I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian, but...

[ShinyCharizard]

Why the fuck was Canadamus Prime suspended? I see nothing wrong with his post whatsoever.

Reread entire thread to find the post. My guess, it was far too short and got hit with a "low content" strike. Given how it seems every post is usually reported in one of these threads as it is, by one side or the other, not too surprised we have this happening.

Though yeah, I sort of share his sentiments too.

Hell the majority of us on these forums probably share that sentiment. Sure as hell ain't worth a suspension for putting it to words.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

This is not gaming related and, as such, does not belong in the gaming discussion.

Anita is ideology manifested in flesh, kind of a reverse succubus of intolerance, outrage and revenge. The Kickstarter Kali isn't here to make things better, she's all out to tear her host society a new one, while there are plenty other, plenty worse societies. I enjoy my freedoms. I enjoy my own, adequate stance on feminist issues without all the harpies and sirens and furies messing up my game. Shit gets old real fast.

There should be an R & P & S thread, but Sarkeesian is clearly all politics, all the way - so the R&P will do just nicely.

Posting this in the gaming discussion forum hurts my feelings and is really, really bad style.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I am pretty sure the complaint was about the complete lack of acknowledgement, let alone rebuttal to the many many people out there bringing up valid concerns and logical flaws with her arguments. The idea that refusal to do anything but preach is the same as a scientist who never peer reviews their work.

Well, I could see that as a fair argum--

No one thinks of the youtube comment section as a haven of intellectual discussion and integrity, and fortunately no one was actually making that argument, in spite of how disingenuously you and bazilly try to paint it as such.

Excuse me? Disingenuous?

I'm pretty sure many people right here on the Escapist HAVE said that turning off youtube comments is "cowardly" and means that she isn't "open to criticism" - read ANY thread about her and people will state that No YouTube comments is their problem with her.

If it isn't your problem, then... actually, no, I'm not sorry. I wasn't speaking to you, Sir. You called me disingenuous when there are dozens - if not hundreds - of people saying exactly what you claim "no one thinks". Well, the numbers disagree, Sir.

 

[runic knight]

How can you say the negative reaction to her wasn't because she was a woman, when she specifically received threats of sexual assault?

Simple. All I do is realized that why she is attacked does not have to be related to how she was attacked. Lets try a thought experiment here. Lets say you are a complete asshole, a troll trying to just piss someone off because hey, you like that sort of thing. Now who you are going to piss off doesn't matter much and the why you pick them doesn't either. All you are trying to do is cause a negative emotional response. What is a sure fire way to do that? Why attack attributes of a person they can not help. Race, Gender, Weight, attractiveness, whatever. A weapon is a weapon.
You assume because they based their weapons on her gender they attqacked her because of her gender, something that is unproven and surely a leap of faith on your part.

While men can be assaulted of course, the meaning of the assault is usually very different. Say it to a man and they'll see it less of an attack on their sexuality as on their abilities ("I got raped during that last match") whereas when it's said to a woman it's not just to say they are inferior, but that BECAUSE of that inferiority they are open to sexual assault ("My husband threatened to rape me if left the house")

You know that male rapes happen nearly as often as female rapes, if not more according to some sources, yes? Even conservative estimates have the numbers higher then the cultural idea of "only in prison". The fact there is a machismo mentality within society discourages males from reporting it or following through on charges so much so that males are seen as the easier victim to victimize without repercussion. Hell, even those that do try to fight against it have not only social and cultural stigmas to fight far worse then women, but legal ones as well, given how rape and even sexual assault can be defined.
You used a horribly sexist perspective stemming from a social gender "norm" to justify what I can only read as a terribly insensitive pile of tripe. At no point have I dismissed the plight of women or what they can suffer because of their gender, I merely claimed that such references are common place, regardless of gender or even topic on youtube. You do not get to try to play emotional blackmail here when you are either so ignorant to how universal actual rape can be or merely that insensitive to an entire gender's dilemma stemming from a culturally enforced stigma and gender expectations. That is bullshit, and if you keep pulling up emotional but unrelated bullshit, you will just reveal you aren't having a discussion. I would seriously back off any sort of "but women have to deal with this" crap you intend to try to bring up here unless you thoroughly know what the fuck you are talking about.

This is misogyny, the unnatural hatred of the feminine (vulnerability) that feeds into women in the gaming community having to "Prove" they aren't trying to make money off fans or "looking for nerd cred"

really, this is hatred of women? Trolls being assholes with whatever weapon they know will be most effective is hatred against women alone? Is it racist if someone uses racial slurs solely because they know those will get a negative reaction? Is it weight-est when they use weight?
Until you can somehow show it was because of gender, you can't claim it is misogyny. You are merely projecting your opinions about their motivations onto them and in doing so show both a bias that undermines your arguments as well as an lack of intellectual honesty about the situation.

When I say the community, mean the people who play games. When I talk about the commenters, I mean the people who thought it was within their rights to be hostile to someone who also played games, because she said things they didn't agree with. When I say why didn't the community do as much, I don't assign blame, I just want to bring up the question why we would tolerate such unkindness. Why did people focus on explaining why she was wrong instead of banding together and telling the commenter that doing that towards one of our own was unacceptable?

The people who run the websites, the ones who make the lets plays and the videos here at the escapist. The ones who write the blogs and run the forums do so more often then not out of a passion for the subject itself. They are part of the gaming community, they play the games (reviewers sure have to) and even at the basest level, they would only be popular if they actually represented the popular opinion or at least represented it enough that people would accept them when they differed on opinion. And NONE of them did tolerate that stuff. Hell, check the back logs here, where trolls are moderated against, most posted against it, telling people to check her out and ignore the trolls, and even those that did not did so out of actual disagreement with her arguments and not resort to "kill her lol" bullshit. The representatives of the gaming industry, the people who got where they are by being the ones the general gaming community looked up to and respected, all did what you claimed they didn't.
Beyond even that, the kickstarter itself got massive funding, much from gamers themselves, merely as backlash to her attacks. Hell, check the forums here around that time and you'll see only civil disagreement and near universal discouragement of the trolls. No one on either side of the debate supported them.

Why were we so focused on arguing for her impartially, that we neglected to come to help her when we saw what she was going through?

We did. We supported her cause, bashed the trolls, discussed her topics and rallied to her support if only for the right to exist. Yet none of that matters when you can point to the asshats and claim they are gamers who represent everyone. Hell, we discuss this crap every time her videos arrive, thereby continuing the discussion, and yet STILL no one is going "yeah man, those trolls were right, she should be killed lol". No one is doing that who isn't hiding behind a god damn faceless mask of anonymity.
What should have been a non-issue, that trolls are assholes and will always suck, has instead been the god damn rallying cry for every defender of the Sarkesian. No one on the internet thinks that trolls should be taken seriously in a debate. This is like asking why people are attacking climate science because there is an asshole outside on the street corner with a sign declaring it all to be god's will and that the end is near.
They do not represent the debate at all, they are the loud obnoxious assholes trying to disrupt it and most discussions have long since realized to not acknowledge them at all in the context of the various debates.

Fucking. Disingenuous.

 

[FriendlyFyre]

Look people, stop debating about her. After loooongh discussions on the subject i have come co conclusion that she doesn't give a flying *beep* about what she is preaching. As far as I can deduce, she is using prevailing social wisdom to promote herself and gather income.

Now, that my opinion is out of the way, let's switch to the facts.

Basic notions of her videos is that violence against women in video games as well as their disempowerment along with lack of female empowerment through female player characters propagates abuse and disempowerment of females in real life (which feminists neatly summarized in two theories and one term switch. Patriarchy, Rape Culture and replacing words "domestic violence" with "violence against women"). Now this notion is actually the same as those who advocate against violence in games, and they had much better case built around it. They had loads of incidental evidence (school shootings being described, by shooters, through game analogies, children killing other children by imitating certain games children dying due to neglect caused by games etc), much better starting point (all media promotes violence but due to games interactivity and the fact that player does the violence willingly is special case), much greater prevalence of what they see as bad in games (violent behavior is in nearly half of the games and quite a percentage (2-3%)can be treated as snuff material due to nature or amount of it) and the punch line that violence is actually presented as a solution.

Her argument's are not nearly that strong or as well put together, yet, unlike antiviolence movement, people are willing to accept her views either because they agree with her underlying notions of patriarchy, rape culture i domestic violence is only against women (all of which have been proven as unsustainable social theories by numerous researches and social studies) or due to one positive notion in her videos which is pleading for more female protagonists. But if you bite that hook, you actually support her basic notions described in first sentence of this paragraph.

Now this is just a base of a tower of what is bad or wrong about her videos but I have to go to work. Maybe I will continue this further on.

You say "Propegate," which is actually where i am a little further away from her arguments. I feel if there is one thing Radical Feminism needs to do it is draw a clear line between how our media affects us, and how we react to our media.

It's rarely helpful to tell someone they are being "controlled," "programed," or any other brain-washy term, because most people's first response is to deny it, be offended, and then ignore the speaker. Telling someone they don't have free will is to suggest they have no power over their actions, and when the person doing that is linking it to something we like, we often just write it off as them not believing we can have a difference of opinion, which is insulting.

That's why I keep saying that the content in video games doesn't make us more likely to use violence or degrade women (Same with music) because whether we are likely to do something I believe depends on who we are, what we have access to, and how we are feeling.

What i DO consider however, is the fact that extreme violence and sexuality are looked at as common aspects of our day to day culture, and whether being exposed to it routinely, though we may understand reality is different from fantasy, may lead us to believe that the two are "Normal"

But if we didn't grow up in so much of this violence, wouldn't we have a different idea of what constituted "normal"?

And since you believe these things are normal, aren't you more likely to think their prevalence isn't a problem?

Then you look at the people who say it's not normal and say they are being irrational, or reading too much into things, when in reality, you've had your idea of normal created for you by tv and movies and music that in no way represent reality, but whose content has acclimated you to a certain expectations.
Like a girl being kidnapped by a dragon.

Yet we never ask ourselves, "Why a girl?" "Why a dragon?" "Why didn't he just invite her over for tea?"
Because no one has ever made us until now.

 

[runic knight]

I am pretty sure the complaint was about the complete lack of acknowledgement, let alone rebuttal to the many many people out there bringing up valid concerns and logical flaws with her arguments. The idea that refusal to do anything but preach is the same as a scientist who never peer reviews their work.

Well, I could see that as a fair argum--

No one thinks of the youtube comment section as a haven of intellectual discussion and integrity, and fortunately no one was actually making that argument, in spite of how disingenuously you and bazilly try to paint it as such.

Excuse me? Disingenuous?

Any sort of argument that comes from the idea that the youtube comment section is the "peer review" is what they were talking about is arguing in bad faith. Given that they replied and clarified that they were, in fact, not talking about the youtube comment section at all, continuing that argument is disingenuous.

I'm pretty sure many people right here on the Escapist HAVE said that turning off youtube comments is "cowardly" and means that she isn't "open to criticism" - read ANY thread about her and people will state that No YouTube comments is their problem with her.

Mentioned in other threads, sure. But, again, not what they were apparently talking about, with it not mentioned in the first post, and then clarified later in this one.

When did I say anything about Youtube? You built that strawman yourself.

In all aspects of her work, not just Youtube. Ever see her create videos that answer criticism? You don't. because all she can do is argue her side and not adapt it for an environment based on debate.

If it isn't your problem, then... actually, no, I'm not sorry. I wasn't speaking to you, Sir. You called me disingenuous when there are dozens - if not hundreds - of people saying exactly what you claim "no one thinks". Well, the numbers disagree, Sir.

No one thinks the youtube comment section is a source of intellectual honesty. They MAY think it is revealing of Anita that she disables them, though I have never seen one who says it is only because of that, and not the lack of acknowledgement or addressing of the countless critiques her videos have gotten. The issue here is that you presume the complaints about her censoring everything related to her works is related to people's notions of youtube comments quality. They aren't, and I have yet to find anyone who, as I said before, thinks of them as a place of intellectual honesty.
As for not talking to me, no, you weren't. Though this is a public forum and as such any post is open to reply. I am sorry if you take more offense at my tone then I meant, but please don't think I was somehow wrong for replying to your post.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I suppose I misworded that bolded part. I wasn't particularly demanding, just suggesting.

Honestly, with developers like Naughty Dog, Rockstar, and Bioware, to say the least, do you really think it's a huge risk that they can't make a generally well received female playable character?

Why not exploit the niche market since so few others, if any are going to? Having less competition is generally a good thing for the bottom line, isn't it?

If I had the millions and millions of dollars, possiblty a billion to make a compeditive game company, I'd make a company that specializes in female protagonists. And I'd give a variety. I might not hold up to Anita's standards, but I'm seriously going to try and prove that the presense of a female protagonist won't damn a game by making -great- games, and a variety of women.
... But that means it's an even BIGGER risk than actually making a decent game! You'er saying I can't ask a risk while at the same time a bigger risk is suggested?

Lets be real, indie games are simply not going to have enough impact to have anything but the remotest chance to change the status quo. Going indie is an even bigger risk than starting one's own company because you won't be able to compete with AAA, or anything close, and you pay for your own company that could easily go bust if you make a crappy game.

I mean, I'm not saying that an entirely new game has to be made from the ground up, here. What about standalone DLCs like Liberty City Stories, Undead Nightmare, and Blood Dragon? Use an existing game to suppress a lot of the development costs, and time spent in making it.
Of course it'd be unreasonable to expect full price for it, but it'd be there, and it'd likely be a decent game, and odds are the woman won't be dressed like a prostitute. I'm not saying that the option to change clothes to look that way can't be there, but people will prolly have options for a more presentable look, too. It's not like Rockstar's a stranger to large wardrobes for their protagonists either.
There's a lot of ways to minimize the risk for the big game companies. I.E. not make a shitty game, and/or not make a shallow bimbo sex object chracter, and use existing game resources to make the game.

But there is evidence that points out that currently the niche market isn't that large, and catering to it hasn't been that profitable. There's a term in economics that describes this perfectly, that being Opportunity Cost. Opportunity Cost is the principle of taking into account the cost of what you forgo in order to create something. So in this case, could the resources that you're using to cater to this niche market be better used somewhere else instead? If they can, then it's best to go with the more profitable one.

I'd like to use the following chart as an example:

Spoiler: Mass Effect Statistics

Think for a moment of how much praise you hear online in regards to Mass Effect for the performance done for Jennifer Hale, and how much people love her, and how horrible Mark Meer is for not being her. In the end, less than 20% of gamers playing Mass Effect 3 selected a female protagonist. And while that 18% is still a market to certainly go after, and the cost of having both a female and male protagonist has shown to be low enough to deserve the inclusion of both when creating a custom character, imagine what the impact would be if only a female protagonist was featured instead of allowing both. I know it's not the best comparison but it's a bit of food for thought is all. I really wish that more statistics like these were made public. Several games send back user data to their developers that show player preference. I'd be curious to see how many people actually selected to be a race other than Human in Dragon Age Origins, to see if that's why it was given up in Dragon Age 2.

And while the company that you propose is one with good intentions, the reality is that it is likely one that is infeasible. Putting millions of dollars into the production of something that is aimed at a more niche market rarely makes it suddenly more accessible to the rest of the world. Even going more into that, there are few companies that have the ability to offer great variety on a whim. Bioware is a company known for their RPG's. Rockstar is known for their free roam sandboxes. Naughty Dog for their action adventure. Very few companies are capable of creating an RPG one year, followed by an FPS a couple later, and then a driving one after that for example. I don't know, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by variety, but I'm taking it as "female characters in multiple genres of game" in this case, please correct me if I'm wrong but it's slightly vague.

What the person you're responding to is meaning (I take this as from what I'm getting from the person, I may be wrong about it), is that companies will pay you large amounts of money to analyze a market, and figure out where profitable areas of it are. It's something that is actively done. If you can crunch the numbers, and prove that there is a market for a game staring a female protagonist in a third person shooter, set in a steam punk setting, that will be more profitable to tap into than the direction the company has already taken, it will take that direction instead. If it can't be proven though, there is a large risk to trying that, but if you believe the market is still there, the onus is on you to take action and find it. If the market truly is there, you will hit gold in tapping into it. If it's not though, the sting of the loss will be large indeed. It's a step that is not to be taken lightly though, and one that needs to have some certainty behind it in order to be made. That's why a larger company will not probably make that step unless reasonably assured that it can pull it off.

Here, to sum up my point better, I'm going to again go to another economic term, this one being a Disruptive Innovation.

An innovation that creates a new market by applying a different set of values, which ultimately (and unexpectedly) overtakes an existing market. (E.g., the lower priced Ford Model T)

Examples of Disruptive Innovation are many, let's take the digital distribution of movie streaming (Netflix), compared to the classic video rental method done by businesses like Block Buster. That's a disruptive innovation that has been massively successful. Many companies today are still trying to play catch up to what they've managed to create. And in being the first company to make an adoption such as that big, they have gained several adopters that now have loyalty to their company making it difficult to replace them. There are several failures that go along with these though but they are harder to find because failures are forgotten instead of noted, an example could be Flexplay a type of DVD that would delete it's playback after two days in an attempt to replace the normal style of video rental returns. The product failed, and was soon forgotten. The innovation they attempted was not found to be one which was marketable.

The same can be applied to media. From Quentin Tarantino with Pulp Fiction, to Rockstar with GTA III, Mojang with Minecraft, taking a form of media, and playing with it and spinning it in a different direction can make something wildly popular. It can also wind up just as easily being a failure though, for example see virtually every RTS that has been made for console or the thousand of failed games that litter the Apple App Store that tried to do something new. That's not to say the potential isn't there behind certain ideas, but that attempts have been made and have yet to be proven to be wildly successful.

In the end, I'd love to see something like that work, but I'd not put my money on it coming out on top. Recent attempts to tap into the market haven't been met with massive degrees of success. Hell, I bought Mirror's Edge on release and liked the change in both having a female protagonist and the free running mechanics of the game, the first time I played Pokémon Crystal I played as a female avatar, and have played through Mass Effect with Fem-Shep. I will admit, most of the time, I personally prefer to use a male avatar or play a male character, but do not take issue with playing a female protagonist. I do believe that the female protagonist market is underserved, and has room to expand, but hasn't found a much success in the last decade, and isn't nearly as large as some people claim it to be. And until it's either proven that the market has been mostly untapped all along or has grown dramatically, the risks taken to capitalize on that market by the larger companies are going to be smaller and further between because they have yet to find the great success that justifies spending more resources in immediate pursuit of continuing efforts to cater to it.

TLDR: I think that there is a market that is still undervalued by companies and is larger than given credit for, but not as large as what many people seem to want to believe, and until the right formula to capitalize on that market is found, efforts to take advantage of it will justifiably be further between and done on a smaller scale. Also, while a company like the one proposed would be set in a good direction, it would likely wind up being a failure unless either blessed by staggering amounts of planning and analyzing that heavily indicates it can succeed before efforts are taken, or incredible luck.

Seriously, how -hard- has the industry tried to delve into the niche? It's small because the attempts are generally kinda hard to see. We've gotta see a bigger effort to get it noticed, IMO.
How inviting has the industry been to women in less than trashy depictions?
Sometimes you have to grow the market. You don't have to invest hugely in it, but you gotta make it clear that you want the business from the people you're trying to get to buy your products. Tossing them a bone now and then won't win you loyal customers.

You're not incorrect on my intentions on the game company I plan on, I'd go for FPSes, RPGs, and Sandboxes. I'd need a large amount of people working for me, though. Which would necessitate large amounts of money. But heck, I could have games imported, and translated, too. I could be a producer as well. I can commission games, too, can't I? Of course the plan would require far more money than I'll ever have short of a lottery winning.
Point is, I want to kill the notion that women harm a game.

I've heard the "make your own game!" argument before, but "be your own market tester?"
It's not that simple, I imagine. Frankly, you don't know me, or where I am in life. Lets just say I'm not really in a position where I can gather mass data to present.
More over, thre's not a whole lot of data I can gather, is there? Aside from market testing. I've got little education in that field, honestly.
Still, I wonder how much of an impact it'd make if I showed them the Escapist at this point as common as protests against the status quo of the game industry?

Again, I gotta point out that there's companies with fantastic writers.
If Naughty Dog made a game with a female protagonist, you think it'd fail considering the strength of Uncharted, and Last of Us?
Or rockstar making even a side story DLC with a female protagonist wouldn't sell?
As risky as it is, I'd like to think they have the talent to pull it off.
Honestly, we won't know about how receptive women will be to gaming until there's a legitimate attempt at gender diversity, and welcoming women into gaming.
One game won't kill the notion that women hurt a game's sales, though.

Honestly, I'm not a business person, and honestly, there's no excusing the status quo of the gaming industry with me... well, there might be but no one's offered a compelling argument.
All making excuses really does is excuse the status quo, and doesn't change anything. It doesn't do me any good. Frankly, the status quo doesn't do us any good as gamers as the way things are going, we're getting shafted in the way of variety.
I don't have solid evidence either way with marketing to women because, again, while there are statistics for a few games that can be gotten, long term studies are needed, and the rarity of female protagonists, I imagine, is going to make that hard.
All I know is it feels like the game indusrty certainly haven't tried to get women interested, and the gaming industry is taking a lot of damage. Are those two related? I dunno.

I'm not that optimistic to fall into the definiton of disruptive innovation as far as I can see. Female protagonsits are unlikely to overtake male protagonists as people often want to play as their own gender. All I want to do is show that women can be viable protagonist that make money as far as games go.

I'm not saying the industry needs to invest heavily in female protagonists as far as money goes. I do think they need to maintain how often, and how long they invest, though. People need time to catch on.

 

[FriendlyFyre]

How can you say the negative reaction to her wasn't because she was a woman, when she specifically received threats of sexual assault?

Simple. All I do is realized that why she is attacked does not have to be related to how she was attacked. Lets try a thought experiment here. Lets say you are a complete asshole, a troll trying to just piss someone off because hey, you like that sort of thing. Now who you are going to piss off doesn't matter much and the why you pick them doesn't either. All you are trying to do is cause a negative emotional response. What is a sure fire way to do that? Why attack attributes of a person they can not help. Race, Gender, Weight, attractiveness, whatever. A weapon is a weapon.
You assume because they based their weapons on her gender they attqacked her because of her gender, something that is unproven and surely a leap of faith on your part.

While men can be assaulted of course, the meaning of the assault is usually very different. Say it to a man and they'll see it less of an attack on their sexuality as on their abilities ("I got raped during that last match") whereas when it's said to a woman it's not just to say they are inferior, but that BECAUSE of that inferiority they are open to sexual assault ("My husband threatened to rape me if left the house")

You know that male rapes happen nearly as often as female rapes, if not more according to some sources, yes? Even conservative estimates have the numbers higher then the cultural idea of "only in prison". The fact there is a machismo mentality within society discourages males from reporting it or following through on charges so much so that males are seen as the easier victim to victimize without repercussion. Hell, even those that do try to fight against it have not only social and cultural stigmas to fight far worse then women, but legal ones as well, given how rape and even sexual assault can be defined.
You used a horribly sexist perspective stemming from a social gender "norm" to justify what I can only read as a terribly insensitive pile of tripe. At no point have I dismissed the plight of women or what they can suffer because of their gender, I merely claimed that such references are common place, regardless of gender or even topic on youtube. You do not get to try to play emotional blackmail here when you are either so ignorant to how universal actual rape can be or merely that insensitive to an entire gender's dilemma stemming from a culturally enforced stigma and gender expectations. That is bullshit, and if you keep pulling up emotional but unrelated bullshit, you will just reveal you aren't having a discussion. I would seriously back off any sort of "but women have to deal with this" crap you intend to try to bring up here unless you thoroughly know what the fuck you are talking about.

This is misogyny, the unnatural hatred of the feminine (vulnerability) that feeds into women in the gaming community having to "Prove" they aren't trying to make money off fans or "looking for nerd cred"

really, this is hatred of women? Trolls being assholes with whatever weapon they know will be most effective is hatred against women alone? Is it racist if someone uses racial slurs solely because they know those will get a negative reaction? Is it weight-est when they use weight?
Until you can somehow show it was because of gender, you can't claim it is misogyny. You are merely projecting your opinions about their motivations onto them and in doing so show both a bias that undermines your arguments as well as an lack of intellectual honesty about the situation.

When I say the community, mean the people who play games. When I talk about the commenters, I mean the people who thought it was within their rights to be hostile to someone who also played games, because she said things they didn't agree with. When I say why didn't the community do as much, I don't assign blame, I just want to bring up the question why we would tolerate such unkindness. Why did people focus on explaining why she was wrong instead of banding together and telling the commenter that doing that towards one of our own was unacceptable?

The people who run the websites, the ones who make the lets plays and the videos here at the escapist. The ones who write the blogs and run the forums do so more often then not out of a passion for the subject itself. They are part of the gaming community, they play the games (reviewers sure have to) and even at the basest level, they would only be popular if they actually represented the popular opinion or at least represented it enough that people would accept them when they differed on opinion. And NONE of them did tolerate that stuff. Hell, check the back logs here, where trolls are moderated against, most posted against it, telling people to check her out and ignore the trolls, and even those that did not did so out of actual disagreement with her arguments and not resort to "kill her lol" bullshit. The representatives of the gaming industry, the people who got where they are by being the ones the general gaming community looked up to and respected, all did what you claimed they didn't.
Beyond even that, the kickstarter itself got massive funding, much from gamers themselves, merely as backlash to her attacks. Hell, check the forums here around that time and you'll see only civil disagreement and near universal discouragement of the trolls. No one on either side of the debate supported them.

Why were we so focused on arguing for her impartially, that we neglected to come to help her when we saw what she was going through?

We did. We supported her cause, bashed the trolls, discussed her topics and rallied to her support if only for the right to exist. Yet none of that matters when you can point to the asshats and claim they are gamers who represent everyone. Hell, we discuss this crap every time her videos arrive, thereby continuing the discussion, and yet STILL no one is going "yeah man, those trolls were right, she should be killed lol". No one is doing that who isn't hiding behind a god damn faceless mask of anonymity.
What should have been a non-issue, that trolls are assholes and will always suck, has instead been the god damn rallying cry for every defender of the Sarkesian. No one on the internet thinks that trolls should be taken seriously in a debate. This is like asking why people are attacking climate science because there is an asshole outside on the street corner with a sign declaring it all to be god's will and that the end is near.

Fucking. Disingenuous.

runic knight, you said that people making rape threats was because it was the easiest way to get under a woman's skin, yet you also said they didn't attack her specifically because she was a woman. Don't you think there is something to the idea that they specifically chose to attack her in a way that referenced her being a woman because they understood that on some level?
Like i stated before, do you ever wonder why exactly the threat of rape is so damaging to women, while men seem able to shrug it off? It's because one some level, even though they had never met Anita, those commenters believed that as a woman, she was lesser then them, and that reminding her of it is the most effective way of not just insulting her, but boosting their own egos.

It's a hypothesis, sure. But I think the cruelty in their words speaks not just to her being wrong, it speaks to wanting to put her in her place for interrupting their fun.

 

[runic knight]

runic knight, you said that people making rape threats was because it was the easiest way to get under a woman's skin, yet you also said they didn't attack her specifically because she was a woman. Don't you think there is something to the idea that they specifically chose to attack her in a way that referenced her being a woman because they understood that on some level?

That is possible, but unproven just to start with. When you add in how trolls behave towards other people, universally using physical or hard to alter aspects, it far more supports the idea that the goal is to cause harm using whatever means is most likely, with the frequent "equality" for lack of a better word suggesting that such types of hate are not causes by gender in the first place, merely strong opinions. Or, to put it another way, if there is a topic with strong opinion in a forum not moderated, you will see people popping out of the woodworks and using the most visible traits in order to get negative reaction. Because the hate is universal and tied to the controversy of the topic more so then the gender or race (even if those traits are used as forms of attack), it is hard to see the trolls as even sexist any more then I would see a tornado as sexist if it took out an apartment building with only female tenants.

Like i stated before, do you ever wonder why exactly the threat of rape is so damaging to women, while men seem able to shrug it off? It's because one some level, even though they had never met Anita, those commenters believed that as a woman, she was lesser then them, and that reminding her of it is the most effective way of not just insulting her, but boosting their own egos.

This I would probably agree with. On some level they probably thought themselves better and as such decided to spread hate. I would probably add in that some probably troll just to troll, and a fair number probably resorted fro mthe 4chan backlash after someone spammed the videos over that site. But none of that suggests it was done because she was a woman at all, let alone supports it with any degree of conclusive answer.

It's a hypothesis, sure. But I think the cruelty in their words speaks not just to her being wrong, it speaks to wanting to put her in her place for interrupting their fun.

Again, yes but not for the reasons you imply. I separated this specifically because the point you make here is something you are connecting a presumption to when you use it. Yes they may have thought them better then her. Yes they may have wanted to put her in her place. But neither of those is limited to nor restricted by gender in the least. The idea could very easily be, that after taking into account the trolls for the sake of trolling portion of the crowd, and the 4chan neckbeards, that some see her as trying to force a change on something they like based on an ideological agenda (ala politicians against violent games) and that they want to put her (an outsider and ideological interferer) in her place (besides Jack Thompson, disbarred in the proverbial gutter). You keep applying a gender reasoning and motivation, and while I can understand how the connection is made, it is unreliable as a hypothesis at best. And given the support for the "trolls are just assholes with anonymity online" argument, I find it a hard to swallow hypothesis.

Granted, I am sure the truth is probably a mix of all the above with gender influencing some as much as general trolling behavior, and the rest. I just don't think there is case enough to assume that as the primary motivation, let alone the sole one.

And that is just the rebuttal on the trolls themselves, once we separate them from the discussion, as any discussion on ideology of politics should by default.

 

[Erttheking]

Anita has never played a video game in her life, and that isn't invented, its fact. She isn't even remotely qualified to talk about the subject material.

Uh, yeah, I would like to respond to this post with a massive "CITATION NEEDED!" Seriously what evidence to you have to support this claim? I don't think she forged that picture of herself playing an old Nintendo game she showed in the first video.

Well, we know that the footage she posts of games in her show are stolen from someone else.

http://victorsopinion.blogspot.be/2013/07/anitas-sources.html

So, If she had so much money to work with, and took the time to play these games she supposedly bought, would it have been so hard to buy a lil 50 dollar capture card so that she could capture her own footage while she is playing through these games she is playing?

Why does she have to steal footage from someone else on Youtube instead of making her own recordings?

Edit: And I am not saying that this is in any way fact, just playing the devils advocate; Someone who has shown they are willing to steal content from others to include in their own show, probably wouldn't be above stealing a photo of a girl playing a videogame console from google images somewhere.

Yeah, I'm not denying that, that was a massive dick move. The thing is, there's a massive jump between that and "Never played a game in her life." Considering how much the woman talks in depth about them, I think she's played one or two. Really the whole "Never played a game thing" seems more like an attempt to dismiss her arguments without actually addressing them to be honest.

 

[Asita]

Seriously, how -hard- has the industry tried to delve into the niche? It's small because the attempts are generally kinda hard to see. We've gotta see a bigger effort to get it noticed, IMO.
How inviting has the industry been to women in less than trashy depictions?

I get the feeling you'd be surprised. Devs have been trying to appeal to women as gamers since the early days (Pac Man being perhaps the earliest attempt). And recent trends suggest that roughly 47-48% of gamers are women, so they're getting pretty decent at it, despite the popular preconception that women make up a minority. Were I to make a guess, I'd wager that perception may stem from the typical focus on FPS titles, which less women tend to play (Statistically women tend most towards more social, story driven (RPGs) or constructive (ala The Sims) games)

 

[Smeatza]

I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian but.........
I lowered my standards of academia to pre-school level.

 

[Akyho]

- She spends far too much time getting bogged down in lists and details instead of outlining and dissecting possible solutions.

We can all debate a hundred different reasons why to like or dislike Anita. However the one thing that Anita destroys herself over is the fact she never provides solutions.

She is happy to point out what's wrong, happy to criticise, however she does not provide any solutions beyond "stop doing it."

From the very start before I had formed an opinion on Anita I asked "Where are the analyzation on positive Female characters? Were is the reinforcement of what has been done right, so we may do that instead of whats wrong." it took 11 videos in her list before she came up with one positive title. Which after her three videos on Damsel's in Distress is looking to be video 40 before she begins any dedicated look at positive Female characters.

If her goal is to shake the industry up and help them create better female roles and characters. Improving female representation then help it, instead of punishing all men and claiming "patriarchy" at every corner. Aswell as stop wasting time on "Trolls" and talking about "victimisation" when there is already plenty of discussion on it.

If she doesn't have answers to the problem then why keep beating everyone over the heads that there IS a problem?

 

[FriendlyFyre]

I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian but.........
I lowered my standards of academia to pre-school level.

Hm. See, you seem to be implying that by having fewer standards, you're better then me? And I guess that's supposed to make me feel upset, because no one is better then me?
I don't get it.
Huh. Or maybe you were just joking.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Seriously, how -hard- has the industry tried to delve into the niche? It's small because the attempts are generally kinda hard to see. We've gotta see a bigger effort to get it noticed, IMO.
How inviting has the industry been to women in less than trashy depictions?

I get the feeling you'd be surprised. Devs have been trying to appeal to women as gamers since the early days (Pac Man being perhaps the earliest attempt). And recent trends suggest that roughly 47-48% of gamers are women, so they're getting pretty decent at it, despite the popular preconception that women make up a minority. Were I to make a guess, I'd wager that perception may stem from the typical focus on FPS titles, which less women tend to play (Statistically women tend most towards more social, story driven (RPGs) or constructive (ala The Sims) games)

Which leads to my conclusions that they should actually try and welcome women more into the gaming industry not just to appease the current fanbase but to pull in more women.

I don't feel like the industry is trying to be welcoming as so much as women gamed regardless of what they had to see, and who they had to play as, and the community they had to endure.

Imagine, with such a high percentage of women gaming, if they actually tried to pander to them some? Grow the market, I say. Not exclusively towards women, but enough to make the scene that can be better recommended to women.

 

[Asita]

Seriously, how -hard- has the industry tried to delve into the niche? It's small because the attempts are generally kinda hard to see. We've gotta see a bigger effort to get it noticed, IMO.
How inviting has the industry been to women in less than trashy depictions?

I get the feeling you'd be surprised. Devs have been trying to appeal to women as gamers since the early days (Pac Man being perhaps the earliest attempt). And recent trends suggest that roughly 47-48% of gamers are women, so they're getting pretty decent at it, despite the popular preconception that women make up a minority. Were I to make a guess, I'd wager that perception may stem from the typical focus on FPS titles, which less women tend to play (Statistically women tend most towards more social, story driven (RPGs) or constructive (ala The Sims) games)

Those numbers are a bit flawed though if you want to talk about the AAA games industry.. Yes 47 percent of gamers are female, but how many of those are just playing games on their phone or facebook, instead of on a PC, Xbox, PS, or Nintendo? Because for the big publishers those that dont play on the big consoles might as well not even exist.

I do believe you just lent credence to my hypothesis

 

[runic knight]

- She spends far too much time getting bogged down in lists and details instead of outlining and dissecting possible solutions.

We can all debate a hundred different reasons why to like or dislike Anita. However the one thing that Anita destroys herself over is the fact she never provides solutions.

She is happy to point out what's wrong, happy to criticise, however she does not provide any solutions beyond "stop doing it."

From the very start before I had formed an opinion on Anita I asked "Where are the analyzation on positive Female characters? Were is the reinforcement of what has been done right, so we may do that instead of whats wrong." it took 11 videos in her list before she came up with one positive title. Which after her three videos on Damsel's in Distress is looking to be video 40 before she begins any dedicated look at positive Female characters.

If her goal is to shake the industry up and help them create better female roles and characters. Improving female representation then help it, instead of punishing all men and claiming "patriarchy" at every corner. Aswell as stop wasting time on "Trolls" and talking about "victimisation" when there is already plenty of discussion on it.

If she doesn't have answers to the problem then why keep beating everyone over the heads that there IS a problem?

My guess? The money. She has said she hopes her stuff is used in the classroom (if textbooks are any indication, that can be very lucrative, especially if you already made the material and now only have to license.) There is also possibility for ad revenue by continuing the series. Then there is the idea of staying in public light in order to be treated as a figurehead of some sort, complete with invites to conventions and the like, and lots of publicity for whatever project she wishes to work on next.

Sort of the fire and brimstone preacher schtick. Lots of damnation and hate, little actual solution, but donations gladly accepted to feel less guilty about whatever.