writer to steadily getting promoted to a high position enough to dictate the game's story writing team. I think you are oversimplifying the position women who want to make these games hold. Some of these ges do exist just not many and they happen less often due to some publishers believing they won't seel. The story behind the game remember me is a perfect example of this. Getting it published and fully funded was difficult for the developer. That being said you can't invalidate an argument by saying "just do it". Theres more to it than that sadly  Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions. I think the point is: Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others. So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality. Its just how capitalism works. No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
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On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote:
Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:
Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos. Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more. From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research". In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people. And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about. Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit. Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true. A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart. Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects which are often found in the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? On October 18 2014 13:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 18 2014 13:01 Dunnobro wrote:
A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not. Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved. It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die. The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is. Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while. See this is the perfect examples here. If y'all so want for those two characters to have more "empowered influences" in the games, then why don't you go ahead, work through the ranks as a programmer/writer to steadily getting promoted to a high position enough to dictate the game's story writing team. I think you are oversimplifying the position women who want to make these games hold. Some of these ges do exist just not many and they happen less often due to some publishers believing they won't seel. The story behind the game remember me is a perfect example of this. Getting it published and fully funded was difficult for the developer. That being said you can't invalidate an argument by saying "just do it". Theres more to it than that sadly Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions. I think the point is: Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others. So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality. Its just how capitalism works. No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment. The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
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On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote:
Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being. First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation. Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues. To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly. Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:
Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games? Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos. Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more. From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research". In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people. And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about. Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit. Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true. A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart. Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there. Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? On October 18 2014 13:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 18 2014 13:01 Dunnobro wrote:
A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not. Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved. It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die. The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is. Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while. See this is the perfect examples here. If y'all so want for those two characters to have more "empowered influences" in the games, then why don't you go ahead, work through the ranks as a programmer/writer to steadily getting promoted to a high position enough to dictate the game's story writing team. I think you are oversimplifying the position women who want to make these games hold. Some of these ges do exist just not many and they happen less often due to some publishers believing they won't seel. The story behind the game remember me is a perfect example of this. Getting it published and fully funded was difficult for the developer. That being said you can't invalidate an argument by saying "just do it". Theres more to it than that sadly Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions. I think the point is: Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others. So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality. Its just how capitalism works. No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment. The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars. No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
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On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote:
Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being. First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation. Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues. To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly. On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:
Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games? On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos. Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more. From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research". In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people. And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about. Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit. Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true. A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart. Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there. Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433. On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? On October 18 2014 13:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:
[quote]
Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved.
It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die.
The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is.
Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while. See this is the perfect examples here. If y'all so want for those two characters to have more "empowered influences" in the games, then why don't you go ahead, work through the ranks as a programmer/writer to steadily getting promoted to a high position enough to dictate the game's story writing team. I think you are oversimplifying the position women who want to make these games hold. Some of these ges do exist just not many and they happen less often due to some publishers believing they won't seel. The story behind the game remember me is a perfect example of this. Getting it published and fully funded was difficult for the developer. That being said you can't invalidate an argument by saying "just do it". Theres more to it than that sadly Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions. I think the point is: Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others. So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality. Its just how capitalism works. No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment. The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars. No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam.
With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
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On October 19 2014 02:21 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote:
Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being. First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation. Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues. To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly. On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:
Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games? On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos. Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more. From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research". In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people. And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about. Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit. Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true. A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart. Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there. Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433. On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:
Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what?
[quote]
See this is the perfect examples here. If y'all so want for those two characters to have more "empowered influences" in the games, then why don't you go ahead, work through the ranks as a programmer/writer to steadily getting promoted to a high position enough to dictate the game's story writing team. I think you are oversimplifying the position women who want to make these games hold. Some of these ges do exist just not many and they happen less often due to some publishers believing they won't seel. The story behind the game remember me is a perfect example of this. Getting it published and fully funded was difficult for the developer. That being said you can't invalidate an argument by saying "just do it". Theres more to it than that sadly Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions. I think the point is: Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others. So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality. Its just how capitalism works. No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment. The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars. No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing. Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible. Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam. With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest. Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
2 Points here
1.
You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint).
2.
It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect.
Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
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Canada11219 Posts
wat.
There is more space between 'scammer' and 'saint'
Who, exactly, is arguing she is a saint? You argued A, he is arguing not A. He was not arguing B.
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On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:21 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote:
Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being. First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation. Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues. To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly. On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:
Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games? On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos. Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more. From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research". In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people. And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about. Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit. Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true. A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart. Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there. Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433. On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:[quote] I think you are oversimplifying the position women who want to make these games hold. Some of these ges do exist just not many and they happen less often due to some publishers believing they won't seel. The story behind the game remember me is a perfect example of this. Getting it published and fully funded was difficult for the developer. That being said you can't invalidate an argument by saying "just do it". Theres more to it than that sadly Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions. I think the point is: Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others. So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality. Its just how capitalism works. No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment. The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars. No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing. Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots. On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible. Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam. With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years. On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest. Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director? 2 Points here 1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint).
No, I am not. You claimed she scammed people. I explained why she didn't. Period. You have no factual basis to claim she scammed people.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
2.
It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect.
Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
"Other youtubers" have certainly not invalidated decades of research in social sciences, and gender studies in particular, on the representation of men and women in the media (including in video games - see the study I referenced earlier). Again, nitpicking about some of the individual examples selected by Sarkeesian certainly does not invalidate her broader points on sexist elements present in many video games. I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be when you say "it's about a matter of respect". There is nothing in Sarkeesian's discours which shows a lack of respect for men in general or for particular individuals. What she doesn't respect is sexism, and she's fighting to improve video games in general.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
2.
Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
She is very much assertive. She is trying to point out and explain certain problematic aspects of video games in order to induce a change at the systemic level. There is absolutely nothing cowardly or lazy about that, as I explained to you repeatedly.
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Look, kwizach, I'll say this. If everything you are saying is true; that sexist tropes in gaming are long overboard, then change will happen, and it will have been a long time coming. With the enormous exposure gamergate has had on the industry, there isn't any reason change for the "better" wouldn't happen if it was meant to.
If, however, it doesn't happen at a reasonable pace, for whatever reason, then perhaps you should acknowledge that gamers just aren't as bothered about sexist tropes in gaming as you think they should be, at least in this point in time. You and others like you could continue to fight, and likely in the future, most sexist tropes will be abolished.
OR progress could happen in tangential directions, and sexism could cease to become an issue in gaming. For myself, I have faith in most of the gaming industry. I just hope people are open to the fact that whatever they perceive to be morally unjust could be something else in the eyes of another. Do not be so conceited to think that your own particular world-view is the right one, and that progress can only happen in one direction, or that your particular problem is of utmost priority.
Perhaps, even, gamers may feel that a lack of quality game journalism (not even ethics) is the main problem in gaming right now. Maybe. Gawker could be forced to change before sexist tropes are. Why not?
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Northern Ireland23344 Posts
Out of all the media, if anything gaming being sexist is probably the least impactful on the lives of others.
Hyper-sexualised they may often be, but bear in mind that the characters depicted are made of polygons. In other entertainment industries the way you look actual impacts upon your ability to find employment within said industries, or in what capacity.
Gossip magazines and women's/men's interest magazines are worse by a large margin when it comes to pigeonholing genders and trashing the way people look.
This is not of course to say that gaming cannot do better by any means.
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On October 19 2014 02:41 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:On October 19 2014 02:21 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote:
Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being. First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation. Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues. To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly. On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:
Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games? On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos. Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more. From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research". In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people. And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about. Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit. Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true. A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart. Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there. Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433. On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:
[quote]
Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions. I think the point is: Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others. So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality. Its just how capitalism works. No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment. The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars. No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing. Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots. On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible. Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam. With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years. On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest. Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director? 2 Points here 1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint). No, I am not. You claimed she scammed people. I explained why she didn't. Period. You have no factual basis to claim she scammed people. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
2.
It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect.
Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward. "Other youtubers" have certainly not invalidated decades of research in social sciences, and gender studies in particular, on the representation of men and women in the media (including in video games - see the study I referenced earlier). Again, nitpicking about some of the individual examples selected by Sarkeesian certainly does not invalidate her broader points on sexist elements present in many video games. I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be when you say "it's about a matter of respect". There is nothing in Sarkeesian's discours which shows a lack of respect for men in general or for particular individuals. What she doesn't respect is sexism, and she's fighting to improve video games in general. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
2.
Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward. She is very much assertive. She is trying to point out and explain certain problematic aspects of video games in order to induce a change at the systemic level. There is absolutely nothing cowardly or lazy about that, as I explained to you repeatedly.
3 Points
1.
Scamming is cheating/lying to someone for monetary gains. That's what exactly she did, period. No questions about that.
2.
Dozens of evidence at your service:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anita sarkeesian criticism
3.
She is definitely not being assertive enough.
Why is she leaving the fates of her belief on other developer's hands?
Why can't she enroll to classes to help her make games?
Why can't she learn the concept of classes, methods, loops, conditions, arrays, action listeners, GUI, which protocols to utilize when designing an online game, what kind of service to use, and how to utilize SQL to store data and information pertaining to the game?
Because making a 20 minutes slide show on the internet is that MUCH easier. She isn't willing to start like the rest of the developers out there by studying the mechanism of how computer works, get a regular job, then climb up the ladder.
If you ain't willing to be the change that you want to see, don't expect others to follow you.
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Can someone explain to me the logic behind the idea that if games portray women as being attractive, then it necessarily means that their only useful role is as some kind of sex object? Just walking around Toronto I see many beautiful girls who are dressed in pretty tight clothes that makes them look better, but it doesn't follow as a logical consequence that I think their only value is in their looks. It is simply one dimension among many; unless the argument is that this dimension shouldn't exist at all which I feel is extreme.
Unless the women are being specifically portrayed and described as people who have no other useful role except to look good, I don't really see this criticism as making sense. I don't want to have to read a pages long article/study right now so a brief explanation would be useful 
edit: Similarly overly muscularized men is fine. It doesn't affect me at all to see that, I think its attractive to have muscles and I like it too. But it doesn't somehow mean that a man's only value is in being a giant hulk!
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On October 19 2014 02:41 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:On October 19 2014 02:21 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote:
Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being. First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation. Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues. To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly. On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:
Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games? On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos. Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more. From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research". In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people. And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about. Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit. Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true. A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart. Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there. Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433. On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:
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Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions. I think the point is: Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others. So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality. Its just how capitalism works. No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment. The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars. No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing. Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots. On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible. Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam. With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years. On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote:
Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest. Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director? 2 Points here 1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint). No, I am not. You claimed she scammed people. I explained why she didn't. Period. You have no factual basis to claim she scammed people. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
2.
It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect.
Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward. "Other youtubers" have certainly not invalidated decades of research in social sciences, and gender studies in particular, on the representation of men and women in the media (including in video games - see the study I referenced earlier). Again, nitpicking about some of the individual examples selected by Sarkeesian certainly does not invalidate her broader points on sexist elements present in many video games. I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be when you say "it's about a matter of respect". There is nothing in Sarkeesian's discours which shows a lack of respect for men in general or for particular individuals. What she doesn't respect is sexism, and she's fighting to improve video games in general. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
2.
Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward. She is very much assertive. She is trying to point out and explain certain problematic aspects of video games in order to induce a change at the systemic level. There is absolutely nothing cowardly or lazy about that, as I explained to you repeatedly.
So why did she not remain locked up with her studies in some obscure college faculty and publish her studies to her own audience (people that self identify as what we would call "SJW")?
She confessed not being interested in video gaming. Why the urge to fight for a change in the gaming scene then? Isn't this controversial, a lot?
No one gamer would care, nobody would send threats, if she published her ideology-fuelled works to her own audience and not made any effort to CHANGE game developers' minds. Instead they launched a bandwagon that wasn't asked for, and make a living off being a professional victim at the expense of other people's hobbies. And this victimisation is now a shield against any criticism aimed at that side of the industry. It can be used to fend off, literally any point that's raised against them.
I could certainly point out a lot of problems with gamers and video game development. Problems such as poor support, lack of innovation and annual titles, customer relations, DRM and a dozen others. Issues that actually concern the subject and not twist it with my own, personal political/religious/whatever creed that 99% of the other gamers don't identify with.
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Really my biggest issue with Anita isn't because of scamming, how she plays up her victimization, or anything like that. It's just how she doesn't address the points made against her, and tries to push this "Listen and believe" narrative where her bullshit shouldn't be questioned. It's a very palpable anti-intellectualism and avoidance of objectivity that turns me away from her. Most people not already of her very radical beliefs will likely not be convinced by this method either, there's no compromise from her end.
And of course the utterly ridiculous things the guy who actually does her writing says on twitter. How he goes ignored makes me feel like he's just using Anita as a vagina-shield.
But again, she's not Gamergate. So let's try to find a new topic, hmm? I think some are overplaying how much we talk about her, but i share their sentiment we should stop as it's simply not constructive.
Apparently there's some talk from those in the advertising industry on this topic, how scolding an advertiser for dropping support like with what happened with Intel is very rare and considered a huge red flag to other advertisers, not just for Gamasutra but for others that supported them.
And some general recent events: edit: oops, lost it... Hm, well just check http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/
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Canada13378 Posts
Xiphos,
Could you please stop painting the entirety of women in gaming or people who support women in gaming as unwilling to "walk the walk".
The thing is some people who are debating this issue are outside of the gaming development community. Regardless of how you view Anita Sarkeesian from an ethical perspective regarding her kickstarter the following fact remains:
Many of her points are consistent within the discourse of feminism and while at times they border on hyperbole, you need to remember that the purpose of the production is critique. I mean she effectively sold her kickstarter on the premise that she will critique gaming from the perspective of a feminist discourse. Just because you choose to be critical and critique something doesn't mean you can't accept the antithesis of your position however at the same time, the critique needs to be front and foremost otherwise the entire production and its purpose becomes questionable.
At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
Are there also positive representations? Yes, but when the critique is examining the negative, then you focus on the negative because the purpose isn't to discredit the positive, rather to draw attention to the negative.
Now why isn't she going out learning to code etc? Well its not her place, its not her interest. Her intention is to inform people and help them understand so that when they make a decision and when they go out and code or buy a game, maybe the notion of negative female representation in gaming impacts the way they view things.
Every single person can not go out and code or make their game their way, for some people its about informing and helping to further the world without specifically doing the work directly. I mean the women's movement in the 20s for the vote didn't involve women writing the laws they wanted to see (they did get petitions and made their voices heard though!). And the overall improvement of equality for women over the last 70 years also wasn't just women going out and doing it it was a broadening of everyone's minds as a society over time alongside women trying to do what they could when they could. I mean we are seeing this now with more and more female developers coming up. Are all their games gonna be good? Nope. But not every game is good in general.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that i hope you understand that
1) women in gaming aren't lazy because they aren't doing and instead are discussing
2) that the people who support the women in gaming aren't lazy because they aren't doing
3) that the market alone is to blame (this discussion being had is effectively a way to influence the market by influencing the people who buy games)
4) regardless of the ethical concerns surrounding Sarkeesian, the core of her position isn't invalidated by her activities related to the ethics of fulfilling the backer rewards from Kickstarter
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On October 19 2014 03:14 ZeromuS wrote:
At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
It can actually, though it focuses on what denotes "problematic" rather than what's going on in gaming, and how there's lots of other potential "problematic" views if you use the same criteria to determine it's an issue for women alone. And that's entirely unrelated to #gamergate so I'm steering clear of that.
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On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
On October 19 2014 03:14 ZeromuS wrote:At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
I don't see how it's even an arguable proposition. Define problematic. Your point rests on two presumptions: 1) that you're capable of defining what will and won't be problematic for other people, and 2) that representations of women in gaming translates to women somehow being abused or marginalized in the real world. Would you be as willing to tell girls on the street that the way they're representing themselves is "problematic?" Problematic for whom? And for the sake of whom?
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On October 19 2014 03:14 ZeromuS wrote:
Xiphos,
Could you please stop painting the entirety of women in gaming or people who support women in gaming as unwilling to "walk the walk".
The thing is some people who are debating this issue are outside of the gaming development community. Regardless of how you view Anita Sarkeesian from an ethical perspective regarding her kickstarter the following fact remains:
Many of her points are consistent within the discourse of feminism and while at times they border on hyperbole, you need to remember that the purpose of the production is critique. I mean she effectively sold her kickstarter on the premise that she will critique gaming from the perspective of a feminist discourse. Just because you choose to be critical and critique something doesn't mean you can't accept the antithesis of your position however at the same time, the critique needs to be front and foremost otherwise the entire production and its purpose becomes questionable.
At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
Are there also positive representations? Yes, but when the critique is examining the negative, then you focus on the negative because the purpose isn't to discredit the positive, rather to draw attention to the negative.
Now why isn't she going out learning to code etc? Well its not her place, its not her interest. Her intention is to inform people and help them understand so that when they make a decision and when they go out and code or buy a game, maybe the notion of negative female representation in gaming impacts the way they view things.
Every single person can not go out and code or make their game their way, for some people its about informing and helping to further the world without specifically doing the work directly. I mean the women's movement in the 20s for the vote didn't involve women writing the laws they wanted to see (they did get petitions and made their voices heard though!). And the overall improvement of equality for women over the last 70 years also wasn't just women going out and doing it it was a broadening of everyone's minds as a society over time alongside women trying to do what they could when they could. I mean we are seeing this now with more and more female developers coming up. Are all their games gonna be good? Nope. But not every game is good in general.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that i hope you understand that
1) women in gaming aren't lazy because they aren't doing and instead are discussing
2) that the people who support the women in gaming aren't lazy because they aren't doing
3) that the market alone is to blame (this discussion being had is effectively a way to influence the market by influencing the people who buy games)
4) regardless of the ethical concerns surrounding Sarkeesian, the core of her position isn't invalidated by her activities related to the ethics of fulfilling the backer rewards from Kickstarter
I refer you to here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/469193-gamergate-and-video-game-journalism?page=25#500
If she isn't interesting in actually coding the game herself, then why not hire other people to do it for her?
People clearly donated to her cause, why not Kickstart another project that seems "fair" for her?
She gets what she wants, and she doesn't have to work much for it.
The difference b/w this movement and the other movement are completely different.
One is fighting to CHANGE the law, another one don't have any prohibition or obstacles but chose to complain instead of being productive.
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