A study on whether feminists are taking over video game publications

[omega 616]

In a large number of cases I can understand the opposite view point, like I am for gun control in America but I can understand the opposite view point but I just can't fathom not wanting more diverse stories.

How can you enjoy playing as the brown haired white guy saving the day constantly? Then again, people watch films at the cinema 10+ times, so I guess I just don't understand people.

Because the protagonist being a brown haired white guy has no impact on the diversity of stories? Surely hitman (okok he's bald but i doubt that really matters), MGS, GTA, Mario, Mass Effect (and so on) have quite different stories. On the other hand take GTA and just replace the protagonist with a woman and... you have the exact same story. If diversity of stories is what it is about than the looks of the protagonist is very irrelevant.

It kind of does ... you just named 5 games where a guy saves the day, name me 5 games in which a female saves the day. Name me 5 with a gay guy, name me 5 with a black guy.

Off the top of my head, I can name two females ... metroid and tomb raider.

Males? Besides the ones you listed, you also have god of war (you had a bald guy! Haha), uncharted, assassins creed (altair, Ezio, Desmond, Connor and Kenway all white and brown haired), every COD, how many of the final fantasy games? Resident evil, ok in some you can play as a girl but how come in 4 and 5 you play as the guy? Isn't res 6 just 3 guys?

Just think of any game, let your mind run wild, then think of who you play as ... odds are that it's a dude.

Even if it just a token gender swap, give me it! I am stick of staring at a mans ass bob around and save the day!

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I told you it was all fake drama caused by the vocal minority. It's fake drama because no one actually gives that much of a shit aside from like 50 or so people in the industry.

 

[Suhi89]

It's simple confirmation bias. People think that there are a ton of articles about feminism and its a problem so every time they see one they ignore the hundreds of articles that have no relation. It's the same on the other side by the way. If you think that games are sexist then you're much more likely to notice sexist elements in games, and ignore the context/ all of the games that aren't sexist.

This is why just listing a bunch of games you think are sexist for whatever reason is useless without some sort of statistical analysis, as has been done here.

 

[WhiteNachos]

An article can be anything from "Destiny release date revealed" that takes up 1 or 2 paragraphs to an analysis, to a review.

What I want to know is how many of them criticize the feminists.

I've yet to see an article from a big gaming website in the past 5 years saying "this feminist says such and such game is sexist, here's why they're wrong". I think the most was No Right Answer maybe? It seems nearly all of them side with the feminists whenever it gets brought up. I'm not even counting the "this person got internet death threats and that's deplorable" ones.

So do a study on that.

 

[giles]

Can we please not call this a study? How about "word analysis"?

 

[chadachada123]

The thing I find is the conversation isn't "should there be more equality in games", instead the conversation is feminist saying "we want less male leads etc" and everybody else saying "fuck feminists".

In a large number of cases I can understand the opposite view point, like I am for gun control in America but I can understand the opposite view point but I just can't fathom not wanting more diverse stories.

How can you enjoy playing as the brown haired white guy saving the day constantly? Then again, people watch films at the cinema 10+ times, so I guess I just don't understand people.

I think the primary reason (and, frankly, I agree) is because modern journalists seem to want to...well, I don't really have a way to explain it besides this graphic:

This is what many common gamers of late and supporters of #GamerGate see. They see journalists that decry perceived sexism as wanting to get rid of one type of game rather than support more games of all types. That's what they perceive modern feminism as.

I really do think that this graphic applies to pretty much all gamers besides your Madden dudebros or your CoD dudebros/13-year-olds-that-just-learned-they-can-swear-online-without-repercussions.

 

[Spambot 3000]

Topics like this should be banned from Gaming Discussion.

 

[Erttheking]

Topics like this should be banned from Gaming Discussion.

Please elaborate on why that is the case. Why should it?

 

[Something Amyss]

This is what many common gamers of late and supporters of #GamerGate see.

It's a shame it's utter fiction bordering on paranoia.

 

[DeltaEdge]

I hope feminists are taking over the industry. Maybe then we'll finally start getting people that can write female characters and not sexualize female characters disproportionately to male characters, then we can finally stop having daily threads about how sexist the game industry is and get back to this illustrious golden age of just having fun that many gamers love to reminisce about from their childhoods before the feminists laid siege to their holy ground with the intent of tainting their game's fun and purity with social justice warrior hatred and bile.

 

[Spambot 3000]

Topics like this should be banned from Gaming Discussion.

Please elaborate on why that is the case. Why should it?

Because ever since the gamergate debacle started topics like this having been filling off-topic to the point of overflow and if they are allowed here for no reason other than being tangentially related to video games then there is no safe haven from them. It's worse than the timespace after the mass effect 3 ending except this is has no signs of slowing down.

 

[T_ConX]

In all honesty, I think part of the reason some of those numbers are so low is because of vast amount of articles on these sites.

Take Kotaku for instance. For every 'We needed a fake email address for this fake screenshot of a fake email threat, and warhero at aol.com was the best we could think of' puff piece, there's typically several pieces of moronic linkbait clogging up the systemof sewer gutters that calls itself Kotaku, a problem that I like to call 'The Patricia Hernandez Epidemic'.

Hell, just looking at some of the articles in the "Latest Content, Most Popular, Most Commented" sections below this text box, its kind of obvious how many articles on The Escapist have little or nothing to do with video games all.

 

[Fireaxe]

There's a massive fallacy in counting the countless small and barely-promoted news articles in the same category as the featured opinion content.

 

[communist gamer]

Not really a study, anyone who paid attention in high school knows that, he dose not even provide the data, he also in clouds things like previews (to explain why this is wrong,, it is like doing a study on the behavior of wolfs in a forest and including the behavior of dogs in said forest because the two species are clously related, in other words making your data suit your needs in a artificial way)

 

[Rayce Archer]

I will take the most militant feminist you can throw at me over any MRA, any day of the week. Those dudes are just terrible.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, the numbers here clearly state that the Evil Feminist Union of Men Suck do not hold majority sway over the games industry... but what if this is all a trick? What if they're just making us think they're not as influential as believed? What if they really control all games websites, and are just leaking information to falsify studies like this?
WHAT IF THEY'RE ALREADY IN OUR MINDS????

*Clings Tin-foil hat tight*

You joke, but Anita already clearly controls the FBI, so this rabbit hole already runs deep.

 

[Something Amyss]

I will take the most militant feminist you can throw at me over any MRA, any day of the week. Those dudes are just terrible.

That's a little harsh, innit? I mean, there's been a Men's Rights movement for decades, well before douchebags in fedoras started whining about teh wimminz on the internet. That's not to say I subscribe to their philosophy, but most militant versus any? That's rough.