I'm super depressed about sexism in gaming...

[anthony87]

Anyone remember when we just got excited for new video games and had....oh, what's that word? Oh yeah, fun!

On a lighter and totally unrelated note, this is fucking crazy!

 

[axlryder]

Video games will eventually go the way of movies. Gaming will develop its equivalent of vapid, pandering "rom-coms" designed by committee and men will still have their action games. Then everyone can be happy.

 

[Easton Dark]

Sorry if I haven't answered people I stopped posting because I thought it was a non issue and everyone was saying the thread was pointless...

Aw cmon, talk to me

Spoiler: (even Momo talks)

You seemed fine with it the last few days. What happened to make you so depressed?

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Ive been gaming over 20 years, same as my sisters in the olds days of Atari and Spectrum. Girls playing games isnt an issue, its a hobby that any one can do if they want to. It makes me laugh when some guys are like "OMG girls play games" as if its a huge culture shock.

If your female and enjoy gaming, then enjoy it. Stop thinking to much about it so much.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I don't buy it that women are put off by seeing women in games.

The entire women's magazine industry is dedicated page after page after page of women dressed in very little.

I think Moonlight has stated before in other threads that her problem is not with the women themselves but the idea that male players would be looking at the women depicted.

I've never said that. Ever.

It would just be nice to have more female characters whose personality is considered more than
their bra size.

In other news TF2 MVM Mann up wait times are annoying the crap out of me.

 

[Weaver]

'How dare people like (insert woman here) come into our hobby and tell us what's wrong with it!

I've never once in my life heard this statement or anything close to it. Nor have I ever seen it argued that gaming is a man's hobby and should remain such. The primary demographic IS males, but for the majority of my gaming career there seemed to be a push to get more girls into gaming as opposed to keep it exclusionary to males.

I'm not saying these people don't exist, but I really think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Ask a group of male gamers if more women should play games and I doubt you'll find many (any?) who think women shouldn't be gaming because it's a men's only hobby.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

'How dare people like (insert woman here) come into our hobby and tell us what's wrong with it!

I've never once in my life heard this statement or anything close to it. Nor have I ever seen it argued that gaming is a man's hobby and should remain such. The primary demographic IS males, but for the majority of my gaming career there seemed to be a push to get more girls into gaming as opposed to keep it exclusionary to males.

I'm not saying these people exist, but I really think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Ask a group of male gamers if more women should play games and I doubt you'll find many (any?) who think women shouldn't be gaming because it's a men's only hobby.

I've seen it in plenty of places, most recently a thread here on the escapist which linked a rather nasty youtube video saying exactly that. You can also see a lot of people saying it in this thread.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Sorry if I haven't answered people I stopped posting because I thought it was a non issue and everyone was saying the thread was pointless...

Aw cmon, talk to me

Spoiler: (even Momo talks)

You seemed fine with it the last few days. What happened to make you so depressed?

TBH I think it's just been building up.

 

[Killertje]

Are there any guys here who find Ivy from Soul Calibur attractive? I sure as hell don't... Also Voldo is my favorite character even though he looks like... ehm... let's say not my ideal avatar. I understand that most male characters aren't as "sexy dressed" as most female characters and if the roles were reversed I'd probably not like it, but I wouldn't really be bothered by it either.

And if some guys treat female gamers like shit, it's probably because they are stupid little children with bad parents and no girlfriends for the foreseeable future so they will get what they deserve in life. Just tell them to fuck off and quickly ignore them before the replies come.

 

[RubyT]

You seem to be decrying various different things, which makes the discussion difficult.

Your points seem to be, among others:

1. Portrayal of women in games is sub-optimal
2. Male gamers attitudes towards women in in-game situation are sub-optimal
3. Male gamers attitudes towards women in game-related discussions are sub-optimal


I agree with 1. The thing is, a lot of video-games, especially the attention-getting AAA shooters are horribly written. Guys are stereotypes in them too. I had to stop playing Gears of War after 15 minutes because I couldn't take it anymore.
The issue here, in my opinion, is that games are largely written by people who either failed in Hollywood or who have no qualification whatsoever. Oftentimes you get the feeling that the devs write large parts themselves.
If I were a developer, I'd be making all my games gender-neutral if possible. If you look at the budget of AAA titles, an additional voice actress is really not gonna make a visible impact. And neither is a new model option and a few lines in the script that acknowledge the new gender option.


2. is true, but you wouldn't really like it as a guy either, because gamers' behavior in-game tends to be sh*tty across the board.


I haven't witnessed a lot of 3., to be honest. But you have to understand hostile reactions, when a woman comes along and decries sexism in a game like God of War. The fans of that game might rightfully fear a watering down of the genre.
That's where the "why don't you write your own games" comes from. It means "don't ruin our sexist games that we love, get your own p.c. games".

 

[Hagi]

I feel this is relevant to the topic at hand:

Might even cheer the OP up, or not.

 

[Treblaine]

There is some particularly nasty you tube videos with plenty of likes. I have been kicked from multiplayer games before the game has even started because they have asked me a question and found out I'm a girl, been sent lude images and messages and been told I can't play pvp

When I ran a guild in WOW people though my best mate was my bf and I was only playing cos of him.

I understand if you have never experienced it but I guess you are lucky like you have said.

Sorry if I haven't answered people I stopped posting because I thought it was a non issue and everyone was saying the thread was pointless...

So yeah...forget I said anything

You know you aren't the only person on the internet to have ever gotten trolled or griefed, right?

My point is this may be less down to sexism in particular but misanthropy in general. Anonymity and frustration equals sadism. People are attacked over their insecurities as even if less than 10% of people online are anti-social bullies then they will make up over 90% of the chatter. And you can't say anything to stop them, they will only respond in kind and try to provoke you.

My American friend makes similar rants saying he is fed up with anti-Americanism that is rampant on the internet, vile vitriolic stuff and incessant as he is in Europe at the moment and often end on EU or Russian servers where they single out his accent.

The problem for all these things is moderation to remove or COMPREHENSIVELY silence troublemakers. Xbox live in general and WoW in particular are poor at this, other networks are better managed.

It is a small unrepresentative and disingenuous (don't really hold their beliefs) who say such things to satisfy their sadistic satisfaction of taking out their frustration on someone who can't strike back.

 

[Treblaine]

I don't buy it that women are put off by seeing women in games.

The entire women's magazine industry is dedicated page after page after page of women dressed in very little.

I think Moonlight has stated before in other threads that her problem is not with the women themselves but the idea that male players would be looking at the women depicted.

I've never said that. Ever.

It would just be nice to have more female characters whose personality is considered more than their bra size.

I guess I was mistaken then. You sure you didn't say ANYTHING even remotely LIKE that?

But hold it right there, I have given you counter-examples in the past of women in games who are supposedly just bras sizes, Lara Croft has a distinct character. This is a well worn argument, you can focus on the breasts, but woe be in you if you think you can ignore the character there.

But the problem is not unique to female game characters, ALL VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS tend to be very superficial as the game developer's objective is to make a game first, a decent plot secondary and real characters tertiary to that. Male characters tend to be little more than masculine stereotypes of muscles and stubble, ditto for female stereotypes.

Male characters are introduced all the time who have nothing obvious about them but stereotypical male aspect, it's not unfair treatment when the same happens with women. It's a problem with both but the problem is not sexism but low priority of characterisation. For example, male marines in Half Life turn up and start killing your scientist buddies, no back story, no explanation nor relation to them personally, just "uuuh raaa" machismo posturing and confrontation and you're supposed to have no problem fighting and killing them.

The macho-guy and sexy-girl are the same simplistic place-holders where personal interactions are not the bread and butter of the narrative, the spacial narrative is the substance of games, Exploring environments and making personal discoveries. Interacting with foes not vocally but martially dodging and blocking attacks then delivering your own.

Character interaction will always be haphazard when it is tried to be approached like a game, rather than a fixed story.

Like partnership in Dragon Age, whether choosing to play as a male or female you still have the same options of wooing the same male or female characters in almost the same way. Games are not good at being flexible in these sorts of things. It is good at firing rocket launchers at fire breathing dragons, that's raw physics of the vector of the rocket and what space the flame occupies but human relations it can't be dynamic and smart. It all has to be pre-recorded and pre-animated with very limited dialogue options that still can't be any more complex than a "Chose Your Own Adventure" book without things turning to gibberish.

I'd say the most pressing concern is the lack of female characters in games AT ALL! Where females are included it's usually as an alternate to a male character where the role is just so boiler-plate stoic characters with no real expressed character at all.

But I can see why developers shy away from female characters because every time they do ANYTHING someone cries wolf on sexism.

And there has been a LOT of wolf-crying over the likes of Lara Croft and Bayonetta.

 

[need4snacks]

I bet you are all sitting there thinking 'Oh yay another gender thread!' This isn't a thread about how much clothes female characters are wearing or whatever (Apart from a small comment at the end*) it's about the simple attitude some guys have towards women playing video games.

Like many of you on this forum know I have been playing games for a loooong time. It's my most beloved hobby but I'm not going to sit here and justify myself any more than that.

Firstly I don't know why having ovaries makes you a different gamer. Secondly gaming does not belong to men. Yes the devs often cater to lads over women because of demographic but that does not mean they have some sort of divine right that makes their opinion more valid.

You see when someone says 'How dare people like (insert woman here) come into our hobby and tell us what's wrong with it! They are doing two things. They are claiming gaming as some sort of medium that only belongs to them and they are depriving someone of the right to an opinion just because they are female.

Also there is some sort of reaction of 'Why don't you go off and make your own games! Instead of asking men to do it for you.' This works on the assumption that all developers are male and the only people who are allowed to have an opinion about games are people who make them (if that was true forums like this wouldn't exist.)

Lastly the existence of female cons like 'Geek Girl Con' do not prove that 'men should be allowed to exclude women too' They are only there because women feel like they cannot be part of the main scene. If you look at pictures of those cons, sure they aren't as busy as the main cons but there is a significantly different amount of women you see there and in the pictures from the main cons. That is disturbing to me. It suggests that women feel like the main gaming cons aren't relevant or just plain hostile to them.

Maybe I'm preaching to the converted here, Escapists tend to be intelligent people, but diversity in games isn't a bad thing.

Please add your own thoughts or post pictures of spider-man and ponies to cheer me up, either works fine.

*PS. As an aside I had an idea about adding a toggle to games to change the outfits of female characters (and I guess, maybe even male characters.) That way we can stop women feeling put off by PVC clad nuns without depriving the lads of their eye candy. Seems simple doesn't it. Considering a lot of games already have costume changes I don't think it would be that difficult to implement either. Other methods of reducing sexualisation while not pissing some people off might be more difficult, but one step at a time I guess. One step at a time

(If you have nothing to say other than 'I am sick of these threads' then please just don't post it isn't helpful or constructive.)

Yes, you definitely are preaching to the 'converted'. Every argument you rebutted is completely indefensible. If you've seen people make those kind of arguments, no amount of righteous indignation on anyone's part is going to change their minds.

I suppose that would make you depressed though. My advice is to stay away from them - or make fun of them. Whatever works for you.

 

[Ninjamedic]

I've seen it in plenty of places, most recently a thread here on the escapist which linked a rather nasty youtube video saying exactly that. You can also see a lot of people saying it in this thread.

And I suppose that one OP and the few posters represents the majority of Male members of the Forums?


EDIT- Fixed that screw up of mine, sorry about that.

 

[Catie Caraco]

Well when i came here i thought this was another thread about over sexualised characters but i see its not really. I would definitely not exclude a woman from playing with me just because she was a woman. However if you look at my friends list (xbox) I don't have a single female friend, mainly because it is so rare to find any online. I play a variety of games not just fps (but alot of fps) and in 4 years of xbox live I have run into less than 10 women. Obviously I must have played with more and you cant tell gender from a gamertag but if 40% of gamers are female where are they? Are the majority playing more casual games?

For me, the answer is I don't play online because my gamer tag is overtly female, CatieCat19, and I got so SICK and TIRED of listening to the 'men' I was playing with wondering if I was hot, if I was ugly, why I wasn't in the kitchen, if I was a lesbian ect. ect. All I wanted to do was shoot some people or zombies or whatever with my boyfriend and some of our pals and it was an opportunity for complete strangers to sexually harass me. Not what I'd consider a fun time. It also happened to me in StarCraft 2 a few times, though not nearly as much as on xbox. So I stick to single player games mostly, or games where I can fill at least my own team with people I know.

So I choose to spend my gaming time and gaming dollars mostly on single player games like Dragon Age Origins or Mass Effect or Skyrim, because then it is just me and the game, not hooting strangers making me feel dirty. Because honestly, why would I want to spend my time being made to feel bad for doing something I enjoy? Why would ANYONE want to do that?

If you want to know what it's like from our end, let College Humor explain it. Language warning, cause hey, it's College Humor.

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/embed/AQnIJ-ljctk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=KECbmNnT7cs

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

If they say something sexist then it doesn't really matter if they are mother Teresa irl does it? They were still sexist...