Jimquisition: Gamer Guys

[Rebel_Raven]

SNIP

Let me go to Wikipedia for this, because apparently i ended up in another planet. In the meantime, watch the footage of this video in this timeframe 8:11 to 10:49.
And yes, i do know that the one making the video is also an asshole but i couldn't find the footage he was using, so i will use his video instead.

Oh here is it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asshole
The word is mainly used as a vulgarity, generally to describe people who are viewed as stupid, incompetent, unpleasant, or detestable.[6]

Say, does that word describes the people presented in that video? because i am pretty sure it DOES. Does that people just happen to be a female version of what we already have before? as in, assholes gun-ho male Bro-dudes that come from Brotopia, whining and bitching when no one pays attention to them and their Bro-tastic way of life, except with tits? they do, huh? how curious.

Ok, with that established, what is so fucking hard to understand? we have an asshole (that might be a man/woman/Cthulhu/a cat is fine too/God/Transexual/black/whatever) fucking around with a larger group of civilized people that just want to have fun (that might be a bunch of men/women/Cthulhu/a cat is fine too/God/Transexual/black/mixed people). Its presence its not tolerated cause it ruins the fun of everyone, therefore we either calmly tell them to GTFO until they behave, or get the PERMABAN.

That is ALL it EVER was, but nooooooooooooooo. The journalist have to pretend that its sexism or whatever, instead of actually looking at the facts, just like they did with the Hepler "controversy". I can't blame them, since they depend on sensationalism to make money after all, no matter who gets destroyed in the process.

It was never about sexism, its about common fucking courtesy. If it was about females being into gaming the shit would have hit the fan back when Amy Hennings worked for Crystal Dynamic to work on Legacy of Kain. And i REMIND YOU, that those guys invented Lara Croft, the sex symbol of gaming back then. If there EVER was a problem with females being in a "male space" then it would have started a looooooooong time ago.

Because that is what the video of Jim was about, right? mocking the idea of girl gamers taking over, right? its kinda self defeating to make such a video when you reverse the roles because, guess what?, it shows that BOTH genders can be assholes.......which is what we ALREADY know and established already.

So what boundaries have been pushed with this? other than the boundaries of the obvious?

Acknowledge that there's asses on both sides of the argument.

Ok..... what does that have to do with what i said? did i say that there were no assholes on my side? i say there are assholes, and whoever that asshole is, it must be told to GTFO.

I've no problems saying that both Jim, and Anita aren't the best representatives for trying to get women better representation in videogames. The problem is, who else is there? I'd love to know.

No one can. Except maybe Morpheus if they ever make it in Real Life?:

And just because there isn't someone fighting for the representation of women or whoever, that doesn't mean you have to do a piss poor job at it. The situation is already confusing BETWEEN the same ranks of Feminism (see the Ripley Vs Clarice Starling debate of a "proper" female protagonist). I am, however, offended to be playing as a human being instead of a robot or something. I feel that my Misanthrope Supreme + Asexual + Nihilistic tendencies are not represented or appealed properly

I did say there are assholes on both sides of things, including gender, didn't I? I'm not saying there aren't female gamer assholes out there. Gender shouldn't give leniency in the way people act in a venue not their own. If a person acts up, they should be reprimanded, yes.

You're right. Sensationalism is what journalists live for. That's painfully obvious. It doesn't make it right, but it's not likely they're going to stop. Boring news doen't really get read/noticed. Problem with me is all that sensationalism is a large scale turn off.

Women playing games was an issue back then. It just didn't have the wide avaliability of the internet, and the disgruntled persons able to focus to make the issue known.
Seriously, why do you think girls playing games were almost unheard of way back then? It's not that they weren't gaming, it's that they had it a lot worse then they do now, and were keeping it on the down low.

Mind you I'm not saying it was a cakewalk for the guys either. They were definiutely treated worse back then, too.

Games eventually became more widely accepted, and female gamers felt like they would be more accepted, too. They came out in apparently large numbers. Having came out, they are still meeting resistance, but they aren't exactly being pushed into the darkness, either.

Further, back then, online gameplay wasn't as widespread, or as accessable. It was a lot easier to fly under the radar as a girl gamer.

Speaking of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider games came out pretty steadily back then. There were more than a few female protagonists in the era getting decent showings in her time, in fact. People that liked playing as women didn't get the same sense of depravation as we're getting now.
That feeling of depravation was created largely by the "conventional wisdom" that female protagonists make a game fail, the overall lack of female protagonists in mainstream gaming, and the news that female protagonists were being taken out of lead roles in favor of more guys, among other bits of news that broke. Naughty Dog having to request female focus testers, and fight for Ellie to stay on the front of the box, Levine making a dudebro cover for Bioshock Infinite, and so forth.

Yes, I'm fully aware Lara Croft was created by guys. She was intended to be well written, and well defined, and atteractive. Still, we all know what really got focused on. That didn't stop her from being a well adored, iconic character, though, obviously. Not just for her looks, either.
Hence me saying that women don't have to be in charge for well written female protagonists to be more common.

Yes, Jim didn't exactly tell us anything we didn't know in this vid. There's assholes on both sides, and he was looking to offer up a dose of what women go through towards guys, hence the parallel universe.

People have speculated this video also has something to do with the news that Nintendo would consider a game where Zelda is the hero of her own story if fans wanted it it.
You can imagine that the jerks came out to bash the idea, and the general hate towards one another. Jerks everywhere, on all sides, with reasonable people doggypaddleing to not be drowned out.

You missed my disclaimer, didn't you? Where it said I wasn't accusing you of anything?
The quote has everything to do with it in that it's the simple fact that there are assholes on both sides. Pardon me for stating the obvious.
And, yes, obviouly assholes need to be dealt with regardless of gender.

As far as I'm concerned, despite them doing a less than stellar job at it, I'd rather have Jim, and Anita fighting than no one as they're far far far more likely to get noticed than I am, and they spark debates, and I feel this subject needs to be talked about so long as it exists. I doubt we'd be better off without either of them.
You may not like their work, and that's fine.

The reason that there's confusion in the ranks of feminism about the proper female protagonist is simple. Feminists aren't a hive mind entity. Everyone has opinions, even among feminists. There are no solid rules, and guidelines to live by in feminism as far as I know, and none on representation in the media. Even if there were rules written in stone, it's obvious not everyone follows it, eh?

 

[Gindil]

Uhm, yes? You said no one is against the idea of Zelda having her own game, and yet here you are, being against it?

Except I'm not if it's core to what Zelda is instead of making her out to be a female Link in the first place

No, my opinions aren't based on she who shalt not be named lest the entire conversation derail into personal attacks on her.
Is it impossible to people that others might have reached a similar conclusion without her input? Yes, I've seen her videos, and they didn't really change a damn thing for me save enlighten me on Dinosaur Planet's fate as an example of something I bloody well hate in the game industry.

Yes, let's talk about a game that had the exact same rescue plot that she complained about because it's pretty clear you read the source material and got mad because Crystal bared her midriff.

Off camera rulership doesn't count for me, nevermind off camera actions period.

Nonsensical argument is nonsensical.

Even if it -did- count, the idyllic worlds of peace with little to no military prepared to do anything more than one guy with a wooden sword, even with a chunk of triforce, can do is really -bad- leadership to me. I don't care how long peace has gone on, if a kingdom lacks a decent army, it's a failure. It doesn't have to be personally led by the ruler, there can be delegation to someone who can make an army worth a damn.

Okay. So when the going gets tough, Zelda should get going. Awesome to know.

If the princess were really so beloved, there'd be an army of volunteers trying to rescue her at the least, and not just one guy. There'd be people training to be her bodyguard to keep her safe beyond, ya kknow, her one hero. Where's the fanatics trying to save her along with Link?

That's what the Sheikh are for, to protect the royal family while the people have a hero. We call that a sidequest. And maybe, since there's split timelines in Hyrule, there are other heroes but they failed too. Just a thought.

Why has the kingdom seemingly given up on Zelda when she gets captured? Why is there no more than one champion? Is she really thought of that poorly that no one, by hire, by volunteer, or by any reason, doesn't want to be there to defend her, and get better in preparation of it?
But I guess that's the curse, isn't it?

Or maybe they died in the attempt and you haven't read the books and just want to complain about something that isn't relevant to the story...

Lets not forget that the instant she drops disguise, she's captured. Regardless of anything she's done before. Regardless of all her power you boast she has. She's utterly helpless in the face of being captured, and generally does nothing until the end. It's irritating. I've always found it irritating when things like that happen. Me, personally, with no input from others.

rolls eyes

Right, because she's not relevant to the plot at all, she didn't give Link any songs to sing, didn't rescue any princesses along the way, nor do anything like contacting the Sages to help Link out while evading Ganon for seven years. No plot relevance whatsoever. She's just a girl and that means she can't protect the world because she believes in Link to help save it. Great thinking there.

I don't believe in power I don't see in action, or better yet, control via a playable character. Actions speak louder than words. Being playable speaks louder than being an NPC. Seeing that the evbents don't back up the boasts makes those boasts ring false with me.

Ah, so all you care about is the gender of the characters and the overall mythos and the significance of the Triforces means nothing to you. Gotcha.

It's ALWAYS been a peeve of mine that the wisest, most intelligent of people in media like TV shows, movies, and games are still dumb enough to not be able to defend themselves, either personally, or by having others at the ready, or what have you.
This is compounded by the fact that if they know they're a frikking target (I.E. being important to the society in any way), and it's compounded moreover when they continually ignore the threat over and over again!

Or maybe the fact that their royalty makes them a larger target than some plucky hero who no one knows. Maybe, the fact that Ganon keeps underestimating Link over and over means Power won't ever overtake Wisdom and Courage. You know, one of those moral things we learn from stories like fairy tales?

Heck, considering it's Link who saves Zelda time, and time again, it seems more reasonable that -he's- the real threat that needs to be kidnapped, and rendered helpless. Seriously, one guy curbstomps an army, plus the puzzles, and he's left alone consistently to fight in his own element to come out on top time and time again? That's pretty dumb villainy there. It's not like the person kidnapped over and over again is going to be able to resist being captured anyhow, right? Go for that target second.
But I guess that's the curse isn't it?

When you only see the large threats to you, the small ones and their personal journeys don't mean all that much. That's like saying Wall Street cares about your local little league team. Unless they do something major to catch their notice, they aren't going to see them as a threat.

Being temporary help isn't particularly awesome to me. An NPC is an NPC to me. No NPC can rival a player character for me. All it can do is make me wish I could be that NPC.
NPCs dont get the spotlight, they're shunted off into the background, or off stage completely while the playabale character gets things done. Playable characters do get the spotlight since nothing gets done to solve the problems without the playable characters.

And that's great for you. But that has nothing to do with the topic of just a female Link who continues to have courage under fire and maybe has different items and spells that could make a game more intriguing. Having a female Zelda in games where you can't have a second game on the console still doesn't explain that Zelda's actions (which you've greatly ignored btw) have caused the defeat of Ganon over and over. No, she doesn't give the killing blow, but she ensures that Link has the tools to take him down, particularly with the sword she crafted.

There's prolly a plethora of reasons people forgot about the CD-I games.

But they exist.

So, why Zelda instead of gender swaps? What does it do for -Zelda- here if we just gender swap? Male, female, Zelda's role is the same, time, and time again with little variation.

Which is the point here. Gender doesn't matter for a hero. Katniss is every much a hero as Harry Potter save for the gender.

Even gender swapped, Link is Link. Link will likely play the exact same regardless of gender. Possibly more annoying is that gender won't likely play any real role in the story. It'll likely just be link as a girl, not really being treated diffirently than typical link. Sure that's something akin to equality, but what's the point of a gender swap if it's so shallow to the point that nothing else has changed?

Like I said, there could be game differences, but that'd have to be worked out. You'd still be the same avatar, entering into the world of Hyrule, and partaking in an adventure while looking at how the people react to the story of the three Triforces.

I'd like a female protagonist in a Zelda game to be a somewhat meaningful change, here, gender issues aside. Wouldn't you?

Never said I didn't. I just said that if you make a game about Zelda, a female Link would do just as much. You'd probably learn more just as much about Zelda as Link if you'd actually pay attention. From what I know, she's just as courageous and dedicated to the realm as Link is. And given that Nintendo has a history of silent protagonists, you'd really be hard felt to find a lot out about Zelda if you played as her compared to having a champion based on what the prophecies foretold about a hero coming to the fore.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Women playing games was an issue back then. It just didn't have the wide avaliability of the internet, and the disgruntled persons able to focus to make the issue known.
Seriously, why do you think girls playing games were almost unheard of way back then? It's not that they weren't gaming, it's that they had it a lot worse then they do now, and were keeping it on the down low.

I kinda wish for once that such information actually end up being uploaded to the Internet. We have access to the Epic of Gilgamesh (2000+ years old poem), and we can even have images of men being lynched to death because of mystreatment of women back in the 1900, but we can have the news of women being excluded in gaming Pre-2000.

Games eventually became more widely accepted, and female gamers felt like they would be more accepted, too. They came out in apparently large numbers. Having came out, they are still meeting resistance, but they aren't exactly being pushed into the darkness, either.

Everyone is meeting resistance, not only women. Here is why:

That feeling of deprivation was created largely by the "conventional wisdom" that female protagonists make a game fail, the overall lack of female protagonists in mainstream gaming, and the news that female protagonists were being taken out of lead roles in favor of more guys, among other bits of news that broke. Naughty Dog having to request female focus testers, and fight for Ellie to stay on the front of the box, Levine making a dudebro cover for Bioshock Infinite, and so forth.

And where does this conventional wisdom comes from? cause i am pretty sure that back then no one had a problem with women in games. Hell, Samus is loved more in the Western hemisphere than in her home country Japan, that is why they gave the rights to an American developer to make the Prime series (Retro).

What about MS.Pacman? she was invented in America. http://classicgames.about.com/od/arcadegames/p/Ms-Pac-Man-The-Unauthorized-History-Of-Arcades-First-Female-Hero.htm

How about Zelda portrayal on the godawful American cartoon? take a guess:
http://www.filibustercartoons.com/index.php/2013/03/10/a-rebuttal-to-anita-sarkeesians-tropes-vs-women-episode-1-damsels-in-distress/

I DO know that publishers do NOT want females on MODERN times. As evidenced by the "Remember Me" fiasco:
http://www.shacknews.com/article/78281/remember-me-rejected-by-publishers-due-to-female-protagonist

But WHERE do they get that info? what was the E.T from Atari 2600 with a female on it that sunk the whole industry to the point of NEVER AGAIN try with a female protagonist? was it Beyond Good And Evil? the game that they didn't fucking market to begin with, and therefore not the fault of the audience for not buying something they didn't know it existed?

I know what you are going to say: "They clearly use a test audience to measure their success, and they most likely say that they dont want to play as a female" And to that i ask: Where in the fuck do they get these people? i mean, are they the same people that said this:
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/03/28/nanashi-no-game-was-considered-for-north-america-focus-groups-killed-it/
"The opinion was you couldn?t shoot anything."

Savor it. Embrace it. And apply directly to the forehead, if possible.

No shooting in a horror game? NO FUCKING SHIT.

Where do they GET these guys?
1:07

Are they hobos from the street? or are those COD lovers? if the later then i want to ask one simple question to the publishers: What reaction did they expect from that focus group? a COD gamer is only going to play COD and nothing else. They dont want to be challenged, they don't like to think, they just want to shoot the assholes that called them a "meany" on the last multiplayer match from the previous COD. That game is the only thing they know, and the publishers expect input from those fuckers? as opposed to get input from people from different areas and tastes in gaming to see if they can appeal to those they have to yet reach?

This is pure incompetence no matter how you slice it. Which is par of the course for the industry after all. Just look at Microsoft.

People have speculated this video also has something to do with the news that Nintendo would consider a game where Zelda is the hero of her own story if fans wanted it it.
You can imagine that the jerks came out to bash the idea, and the general hate towards one another. Jerks everywhere, on all sides, with reasonable people doggypaddleing to not be drowned out.

I didn't know that they were going to make a Zelda Zelda game.

As long they dont make another Zelda CDI game by sending it to the Russians that made the drawings there shoudn't be any problem. People got a VERY strong impression for a game with Zelda.

And if they are going to make a Zelda Zelda game, then she is going to start as a commoner rather than a princess or queen. Remember that the reason she is kidnapped is because she is powerful enough to fuck up the plans of the whoever is trying to take over the world, kinda like this trope if you want to win at all:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheMedicFirst

Its common warfare tactic. Take out the leader or the enemy best weapon to ensure victory. Even in the old NES games like Super Mario Bros this is true. The Koopa used black magic to turn the Mushroom Kingdom and its people into stone, and guess who the fuck can cure that shit? The Princess Toadstool....who gets kidnapped to ensure she doesn't undo their plans. www.mariomayhem.com/downloads/mario_instruction_booklets/Super_Mario_Bros-NES.pdf

If Zelda is NOT going to get kidnapped, then that means she has ZERO powers both in political and magical sense, to the point the enemy wouldn't even register her presence as a menace to begin with. She is going to start from nothing and go Metroidvania on the world of Hyrule.

Is that the source of controversy? that you can get to play Sim City with you playing as the Princess and manage the Kingdom? or was that they are just going to be lazy, make a Female Mute Link, and call it Zelda?

As far as I'm concerned, despite them doing a less than stellar job at it, I'd rather have Jim, and Anita fighting than no one as they're far far far more likely to get noticed than I am, and they spark debates, and I feel this subject needs to be talked about so long as it exists. I doubt we'd be better off without either of them.
You may not like their work, and that's fine.

Implying that NO ONE was talking about sexuality and gender in games before? this person did on Metroid Other M and for all its efforts no one cared:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13373815860B43920100&i_id=13384263550I62094100&p=17
So no one talks about it until there is a controversy? that was made years AFTER the M:OM fiasco, its not like they needed the spark of the moment to do it, they need time to process the bullshit, like any research should.

And guess what? Anita and her lack of effort is going to make things worse for other females that want to work in the industry. When Anita's brand of feminism ends up not selling the copies the publishers want (she is working with EA now, and given THEIR sale expectations they had for Dead Space 3, i would say that Anita was bound to fail no matter what) the industry is going to make a laughing stock of her, and anyone trying to argue her points after that. Not to mention how some female developers will have a hard time being included in the industry because of the publishers fear of a fiasco like this happening again, so they will play it safe and not hire ANYONE that has similar mentality.

They will point out this incident and the lack of sales of Mirror's Edge 2 as: "SEE? THIS IS WHY WE DONT MAKE FEMALES PROTAGONIST FOR THESE GAMES. IF IT WAS SO IMPORTANT TO HAVE A FEMALE THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU BUY THE 5 BILLIONS OF COPIES WE DEMANDED?" because scapegoating is the way to go in the industry.

And even if she had a good research, guess what? you CAN'T change the industry. Not even Orson Welles did it for Hollywood nor can people on the gaming industry. You don't reason with the industry, you just DO.


Listen to the poor man, he knows what it means to waste your life for nothing. She may as well make her own games, with the sweat of her brow. Ayn Ryan would be so proud of her.

The reason that there's confusion in the ranks of feminism about the proper female protagonist is simple. Feminists aren't a hive mind entity. Everyone has opinions, even among feminists. There are no solid rules, and guidelines to live by in feminism as far as I know, and none on representation in the media. Even if there were rules written in stone, it's obvious not everyone follows it, eh?

Is not JUST that she doesn't specify what brand of feminism (who was supposed to be about equality) actually WANTS this brand of inequality as presented on her thesis. Cause apparently having "self control" is not positive for females somehow:

Is just that she doesn't make sense even in her terms:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/FeministFrequency

And, that even if Feminism ISN'T a hivemind, the mainstream audience doesn't care. If YOU criticize it in ANY shape or form, no matter which brand you are complaining about, you are either a misogynist or a gender traitor. I remind you that, after all, one CANT make even a sarcastic comment without being put on jail. So the logical step to it is to lynch everyone that complains on Feminism: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125833-Petition-to-Free-Jailed-League-of-Legends-Player-Reaches-100-000-Sigs

God bless false dichotomies.

 

[Something Amyss]

Ok? I'm not sure how this relates to my comments that nerd culture includes a non-trivial number of socially inept individuals. The expansion of ranks only serves to dilute the proportions, not remove them.

The culture you're talking about is not what the culture is, but rather what it was. Arguing that this problem exists because of something the culture isn't is inane. Surely you grasp that.

? I did not say that. I was merely explaining why several odd interactions would happen, not that everything that happened was somehow ok and to be accepted. Don't read into social commentary as justification.

And I asked you a question and you dodged it. If you had said it, I would not need to question you in the first place.

Further, you used the word "expect." Suddenly, I use your own terminology, and I'm accusing you of justification. This is an interesting logic loop, as you seem to be acknowledging your own terminology as justification, but are accusing me of falsely equating your words with justification.

However, I didn't say you were justifying it. I merely repeated what you said.

Do then then NOT believe the words you yourself said?

And still, if women should have an expectation of being treated as they are (which is actually what you said, whether you condone it or not), should gamer culture as a whole expect to be deliegitimised? It'd be nice if I got at least one answer out of you.

Seeing as you mistook my meaning to be a justification of sexual harrassment

Not sure if false because of misinterpretation or false for the sake of convenient dodge.

I'm not sure what this point is supposed to be.

Of course not, because that would require actually addressing something I said.

 

[Darmani]

Raven I give you that Zlda is a supporting NPC. But she isn't the only girl in gaming we HAVE rpg female characters of messianic repuattion who wield that power on screen and even in player hands. We have Skullgirls, most rpgs (Japanese and Western), and etc. But that goes out the wall because apparently Zelda getting kidnapped is oppressing female gamers?

Zelda was made links PARTNER in Spirit Tracks, was hinted at having a parallel coming of age story in Skyward Sword. This happened with Groose and people love him. Its why male gamers feel the argument is specious. you got that already and you're still upset and moreover games aren't intended to do whatever for gender but convey their entertainment.

Now I'll admit, Tetra just hiding out was kinda bad... and then she shoots at ganon in the final battle as acknowledgement hey she's the princess and its her life. Zelda was practically shoehorned into Twilight Princess because, get this, SHE WASN'T THE FOCUS that was Midna (btw way to ignore the four other significant female characters not counting the Zora Queen there) in the title and please don't say *she* was shortchanged.

And that's just Zelda. There are games conceived of with female characters from the beginning or aimed at female players (the various bishi laden ones) that have diverse powers and grappling with dramatic situations. The mystery series from Nintendo on the DS... Eternal Darkness, Atelier series, Tales, Sands of Destruction, Pokemon, Persona, and others.

So then we get to the more specific issue. There aren't badass females, who don't sexual appeal to male gamers, in "hardcore" titles. The DOA girls, Bayonetta, Bullet Witch, Sheeva Almar, Jill Valentine, and etc.

See dig in its less a desperately superbad situation of "no girls" and more a "not girls in titles I like in the roles I want" and sorry THAT'S NOT OPPRESSION.

Now it is a lack of serving to the customer base and acknowledgement of them.

Yeah it wouldn't hurt for the not exactly strapped for cash Call of Duty series to fit in a lady into the macho tired war stories as they "go deeper" (especially when America is under attack by Russia). But it can also backfire (Other M, the gamer shorthand for sexism in videogames. I'll even concede it didn't do Samus right but was trying and the story isn't more "sexist" than throwing all these paternal issues in video games currently is.. seriously take a step back and Other M is practically a Bruce Willis movie in space)

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Uhm, yes? You said no one is against the idea of Zelda having her own game, and yet here you are, being against it?

Except I'm not if it's core to what Zelda is instead of making her out to be a female Link in the first place

So how would -you- make a game centering around Zelda as a playable character?
I'm not limiting the idea to Zelda swapping positions with Link in the usual story, am I?

Ugh, after reading the rest of your post, I'm going to have to deal with you narrowmindedly chewing my head off. The rest is mostly you chewing my head off with a narrow mind tainted by misdirected hatred for Anita fgetting aimed at me.
I probably shouldn't even humor it since you don't respect my position at all, but I am since you'll oriolly get offended if I don't.

No, my opinions aren't based on she who shalt not be named lest the entire conversation derail into personal attacks on her.
Is it impossible to people that others might have reached a similar conclusion without her input? Yes, I've seen her videos, and they didn't really change a damn thing for me save enlighten me on Dinosaur Planet's fate as an example of something I bloody well hate in the game industry.

Yes, let's talk about a game that had the exact same rescue plot that she complained about because it's pretty clear you read the source material and got mad because Crystal bared her midriff.

WRONG! Dinosaur Planet originally featured a brother-sister team where you could play as Krystal, or her brother Saber.
I'm MAD because she stopped being a character choice. You assume way too much.

I don't have a huge problem with sexuality in female characters. I don't mind Bayonetta, or Mai Shiranui. Things can go a bit overboard on the sexuality front, but in general, it doesn't.

I don't mind it when the character isn't a sexual bombshell either.

I'd appreciate it if you stopped painting me with the disdain you have for Anita, which, frankly, I don't care about.

Off camera rulership doesn't count for me, nevermind off camera actions period.

Nonsensical argument is nonsensical.

Exactly the way I see "Oh, but she's a powerful NPC!!"
That NPC isn't a person I spend most of the game with.

Even if it -did- count, the idyllic worlds of peace with little to no military prepared to do anything more than one guy with a wooden sword, even with a chunk of triforce, can do is really -bad- leadership to me. I don't care how long peace has gone on, if a kingdom lacks a decent army, it's a failure. It doesn't have to be personally led by the ruler, there can be delegation to someone who can make an army worth a damn.

Okay. So when the going gets tough, Zelda should get going. Awesome to know.

No, when things get tough, she, or her kingdom needs to be prepared to be tough. Preferrably both.
"getting going" is basically what she's doing now. She's gone for most of the game, if not all of it.

If the princess were really so beloved, there'd be an army of volunteers trying to rescue her at the least, and not just one guy. There'd be people training to be her bodyguard to keep her safe beyond, ya kknow, her one hero. Where's the fanatics trying to save her along with Link?

That's what the Sheikh are for, to protect the royal family while the people have a hero. We call that a sidequest. And maybe, since there's split timelines in Hyrule, there are other heroes but they failed too. Just a thought.

It's apparent they weren't exactly all that well trained. Zelda gets captured each, and every time. They aren't exactly an army trying to rescue her either, are they?

The other heroes don't get played as, do they?
And forget "heroes" I mean an army of people angry that their beloved princess was taken away.

Why has the kingdom seemingly given up on Zelda when she gets captured? Why is there no more than one champion? Is she really thought of that poorly that no one, by hire, by volunteer, or by any reason, doesn't want to be there to defend her, and get better in preparation of it?
But I guess that's the curse, isn't it?

Or maybe they died in the attempt and you haven't read the books and just want to complain about something that isn't relevant to the story...

So the entire kingdom died, and zelda, link, and gannon are the last people on the planet? No? Then the people have pretty much given up if they're not trying to save Zelda.
And you're bringing sources outside the game to this? You do realize not everyone's going to be that invested, right?

Lets not forget that the instant she drops disguise, she's captured. Regardless of anything she's done before. Regardless of all her power you boast she has. She's utterly helpless in the face of being captured, and generally does nothing until the end. It's irritating. I've always found it irritating when things like that happen. Me, personally, with no input from others.

rolls eyes

Right, because she's not relevant to the plot at all, she didn't give Link any songs to sing, didn't rescue any princesses along the way, nor do anything like contacting the Sages to help Link out while evading Ganon for seven years. No plot relevance whatsoever. She's just a girl and that means she can't protect the world because she believes in Link to help save it. Great thinking there.

And for all the power you boast, she's kidnapped. It's up to Link.

If you're not going to be civil, GTFO of my world. If you can't respect the person you've decided to argue with, then don't bother arguing with me.
I am NOT ANITA. Do not direct the dislike you have for her my way.

I don't believe in power I don't see in action, or better yet, control via a playable character. Actions speak louder than words. Being playable speaks louder than being an NPC. Seeing that the evbents don't back up the boasts makes those boasts ring false with me.

Ah, so all you care about is the gender of the characters and the overall mythos and the significance of the Triforces means nothing to you. Gotcha.

Both mean something to me.
Apparently both mean something to the fanbase if there's interest in seeing Zelda as a playable protagonist.

It's ALWAYS been a peeve of mine that the wisest, most intelligent of people in media like TV shows, movies, and games are still dumb enough to not be able to defend themselves, either personally, or by having others at the ready, or what have you.
This is compounded by the fact that if they know they're a frikking target (I.E. being important to the society in any way), and it's compounded moreover when they continually ignore the threat over and over again!

Or maybe the fact that their royalty makes them a larger target than some plucky hero who no one knows. Maybe, the fact that Ganon keeps underestimating Link over and over means Power won't ever overtake Wisdom and Courage. You know, one of those moral things we learn from stories like fairy tales?

That doesn't change the fact that it annoys me that Zelda in all her wisdom doesn't know how to defend herself from being captured since she continually gets captured.

Heck, considering it's Link who saves Zelda time, and time again, it seems more reasonable that -he's- the real threat that needs to be kidnapped, and rendered helpless. Seriously, one guy curbstomps an army, plus the puzzles, and he's left alone consistently to fight in his own element to come out on top time and time again? That's pretty dumb villainy there. It's not like the person kidnapped over and over again is going to be able to resist being captured anyhow, right? Go for that target second.
But I guess that's the curse isn't it?

When you only see the large threats to you, the small ones and their personal journeys don't mean all that much. That's like saying Wall Street cares about your local little league team. Unless they do something major to catch their notice, they aren't going to see them as a threat.

Huh, a lone guy steadily approaching unravelling your entire scheme, evidently the bearer of a chunk of the triforce is escaping Gannon's notice?

Being temporary help isn't particularly awesome to me. An NPC is an NPC to me. No NPC can rival a player character for me. All it can do is make me wish I could be that NPC.
NPCs dont get the spotlight, they're shunted off into the background, or off stage completely while the playabale character gets things done. Playable characters do get the spotlight since nothing gets done to solve the problems without the playable characters.

And that's great for you. But that has nothing to do with the topic of just a female Link who continues to have courage under fire and maybe has different items and spells that could make a game more intriguing. Having a female Zelda in games where you can't have a second game on the console still doesn't explain that Zelda's actions (which you've greatly ignored btw) have caused the defeat of Ganon over and over. No, she doesn't give the killing blow, but she ensures that Link has the tools to take him down, particularly with the sword she crafted.

You didn't read the last paragraph before you replied to this, did you? I don't want just a female Link here. There's not a whole lot of point in a simple gender swap.
Of course Zelda didn't land the killing blow. A lot of people would hate it if they did all the work playing through the game only to have their thunder stolen by an NPC.

You might wanna clarify the topic here. I'm talking about Zelda being the protagonist of the story. You're talking about a female Link.
Those are not one in the same.

There's prolly a plethora of reasons people forgot about the CD-I games.

But they exist.

And?? Why's it only in those mediums, heck, that medium, that Zelda is playable?

So, why Zelda instead of gender swaps? What does it do for -Zelda- here if we just gender swap? Male, female, Zelda's role is the same, time, and time again with little variation.

Which is the point here. Gender doesn't matter for a hero. Katniss is every much a hero as Harry Potter save for the gender.

It apparently -does- matter since people -do- want a female hero in LoZ. It does matter since people want to play as Zelda.

The second part of what you said is throwing me, though. "save for gender." Wanna elaborate on that?

It apparently does matter in the grand scheme of things as far as the game industry goes because female heroes tend to get shut down before the game gets fully developed, or the game gets changed after development since the producers don't think a female hero will sell.

Books generally are diffirent breeds from videogames. Videogames generally have you play as one person from start to finish, and are generally limited on point of view. There generally isn't room for more than one hero at a time. It's pretty much apples, and oranges.

Even gender swapped, Link is Link. Link will likely play the exact same regardless of gender. Possibly more annoying is that gender won't likely play any real role in the story. It'll likely just be link as a girl, not really being treated diffirently than typical link. Sure that's something akin to equality, but what's the point of a gender swap if it's so shallow to the point that nothing else has changed?

Like I said, there could be game differences, but that'd have to be worked out. You'd still be the same avatar, entering into the world of Hyrule, and partaking in an adventure while looking at how the people react to the story of the three Triforces.[/quote]
I wish you read this, and the bit after this before you decided to chew my head off for most of the post. You seem to be accusing me of wanting to put Zelda in the exact same role as Link when that's not the end all, and be all of my point.
I'm certainly open to variations, here. By "hero" I don't mean the exact same role as Link, I mean the protagonist since protagonists usually are the hero.

I'd like a female protagonist in a Zelda game to be a somewhat meaningful change, here, gender issues aside. Wouldn't you?

Never said I didn't. I just said that if you make a game about Zelda, a female Link would do just as much. You'd probably learn more just as much about Zelda as Link if you'd actually pay attention. From what I know, she's just as courageous and dedicated to the realm as Link is. And given that Nintendo has a history of silent protagonists, you'd really be hard felt to find a lot out about Zelda if you played as her compared to having a champion based on what the prophecies foretold about a hero coming to the fore.

You apparently assumed I did, though.
Like I said, actions speak louder than words, and being the playable character speaks louder than being an NPC. I might just learn a good bit playing as Zelda that I might not have otherwise since she'll be in another role, silent or not. If I do is the great mystery, isn't it? We aren't going to know until we see how Nintendo handles Zelda as a protagonist, are we?

The way you've been going on, you seem to have been basing my entire argument on the idea that Zelda will be placed in the exact same role as Link, when I certainly do not limit her potential to that.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Women playing games was an issue back then. It just didn't have the wide avaliability of the internet, and the disgruntled persons able to focus to make the issue known.
Seriously, why do you think girls playing games were almost unheard of way back then? It's not that they weren't gaming, it's that they had it a lot worse then they do now, and were keeping it on the down low.

I kinda wish for once that such information actually end up being uploaded to the Internet. We have access to the Epic of Gilgamesh (2000+ years old poem), and we can even have images of men being lynched to death because of mystreatment of women back in the 1900, but we can have the news of women being excluded in gaming Pre-2000.

Even if it was, I doubt most people would actively look it up. It's either common knowledge, or they don't care about adding it to the conversation. I dare say only a few people would care enough.

Games eventually became more widely accepted, and female gamers felt like they would be more accepted, too. They came out in apparently large numbers. Having came out, they are still meeting resistance, but they aren't exactly being pushed into the darkness, either.

Everyone is meeting resistance, not only women. Here is why:
[/quote] I'm fully aware isn't not just women being given a hard time. I said as much, didn't I?

That feeling of deprivation was created largely by the "conventional wisdom" that female protagonists make a game fail, the overall lack of female protagonists in mainstream gaming, and the news that female protagonists were being taken out of lead roles in favor of more guys, among other bits of news that broke. Naughty Dog having to request female focus testers, and fight for Ellie to stay on the front of the box, Levine making a dudebro cover for Bioshock Infinite, and so forth.

And where does this conventional wisdom comes from? cause i am pretty sure that back then no one had a problem with women in games. Hell, Samus is loved more in the Western hemisphere than in her home country Japan, that is why they gave the rights to an American developer to make the Prime series (Retro).

What about MS.Pacman? she was invented in America. http://classicgames.about.com/od/arcadegames/p/Ms-Pac-Man-The-Unauthorized-History-Of-Arcades-First-Female-Hero.htm

How about Zelda portrayal on the godawful American cartoon? take a guess:
http://www.filibustercartoons.com/index.php/2013/03/10/a-rebuttal-to-anita-sarkeesians-tropes-vs-women-episode-1-damsels-in-distress/

I DO know that publishers do NOT want females on MODERN times. As evidenced by the "Remember Me" fiasco:
http://www.shacknews.com/article/78281/remember-me-rejected-by-publishers-due-to-female-protagonist

But WHERE do they get that info? what was the E.T from Atari 2600 with a female on it that sunk the whole industry to the point of NEVER AGAIN try with a female protagonist? was it Beyond Good And Evil? the game that they didn't fucking market to begin with, and therefore not the fault of the audience for not buying something they didn't know it existed?

I know what you are going to say: "They clearly use a test audience to measure their success, and they most likely say that they dont want to play as a female" And to that i ask: Where in the fuck do they get these people? i mean, are they the same people that said this:
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/03/28/nanashi-no-game-was-considered-for-north-america-focus-groups-killed-it/
"The opinion was you couldn?t shoot anything."

Savor it. Embrace it. And apply directly to the forehead, if possible.

No shooting in a horror game? NO FUCKING SHIT.

Where do they GET these guys?
1:07

Are they hobos from the street? or are those COD lovers? if the later then i want to ask one simple question to the publishers: What reaction did they expect from that focus group? a COD gamer is only going to play COD and nothing else. They dont want to be challenged, they don't like to think, they just want to shoot the assholes that called them a "meany" on the last multiplayer match from the previous COD. That game is the only thing they know, and the publishers expect input from those fuckers? as opposed to get input from people from different areas and tastes in gaming to see if they can appeal to those they have to yet reach?

This is pure incompetence no matter how you slice it. Which is par of the course for the industry after all. Just look at Microsoft.

I wish I knew what the pivotal point where the conventional wisdom came to be was. I can only guess, myself. I do have a strong feeling it reaches back as far as Mirror's Edge.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

I definitely agree that the gaming industry as it is is incompitent on so many levels. Developers are dieing off, producers are dieing off, people are getting laid off, people are taking pay cuts, the industry goes for quality of sales over quantity of sales, games are loosing their souls to market testers or being denied outright, and so on.

Hell, it might be that conventional wisdom that's playing a role in killing the industry. Modern games exclude female protagonists, so women, and the guys that like playing a women are getting ticked off, and not buying.
I know I'm less interested in games these days because of that conventional wisdom being put into practice.

People have speculated this video also has something to do with the news that Nintendo would consider a game where Zelda is the hero of her own story if fans wanted it it.
You can imagine that the jerks came out to bash the idea, and the general hate towards one another. Jerks everywhere, on all sides, with reasonable people doggypaddleing to not be drowned out.

I didn't know that they were going to make a Zelda Zelda game.

As long they dont make another Zelda CDI game by sending it to the Russians that made the drawings there shoudn't be any problem. People got a VERY strong impression for a game with Zelda.

And if they are going to make a Zelda Zelda game, then she is going to start as a commoner rather than a princess or queen. Remember that the reason she is kidnapped is because she is powerful enough to fuck up the plans of the whoever is trying to take over the world, kinda like this trope if you want to win at all:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheMedicFirst

Its common warfare tactic. Take out the leader or the enemy best weapon to ensure victory. Even in the old NES games like Super Mario Bros this is true. The Koopa used black magic to turn the Mushroom Kingdom and its people into stone, and guess who the fuck can cure that shit? The Princess Toadstool....who gets kidnapped to ensure she doesn't undo their plans. www.mariomayhem.com/downloads/mario_instruction_booklets/Super_Mario_Bros-NES.pdf

If Zelda is NOT going to get kidnapped, then that means she has ZERO powers both in political and magical sense, to the point the enemy wouldn't even register her presence as a menace to begin with. She is going to start from nothing and go Metroidvania on the world of Hyrule.

Is that the source of controversy? that you can get to play Sim City with you playing as the Princess and manage the Kingdom? or was that they are just going to be lazy, make a Female Mute Link, and call it Zelda?[/quote]
I don't know the plans Nintendo has for Zelda being the protagonist in her own game, or even if they are going to make it. It's certainly been brought up enough in this thread as a reason, though. I can't read Jim's mind, so I'm willing to consider it as a possibility.

As far as the Zelda game, I'm open to the possibility that she is fighting against the people that have captured her, or is going to demonstrate the power to resist being captured in the first place, and has to fight to prevent further capture attempts.

But your ideas on the Zelda game are as good as mine.

As far as I'm concerned, despite them doing a less than stellar job at it, I'd rather have Jim, and Anita fighting than no one as they're far far far more likely to get noticed than I am, and they spark debates, and I feel this subject needs to be talked about so long as it exists. I doubt we'd be better off without either of them.
You may not like their work, and that's fine.

Implying that NO ONE was talking about sexuality and gender in games before? this person did on Metroid Other M and for all its efforts no one cared:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13373815860B43920100&i_id=13384263550I62094100&p=17
So no one talks about it until there is a controversy? that was made years AFTER the M:OM fiasco, its not like they needed the spark of the moment to do it, they need time to process the bullshit, like any research should.

And guess what? Anita and her lack of effort is going to make things worse for other females that want to work in the industry. When Anita's brand of feminism ends up not selling the copies the publishers want (she is working with EA now, and given THEIR sale expectations they had for Dead Space 3, i would say that Anita was bound to fail no matter what) the industry is going to make a laughing stock of her, and anyone trying to argue her points after that. Not to mention how some female developers will have a hard time being included in the industry because of the publishers fear of a fiasco like this happening again, so they will play it safe and not hire ANYONE that has similar mentality.

They will point out this incident and the lack of sales of Mirror's Edge 2 as: "SEE? THIS IS WHY WE DONT MAKE FEMALES PROTAGONIST FOR THESE GAMES. IF IT WAS SO IMPORTANT TO HAVE A FEMALE THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU BUY THE 5 BILLIONS OF COPIES WE DEMANDED?" because scapegoating is the way to go in the industry.

And even if she had a good research, guess what? you CAN'T change the industry. Not even Orson Welles did it for Hollywood nor can people on the gaming industry. You don't reason with the industry, you just DO.


Listen to the poor man, he knows what it means to waste your life for nothing. She may as well make her own games, with the sweat of her brow. Ayn Ryan would be so proud of her.

Where's Korval now? If a person is going to champion the cause, they need to stick with it, or they're going to fade into obscurity, or the fact they tried certainly is.

You make solid points about the industry. I can easily see your predictions coming true.

They've used female protagonists as scapegoats before, and they'll do it again.

Its going to be bad for Mirror's Edge 2 now that people associate it with Anita. These people that coat everyone speaking up for female representation with their hatred for Anita are everywhere, and they're likely to not buy the game just because they hate Anita.
Then, as you stated, there's going to be expectations set way too high for the game's sales.
It's not going to be supported by the producer either, I wager. We won't see a single TV commercial, I bet.
Moreover, I bet it'll be xbone exclusive, which as we know is going to be a limited console in itself thanks to it's bad rep, the sales of it, and it's limited release.
I've little doubt the game's going to fail and by fail, I mean not live up to the astronomically stupid expectations of the company.

Indeed, a person can't change the industry all on their own. Especially an industry that doesn't want to change, even if the stubborness is out of stupidity. It's a sad fact.
It's going to take many hands to get the ball moving, and critics like Anita, and Jim to make people aware that people want change, and help rally the people.
That said, I don't believe it's a waste to try to create change. You might start a domino effect, and get support, and get those many hands to help you push against the status quo. If you leave a legacy of trying to change things, people that know of it may well remember it.
People have to try, or else nothing gets done.
The real trajedy is when these changes, some much needed, don't happen in the lifetime of the person trying to make the change, or they give up. They never get to see what they worked so hard for happen.
Passion is not a waste.

The reason that there's confusion in the ranks of feminism about the proper female protagonist is simple. Feminists aren't a hive mind entity. Everyone has opinions, even among feminists. There are no solid rules, and guidelines to live by in feminism as far as I know, and none on representation in the media. Even if there were rules written in stone, it's obvious not everyone follows it, eh?

Is not JUST that she doesn't specify what brand of feminism (who was supposed to be about equality) actually WANTS this brand of inequality as presented on her thesis. Cause apparently having "self control" is not positive for females somehow:

Is just that she doesn't make sense even in her terms:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/FeministFrequency

And, that even if Feminism ISN'T a hivemind, the mainstream audience doesn't care. If YOU criticize it in ANY shape or form, no matter which brand you are complaining about, you are either a misogynist or a gender traitor. I remind you that, after all, one CANT make even a sarcastic comment without being put on jail. So the logical step to it is to lynch everyone that complains on Feminism: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125833-Petition-to-Free-Jailed-League-of-Legends-Player-Reaches-100-000-Sigs

God bless false dichotomies.

The only brand of feminism I can think of that Anita represents is her own, or possibly one created by the input of many feminists provided she's in touch with the community, and wants to represent as many feminists as possible.

Yeah, there's going to be those people who try to demonize you for disagreeing. It's the easy way out, but what are you going to do? Give up? Stoop to their level? Keep being civil? You could call them out on it?

Luckily the kid that got jailed is getting support by people that believe in justice. His case was pretty damn extreme.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Raven I give you that Zlda is a supporting NPC. But she isn't the only girl in gaming we HAVE rpg female characters of messianic repuattion who wield that power on screen and even in player hands. We have Skullgirls, most rpgs (Japanese and Western), and etc. But that goes out the wall because apparently Zelda getting kidnapped is oppressing female gamers?

Zelda was made links PARTNER in Spirit Tracks, was hinted at having a parallel coming of age story in Skyward Sword. This happened with Groose and people love him. Its why male gamers feel the argument is specious. you got that already and you're still upset and moreover games aren't intended to do whatever for gender but convey their entertainment.

Now I'll admit, Tetra just hiding out was kinda bad... and then she shoots at ganon in the final battle as acknowledgement hey she's the princess and its her life. Zelda was practically shoehorned into Twilight Princess because, get this, SHE WASN'T THE FOCUS that was Midna (btw way to ignore the four other significant female characters not counting the Zora Queen there) in the title and please don't say *she* was shortchanged.

And that's just Zelda. There are games conceived of with female characters from the beginning or aimed at female players (the various bishi laden ones) that have diverse powers and grappling with dramatic situations. The mystery series from Nintendo on the DS... Eternal Darkness, Atelier series, Tales, Sands of Destruction, Pokemon, Persona, and others.

So then we get to the more specific issue. There aren't badass females, who don't sexual appeal to male gamers, in "hardcore" titles. The DOA girls, Bayonetta, Bullet Witch, Sheeva Almar, Jill Valentine, and etc.

See dig in its less a desperately superbad situation of "no girls" and more a "not girls in titles I like in the roles I want" and sorry THAT'S NOT OPPRESSION.

Now it is a lack of serving to the customer base and acknowledgement of them.

Yeah it wouldn't hurt for the not exactly strapped for cash Call of Duty series to fit in a lady into the macho tired war stories as they "go deeper" (especially when America is under attack by Russia). But it can also backfire (Other M, the gamer shorthand for sexism in videogames. I'll even concede it didn't do Samus right but was trying and the story isn't more "sexist" than throwing all these paternal issues in video games currently is.. seriously take a step back and Other M is practically a Bruce Willis movie in space)

Why are you bringing in Anita when I haven't, nor do I want to??

Why are you talking to me like I'm a feminist?

Let me explain something here. I'm not a feminist. I'm not a blind follower of Anita.

I'm a female gamer that wants more female protagonists in their own game, and I'd like them to be well written. Of course I'm going to support a game whre Zelda is the main protagonist, and the played character.

Games like Pokemon where you pick a gender don't cut it with me until the gender of the protagonist makes a real diffirence in the game.

I happen to be aware of things like:
http://www.giantbomb.com/sleeping-dogs/3030-29441/
http://www.gamecritics.com/brad-gallaway/brink-no-girls-allowed
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123139-Devs-Had-to-Demand-Female-Focus-Testers-for-The-Last-of-Us
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/remember-mes-surprising-connection-to-facebook-and-why-its-protagonist-had
http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/05/01/god-of-war-ascension-multiplayer/ or http://www.gameinformer.com/games/god_of_war_ascension/b/ps3/archive/2012/04/30/sony-unveils-god-of-war-ascensions-multiplayer.aspx
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7044-The-Creepy-Cull-of-Female-Protagonists
And that's the -short- list.

Which grinds my gears because female protagonists are getting shafted in so many ways. Modern gaming "conventional wisdom" does not want a strong female presense in games, or in how they're getting made. Women are usually relegated to support.

Some female protagonists aren't even seeing the light of day!

How many of the games have you listed have -only- women as the playable character? Compare that to the games where there's only male playable characters, or both genders. That's why I'm mad at the industry.

And it doesn't help that some of the games with female only playable characters are insulting.

... Other M isn't bad because it's a bruce willis movie in space. It's bad because it takes a lot of the power away from one of the most powerful iconic women in gaming on many levels, and for some strange reason "the baby" has become something of a meme based off it. I wonder why?

Also try this:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13373815860B43920100&i_id=13384263550I62094100&p=17
Credit to JellySlimerMan for providing me with the link.

You largely understand what's going on, though. I'm glad for that. You understand that the industry doesn't exactly have the greatest attitude towards female protagonsts, the women wanting to play games, that there is a lack of female protagonists, and so forth. I just wanted to make my stance clear.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Even if it was, I doubt most people would actively look it up. It's either common knowledge, or they don't care about adding it to the conversation. I dare say only a few people would care enough.

Still, any info regarding gender on games should be provided. Just like how i like to provide this kind of information when people (specially women) do not get the "privilege" of being a man:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Entertainment/story?id=1526982#.UaC7HEopl-l

"Privilege" being an horrendously subjective term. Also i like to point out that such article exist AFTER Internet was made available to everyone, unlike the 90's and the fucking 56K modems. Where were the feminists when that info was released, i wonder?

I wish I knew what the pivotal point where the conventional wisdom came to be was. I can only guess, myself. I do have a strong feeling it reaches back as far as Mirror's Edge.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

I definitely agree that the gaming industry as it is is incompitent on so many levels. Developers are dieing off, producers are dieing off, people are getting laid off, people are taking pay cuts, the industry goes for quality of sales over quantity of sales, games are loosing their souls to market testers or being denied outright, and so on.

Hell, it might be that conventional wisdom that's playing a role in killing the industry. Modern games exclude female protagonists, so women, and the guys that like playing a women are getting ticked off, and not buying.
I know I'm less interested in games these days because of that conventional wisdom being put into practice.

But "Beyond Good And Evil" is even older (2003) than Mirror's Edge (2007) and i STILL dont know where do they get that idea. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil?from=Main.BeyondGoodAndEvil

You see, when people tell me its the focus group fault (and therefore the fault of the mainstream gaming audience) i rised my eyebrown so high that its now orbiting Alpha Centaury. It reminds me of those "studies" about how games cause more violence who get a shitton of mentally unstable people to be the subjects of the "study" and conclude that 10/10 people end up more violent. Well, no shit. They are already insane to begin with, and is not really a way to measure the rest of fucking humanity capacity of being affected by games and shit.

It ALSO reminds me of Bioware own "statistics" to prove that the ending bashers were just "a vocal minority" (prove to themselves, cause its not available to the public. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight)
http://o.canada.com/2013/04/24/mass-effect-series-lead-writer-it-working-on-mass-effect-4/

Well, you know what they say:There are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damned lies, and statistics
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LiesDamnedLiesAndStatistics

But that is still looks like incompetence rather than the Patriarchy? (as Anita would put it). I sincerely hope the Patriarchy? pays for ALL the looses. I mean, the fucking Rockefeller were smart enough to make women have equal rights so they can be taxed like men. Cause you know, money. And there is no reason to NOT abuse the new female audience for monetary gain.

Since there is no real grounds to know WHY they think that way since all their info is pure made up bullshit, the only rational explanation i can give is that they are just copying or taking notes from Focus Groups FROM Cinema, since the game industry is trying too hard to be Hollywood after all. So if Hollywood doesn't think there should be females, then so will the game industry.

Where's Korval now? If a person is going to champion the cause, they need to stick with it, or they're going to fade into obscurity, or the fact they tried certainly is.

Korval is busy making a Stardusk analysis and shitting on it for its piss poor shallow romance that makes Twilight look inspired:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13012904770B90347200

Then again, how can that person get into championing the cause if NOBODY tells him/her/it that is doing a good job at it? nobody reads the fucking Metroid Other M blog because people already assume that Korval is a Metroid Prime fanboy who wants his games to have no story like all FPS do (a Poison The Well Fallacy, since they assume that MP is like COD, when COD wasn't even fucking popular back then, nor is MP a FPS, its a First Person Adventure). Or they think the sexist thing is pure bullshit (thanks to the pure incompetence of our journalists for not noticing a true champion for the "sexism in games debate", by dismissing it as "you just want Samus to be silent, you sexist FUCK!")

I wonder, since it is already established that Anita reads Tv Tropes, what would happen when she reads that blog on M:OM, and concludes that the gaming journalists are too stupid to notice something so obviously wrong. Shit will get real.

I've little doubt the game's going to fail and by fail, I mean not live up to the astronomically stupid expectations of the company.

Here is the big one i am scared off. Remember how i said earlier how there is NO evidence that a game with a female has failed hard on the merit of having a female alone? what if EA is trying to get this evidence with Mirror's Edge with Anita in the front?

Imagine, what if EA doesn't try to put absurd standards on this one? what if the game actually fails without ANY of EA meddling and they leave everything to Anita's disposal, and thus making HER responsible for all the failings? EA will finally have its evidence of why females doesn't work, and all they needed to do is to put someone everyone hates on a franchise they dont care about to begin with, and the rest is history.

It will be really hard to distinguish what opinions are made objectively about the game's failings. Maybe the game has a feminist message but its done in such a crude and amateuristic way that puts the plot on hold for 10 hours, and would put the "Who's John Galt?" scene to shame. But everyone else will see that as an unjustified attack on feminism and blah blah.

Maybe we should look back on previous games that had an author that had controversial views, or uses the money to found things like Anti Gay marriage or something. Here is an example, and i wish for everyone to tell me how that went:

People have to try, or else nothing gets done.

But you wont send a Clown to fix a Nuclear Reactor problem, when a Nuclear Physicist Expert can do it better or do it at all compared to the Clown who is just going to press all buttons until the lights stop going red.

The only brand of feminism I can think of that Anita represents is her own, or possibly one created by the input of many feminists provided she's in touch with the community, and wants to represent as many feminists as possible.

Yeah, there's going to be those people who try to demonize you for disagreeing.

But the people dissagreeing are ALSO feminist. Maaaaaaaaybe HER brand of feminism makes everything worse acording to other sources of feminism. Maaaaaaaaaaaybe we should get actual feminist to comment on this so i can stop fucking guessing.

Even then, its not like we need to understand feminism to point out the lack of details and context that her videos omit, if we take them as self contained educational works.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Yeah it wouldn't hurt for the not exactly strapped for cash Call of Duty series to fit in a lady into the macho tired war stories as they "go deeper" (especially when America is under attack by Russia). But it can also backfire (Other M, the gamer shorthand for sexism in videogames. I'll even concede it didn't do Samus right but was trying and the story isn't more "sexist" than throwing all these paternal issues in video games currently is.. seriously take a step back and Other M is practically a Bruce Willis movie in space)

Metroid Other M is......a special needs game.

This game is basically the first (the second being Mass Effect 3) as for why i dont trust gaming journalism due to sheer incompetence. They ramble on and on of sexism on videogames, but when a real offender, a game that portraits the abusive relationship of Adam and Samus as a Platonic Ideal appears, they do jack shit with it.

http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html
http://www.screwattack.com/news/arguments-other-ms-defense-and-why-they-are-all-bullshit

That is all for the journalists that made some sense. As for the worst offenders well...i will jut say MovieBob and move on.

Its up to the fanbase itself to set things right. Because, as always, we are alone on this on making a real analyzis on the sheer attention to detail put into Samus and Adam "relationship":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4ww_NwjC0Q&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX4mhp-8sOc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfS0254dRRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDZm4wPeu6A

I heard by one of the forum posters here that M:OM is like a Eldritch Abomination. You THINK you can grasp its true form, but actually its your mind desperately trying to make sense out of it. The sexism in this game is so pure that you are not sure what you are actually seeing.

 

[Bujiraso]

Great episode, Jim!

On criminally brief review of the thread, I think we might have to have a corollary to Godwin's Law saying that all internet discussions involving gender will at some point bring up Feminist Frequency...

 

[Darmani]

Why are you bringing in Anita when I haven't, nor do I want to??

I don't use the word Anita in my post, I used find to dbl check. I pointed out the actually wide issue in gaming AND that the argument "there are no females allowed in gaming" is being lobbed and point out its a little overstated and why its not responded to with agreement, that a person could disagree, that its actually flawed in its formation.

And yes its relevant, because the general argument is that Zelda being kidnapped represents a bad thing. But to be a bad thing it has to harm someone or something. If the argument is its harmful due to a trend, then you've got something. Otherwise you are telling an artist, without even paying them or the artist offering to take your suggestions, "make me a sandwich *this* way."
I am responding to you with the frustration and dislike of the argument I've met before, yes. Because in your complaint you do not just speak for yourself but "women" that means you open up a response to yourself AS a representative of that group and I can bring in my observations and experiences with them. and that's just what I give the argument, for Sarkeesian I have much more issues.

Females characters as mains are out of fashion. They will get back in fashion. The main thing is looking at where games are trending. Moreover "good writing" is not just subjective but as a request from a female player talking about female characters likely means less good things so much as specific things she is likely to see as good.

NOT EVIL THINGS but it requires more detail than conveyed by "good decent female characters." (FFXIII have none for you with female frontline star? Lightning was first revealed and in all the promotional and tie-in material) Using Jim as a common reference let us go to the "coffeee" example, again where people generally respond with one answer but pick another. So that's a common HUMAN trait. With female gamers I think the frustration is less "no women in games" so much as they feel they aren't welcome or in some cases pandered to as their male counterparts are. But really Femmesheppe ALONE points to how females are not some dark secret or unaddressed in games.
The tendency to interpret along the lines of victimization on instances like women on covers is another element. For one there was a STRONG cycle were women were pushed or femininity or androgyny was in. In response we got the mesomorph western-ish masculine idealization as more popular ESPECIALLY in high performing shooters that became more popular. With a predominantly aging and male audience being elder and especially FATHERS is in.
There are complex reasons this is happening but this isn't the discussion I see offered and had. Its the same old one of females cry out hurt, society get cracking to stop that offense.

Should we stop that offense? Yes.

But some things AIN'T opening for discussion to solve it or to convince people to change minds. And large accusations of "you're out to exclude women" don't work as icebreakers. Even if it was true then why aren't you expecting and coolly ready for "Yes we hate you and your vaginas you found out. Muhawahahaha" If its intentional they'll keep doing it. If its some level of intentional, but not lauded going in like that will NOT get you what you want.

Spoiler: Alternative approach

"I want more women in gaming"
"whoah here are reasons we don't do that and its not part of the higher selling model that works" (remember everyone is trying to be call of duty or Limbo they want to reach THAT plateau and THEN they'll diversify)
"Ah but there is this mass untapped market both coming up and now growing in number of people and aims and interest. They want to be caterred to with female stories."
"Like Other M? Fashion Designer? That one where all the dudes on the martial art program need your healing touch? Hell Trauma Center with its General Hospital with minigames make? Dozens of rpgs?"
"Okay look Other M mishandled its gender elements to bluntly and came off hostile where it inserted a female lead and emphasized her gender as a point of characterization in a standard male space adventure plot like LockOut. At the least she should have had a pluck sidekick to play off more or more exploration of the new elements. Also all those thing are mostly ensembles. I mean a game where I can insert myself as a woman into the female character and it feels reflective and aiming of my fantasies and experiences. "
"I don't know does it really matter its a chicks hands holding the iron sights. I mean the game with te spy on morphine didn't sell and remember Mirror's Edge. Also Blackhawk Down and 24 didn't star women. Female characters great to immediately generate empathy and consideration but people hate the tragic and traumatic stuff we put dude characters through or view it as an attack on the gender."
"Most of that is you default to using women as objects to emphasize a certain emotional response. Trust your audience to empathise with the lady."
"Also her being a woman won't in and of itself expand her options beyond kill and sneak past."
"Uhm.. well maybe you might wanna change that
"ITS TOO HARD"
"Okay okay later. but look we've got like tons of female servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan why not ease in with DLC or spinoff campagins of these gaurdwomen, patrolling for insurgents, scanning for terrorists, disarming IEDs, and end with a setpeice shootout at a.. uhm I don't know that sewing circle rhodey found in Iron Man 3"
"Hmmm.. okay at the least its not more maps and gives us a chance to expand our formula. ANd its attached to something that can sell"

Also "I want a female who's hardass" (which isn't that deep a reading) isn't a request by runout minority being oppressed but a consumer who wants to be catered to and rather specific. Akin to "change the ending of this game to satisfy me" which even when the subject is hands down terrible really is going to come off as crappy.

Its also possible the market research is right, to a degree. Games headlining or starring females are on the decline and using market data reflects that. Also demanding gendered stories is... okay not bad but that's personal request for what you want, its not a demand for a universal good. If it for mutually beneficial good sell it for that and not on the negatives of current female characters who aren't written to be what you want.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Even if it was, I doubt most people would actively look it up. It's either common knowledge, or they don't care about adding it to the conversation. I dare say only a few people would care enough.

Still, any info regarding gender on games should be provided. Just like how i like to provide this kind of information when people (specially women) do not get the "privilege" of being a man:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Entertainment/story?id=1526982#.UaC7HEopl-l

"Privilege" being an horrendously subjective term. Also i like to point out that such article exist AFTER Internet was made available to everyone, unlike the 90's and the fucking 56K modems. Where were the feminists when that info was released, i wonder?

I wish I knew what the pivotal point where the conventional wisdom came to be was. I can only guess, myself. I do have a strong feeling it reaches back as far as Mirror's Edge.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

I definitely agree that the gaming industry as it is is incompitent on so many levels. Developers are dieing off, producers are dieing off, people are getting laid off, people are taking pay cuts, the industry goes for quality of sales over quantity of sales, games are loosing their souls to market testers or being denied outright, and so on.

Hell, it might be that conventional wisdom that's playing a role in killing the industry. Modern games exclude female protagonists, so women, and the guys that like playing a women are getting ticked off, and not buying.
I know I'm less interested in games these days because of that conventional wisdom being put into practice.

But "Beyond Good And Evil" is even older (2003) than Mirror's Edge (2007) and i STILL dont know where do they get that idea. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil?from=Main.BeyondGoodAndEvil

You see, when people tell me its the focus group fault (and therefore the fault of the mainstream gaming audience) i rised my eyebrown so high that its now orbiting Alpha Centaury. It reminds me of those "studies" about how games cause more violence who get a shitton of mentally unstable people to be the subjects of the "study" and conclude that 10/10 people end up more violent. Well, no shit. They are already insane to begin with, and is not really a way to measure the rest of fucking humanity capacity of being affected by games and shit.

It ALSO reminds me of Bioware own "statistics" to prove that the ending bashers were just "a vocal minority" (prove to themselves, cause its not available to the public. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight)
http://o.canada.com/2013/04/24/mass-effect-series-lead-writer-it-working-on-mass-effect-4/

Well, you know what they say:There are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damned lies, and statistics
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LiesDamnedLiesAndStatistics

But that is still looks like incompetence rather than the Patriarchy? (as Anita would put it). I sincerely hope the Patriarchy? pays for ALL the looses. I mean, the fucking Rockefeller were smart enough to make women have equal rights so they can be taxed like men. Cause you know, money. And there is no reason to NOT abuse the new female audience for monetary gain.

Since there is no real grounds to know WHY they think that way since all their info is pure made up bullshit, the only rational explanation i can give is that they are just copying or taking notes from Focus Groups FROM Cinema, since the game industry is trying too hard to be Hollywood after all. So if Hollywood doesn't think there should be females, then so will the game industry.

Where's Korval now? If a person is going to champion the cause, they need to stick with it, or they're going to fade into obscurity, or the fact they tried certainly is.

Korval is busy making a Stardusk analysis and shitting on it for its piss poor shallow romance that makes Twilight look inspired:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13012904770B90347200

Then again, how can that person get into championing the cause if NOBODY tells him/her/it that is doing a good job at it? nobody reads the fucking Metroid Other M blog because people already assume that Korval is a Metroid Prime fanboy who wants his games to have no story like all FPS do (a Poison The Well Fallacy, since they assume that MP is like COD, when COD wasn't even fucking popular back then, nor is MP a FPS, its a First Person Adventure). Or they think the sexist thing is pure bullshit (thanks to the pure incompetence of our journalists for not noticing a true champion for the "sexism in games debate", by dismissing it as "you just want Samus to be silent, you sexist FUCK!")

I wonder, since it is already established that Anita reads Tv Tropes, what would happen when she reads that blog on M:OM, and concludes that the gaming journalists are too stupid to notice something so obviously wrong. Shit will get real.

I've little doubt the game's going to fail and by fail, I mean not live up to the astronomically stupid expectations of the company.

Here is the big one i am scared off. Remember how i said earlier how there is NO evidence that a game with a female has failed hard on the merit of having a female alone? what if EA is trying to get this evidence with Mirror's Edge with Anita in the front?

Imagine, what if EA doesn't try to put absurd standards on this one? what if the game actually fails without ANY of EA meddling and they leave everything to Anita's disposal, and thus making HER responsible for all the failings? EA will finally have its evidence of why females doesn't work, and all they needed to do is to put someone everyone hates on a franchise they dont care about to begin with, and the rest is history.

It will be really hard to distinguish what opinions are made objectively about the game's failings. Maybe the game has a feminist message but its done in such a crude and amateuristic way that puts the plot on hold for 10 hours, and would put the "Who's John Galt?" scene to shame. But everyone else will see that as an unjustified attack on feminism and blah blah.

Maybe we should look back on previous games that had an author that had controversial views, or uses the money to found things like Anti Gay marriage or something. Here is an example, and i wish for everyone to tell me how that went:

People have to try, or else nothing gets done.

But you wont send a Clown to fix a Nuclear Reactor problem, when a Nuclear Physicist Expert can do it better or do it at all compared to the Clown who is just going to press all buttons until the lights stop going red.

The only brand of feminism I can think of that Anita represents is her own, or possibly one created by the input of many feminists provided she's in touch with the community, and wants to represent as many feminists as possible.

Yeah, there's going to be those people who try to demonize you for disagreeing.

But the people dissagreeing are ALSO feminist. Maaaaaaaaybe HER brand of feminism makes everything worse acording to other sources of feminism. Maaaaaaaaaaaybe we should get actual feminist to comment on this so i can stop fucking guessing.

Even then, its not like we need to understand feminism to point out the lack of details and context that her videos omit, if we take them as self contained educational works.

Well, since we're using links about lesbian women living as men:
http://vitaminw.co/culture-society/it-gets-better%E2%80%A6when-you%E2%80%99re-straight-man
Take it how you will.

I found it in this site:
http://www.ihollaback.org/blog/2013/06/
where people, usually women submit tales where men try to pick them up on the streets. It's not pretty, the things some of these women went through.

It's not -just- focus groups that I'm blaming. It's the people that get the focus groups together. They look for people who'll confirm what they want to hear over what people in general think. Your example of focus testers getting unstable people to prove games make people more violent is an example of that.

Or they'll get focus groups made of fans of some other series and end up trying to ape that series.

There's a plethora of bad motives, and bad methods that can bias a group really badly.

Of course the people getting the groups together aren't to blame on their own.

Societal pressures can make focus groups liars. The need for acceptance make their answers conform with everyone else instead of saying how they really feel. It's not always the case, but it skews the results.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7405-Damn-Fine-Coffee
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7161-Perfect-Pasta-Sauce
Jim talks about focus groups, and points out flaws, more specefically in Damn Fine Coffee.

I think some attempts are made to try and capitalize on girl gamers. I'm sure we've all seen the pastel worlds of Bratz, or Barbie.
I can't pretend to know how well those do since games like that do. They still get made, so thats gotta be saying something, I guess.
Personally I don't really find it inclusive as opposed to segregational.

Honestly I doubt we'll ever know what caused the whole "boys don't want to play as girls" thing. Maybe nothing started it as it was always there?

As for becoming a champion, you can't do it for feedback, and you can't count of feedback. You have to do it because you want to. Because you've got some kind of passion for it. If you're lucky, people learn about you. It helps to go to get word of mouth advertisement, getting on youtube, or escapist, and talking up your points often, and with some reliability.
Most importantly, despite getting kicked, or praised, you have to want to do it.
Of course you can pick, and chose your fights. You really have to. Reckless advocation for something can wear out your welcome.

Honestly, I don't follow Anita, so I have no idea what to expect from her. Right now all I can look forward to is her Damsels in distress pt 3 where she handles women saving guys. Even then, it's something kinda meh.

While your theory about EA trying to take down Anita may be possible, even if the game fails, if it's exclusive to Xbone, Xbone will be a potential scapegoat.

The Shadow Complex boycott threat does sound like it'll be a precursor to Mirror's Edge 2.

While you don't send a clown in to fix a nuclear reactor, you aren't going to get your point across if no one wants to listen to you. Anita, and Girlwriteswhat have the same problem to me in that their delivery is extremely dry.
Being talked to through a pokerface and a monotonal nature with a fairly bland appearance will mess with my interest level. That's just me speaking from my point of view, mind you.
It's why I prefer Jim Sterling over Anita.

You're going to need a board of feminists to get a feminist point of view on Anita. Like I said earlier, feminism isn't a hive mind entity. Feminists do disagree with feminists. There's a pro-sexuality and anti-sexuality division out there. I'm sure there are feminists out there that demonize other feminists because they stand on opposite sides of the topic. It's like every other grouping of large amounts of people. They're going to disagree within the ranks.
Getting large groups of people together and having them work together for an extended period of time is one of the hardest tasks on earth.

P.S. the post after the one I replied to here is misquoted towards me.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Why are you bringing in Anita when I haven't, nor do I want to??

I don't use the word Anita in my post, I used find to dbl check. I point out the actually wide issue in gaming AND that the argument lobbed "there are no females allowed in gaming" and point out its a little overstated and why its not responded to with agreement that a person could disagree that its actually flawed in its formation. And yes its relavent because the general argument is that Zelda being kidnap represents a bad thing. But to be a bad thing it has to harm someone or something. If the argument is its harmful due to a trend then you've got something. Otherwise you are telling an artist, without even paying them or them offering to take your suggestions, make me a sandwich this way.
I am responding to you with the frustration and dislike of the argument I've met before, yes. Because your complaint is not just for yourself but "women" that means you open up a response to yourself AS a representative of a group. and that's just the argument for Sarkeesian I have much more issues.

Females characters as mains are out of fashion. They will get back in fashion. The main thing is looking at where games are trending. Moreover "good writing" is not just subjective but from a female player talking about female characters likely means less good things so much as specific things they are likely to see good.

NOT EVIL THINGS but it requires more detail than conveyed by "good decent female characters." (FFXIII have none for you with female frontline star?) Using Jim as a common reference lets go to the "coffeee" example again where people generally respond with one answer but pick another. So that's a common HUMAN trait. With female gamers I think the frustration is less "no women in games" so much as they feel they aren't welcome or in some cases pandered to as their male counterparts are most certainly. But really Femmesheppe ALONE points to how females are not some dark secret in games.
The tendency to interpret along the lines of victimization on instances like women on covers is another element. For one there was a STRONG cycle were women were pushed or feminity or androgny was in. In response we got the mesomorphic western-ish masculine idealization as more popular ESPECIALLY in high performing shooters. With a predominantly aging and male audience being elder FATHERS are in.
There are complex reasons this is happening but this isn't the discussion I see offered and had its the same old one of females hurt, society get cracking to stop that offense.
Should we stop that offense? Yes. But some things AIN'T opening for discussion to solve it or to convince people to change minds. And large accusations of "you're out to exclude women" don't work as icebreakers. Even if it was true then why aren't you expecting and cooling ready for "Yes we hate you and your vaginas you found out. Muhawahahaha" If its intentional they'll keep doing it. If its some level of intentional but not lauded going in like that will NOT get you what you want.
"I want more women in gaming"
"whoah here are reasons we don't do that and its not part of the higher selling model that works" (remember everyone is trying to be call of duty or Limbo they want to reach THAT plateau and THEN they'll diversify)
"Ah but there is this mass untapped market both coming up and now growing in number of people and aims and interest. They want to be caterred to with female stories."
"Like Other M? Fashion Designer? That one where all the dudes on the martial art program need your healing touch? Hell Trauma Center with its General Hospital with minigames make? Dozens of rpgs?"
"Okay look Other M mishandled its gender elements to bluntly and came off hostile where it inserted a female lead and emphasized her gender as a point of characterization in a standard male space adventure plot like LockOut. At the least she should have had a pluck sidekick to play off more or more exploration of the new elements. Also all those thing are mostly ensembles. I mean a game where I can insert myself as a woman into the female character and it feels reflective and aiming of my fantasies and experiences. "
"I don't know does it really matter its a chicks hands holding the iron sights. I mean the game with te spy on morphine didn't sell and remember Mirror's Edge. Also Blackhawk Down and 24 didn't star women. Female characters great to immediately generate empathy and consideration but people hate the tragic and traumatic stuff we put dude characters through or view it as an attack on the gender."
"Most of that is you default to using women as objects to emphasize a certain emotional response. Trust your audience to empathise with the lady."
"Also her being a woman won't in and of itself expand her options beyond kill and sneak past."
"Uhm.. well maybe you might wanna change that
"ITS TOO HARD"
"Okay okay later. but look we've got like tons of female servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan why not ease in with DLC or spinoff campagins of these gaurdwomen, patrolling for insurgents, scanning for terrorists, disarming IEDs, and end with a setpeice shootout at a.. uhm I don't know that sewing circle rhodey found in Iron Man 3"
"Hmmm.. okay at the least its not more maps and gives us a chance to expand our formula. ANd its attached to something that can sell"



Also "I want a female who's hardass" (which isn't that deep a reading) isn't a request by runout minority being oppressed but consumer who wants to be caterred to and rather specific. Akin to "change the ending of this game to satisfy me" which even when hands down its terrible really is going to come off as crappy.

Its also possible the market research is right, to a degree. Games headlining or starring females are on the decline and using market data reflects that. Also demanding gendered stories is... okay not bad but that's personal request for what you want, its not a demand for a universal good. If it is sell it for what it is and not on the negatives of current females who aren't written to be what you want.

Fair enough on the Anita part, but you're talking a lot about what she does, and topics I don't want to get into. Talking about feminism isn't my strong suit.

Not all women are feminists. Talking to them like they are is not always welcome, and kinda annoying at some points. I may be a "representative" of a group, but what I'm representing is not feminism.

Define "harm" here. Is harm only physical? Or is harm, emotional, mental, and/or spiritual? At what point is it okay to say "okay, this is getting harmful, lets talk about it?"

I am not telling an artist to do anything but make what they want to make. If an artist puts forth something I like, like making a Zelda game where you play as Zelda, then I'm going to support it.
http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/eiji-aonuma-would-consider-zelda-as-a-protagonist-depending-on-demand
"Demand" meaning how popular the idea is more than litteral assertive, aggressive demands.
That's not telling them to do anything they don't want to do since I'm not even sure they are going to make the game!
In fact I'm probably more with you on the point of artistic freedom than against you.
Like I said before, it's the outside forces warping artistic vision that grinds my gears.

That said, I do reserve the right to criticise things. If I don't like what someone is doing, I'm going to say it. An artist can make what game they want, but that doesn't make them immune to criticisms. If I don't lke it, I'm not going to buy it on top of that.
When it's a female protagonist game, and someone else kaboshes it in cancelling it or making the lead a guy, I definitely reserve the right to not like the decision.

Female protagonists are out of fashion? An interesting way to look at it, but the notion that they'll come back into fashion doesn't soothe me at all. So long as I feel deprived I'm going to speak up about it.

Good writing to me is pretty general. Agency, and variety. I might not like it all, but there's the potential I'll like some of it. It'll hopefully be a mixed bag like male protagonists. ... okay, bad example. Male protagonists definitely tend to stick to a portfolio of similar archetypes.
With a greater amount of female protagonists, in female only games I'll have better odds of finding characters I like.

The thing with FF13 for me is all the character switching initually. It's extremely off putting. I can't build much of an opinion on Lightning herself because I, personally, don't care for the game.
It's a wonderful luxury to pick and chose games you don't like when they would normally meet the criteria of a game you'd like. It's one I don't take for granted thanks to the rarity of games where you only play a female protagonist. Then agaiun FF13 doesn't really fit that does it? I've had to play as a guy or two on multiple occassions, and I get the feeling the spotlight is shared. Lightning isn't the hero of her own game it feels like. Not until Lightning Returns, and I'm hesitant to nail that one down as a female protagonist only game. Even then, from my understanding there's going to be a time limit in that game. I hate that mechanic.

It is partly "there are no games with female protagonists" in that there's so few of them, and there's some "conventional wisdom" out there that hampers these women from being produced, if they get produced at all, as my links shown.

Sure there are some games, but they're rare luxuries that get little publicity. As a person that hunts for them, even with friends that share the pursuit of finding them in particular I can safely tell you it's not easy keeping up with their releases.

With so few games I have less luxury in deciding I don't like a game. Some years, if I don't like a game with no female protagonist, I just don't get a new game with one in it.

With the glut of male protagonists in a wide variety of games it gets easy to be choosey about what you buy.
I don't know about you, but I imagine that with so many male protagonists it's easier to play as the rare female protagonists because one can always return to the comfort of playing as someone their own gender. They aren't forced to play as a woman, or barely game at all otherwise.

You do have a point in the matter of women not feeling welcome in gaming. With things like the links I provided going on, I know I don't feel all that wanted. Not only am I not being catered to, I'm actively being denied catering. No, not all the time, but well, when was the last time a male proptagonist was forcibly changed to a female protagonist, sent to the back cover in favor of showing a woman, had to be justified to exist, or told he couldn't have a romance option?

And I agree it's no secret anymore that there are women playing games. I've subscribed to more than a few on youtube. I also have about as many guys playing games subscribed to as well.
The Female Gamers I subscribed to also have a lot of other subscribers.

Funny you talk about icebreakers. Using feminism isn't much of an icebreaker either. At the least, not a good one. Sure it sparks debate, but is it the kind of debate that's desired?

The game industry needs to realize that they are never going to reach the plateu of CoD because CoD is there and there's no real room for anyone else. They need to start branching out now.
I don't particularly see Limbo as a plateu that's insurmountable, though. If there was ever an indie game out there that was king of the hill, I'd say it's minecraft. That's just me, though.

The dialogue in your post touches something that I have advocated. DLC/expansions, preferrably standalone, built on the framework of an existing game. Red Dead Redempion's undead nightmare, GTA IV's Libberty City Stories, Farcry 3's Blood Dragon, Infamous 2's vampire side story, Dynasty Warriors XL/Empires, etc. stand as examples of this sort of thing.
I wouldn't mind it too much if they took this route to add more female protagonists to the gaming world. Especially if it came with the lower prices these types of DLCs tend to. Especially if I didn't have to buy the game it's based off of.
They gaming industry would likely see an increase of units moved that might just offset the lower price presented.
Of course I see some being short sighted enough to make you buy the game the DLC is based off of, but all of the examples I listed do not require the game they're based off of, IIRC.
Honestly, Dynasty Warriors XL is generally a favorite example of mine as it often rewards you for having the original game by merging the two games like most normal DLCs merge with the base game, yet even without the original game you do get your money's worth IMO in a game ith new characters, and gameplay styles.

You'll have to note I don't specefy the personality of the sort of female character I want. That's because I don't just want hardasses, I want a variety of personalities. Raging warrior women wading into combat, demure women, intelligent women, moral women, immoral women, thugs, assassins, introspective women, professionals, unprofessionals, mothers, women who don't like/want children. There's a lot of well written NPC women that could have a decent spinoff game, imo.
I'd like it to not take decades to see a fair amount of these personalities in a female only protagonist game.

I'm pretty starved for variety in female only protagonist games.

 

[Darmani]

You mention wanting her gender to matter. I bring up Other M. I take it you, like many, don't like it. I also mention more female characters won't change what they are doing, especially in popular AAA games. There won't be more socializing, talking it out, or navigating groups or institutions which is more thematic and front and center to female aimed works (Matlock versus Ally McBeal)
Before you go off NO not all women think like X but there is a trend. And VGs in general will have an issue breaking that trend. the deepening of characters with familial and societal context pushes us, *slowly*, to more females back in the forefront as who the character is as to the abilities they will grant will be more of thing and you can get instant empathy with a female character while males being the "default" gender me you're free to do something like Halo 4 to them and it not being against women in gaming
I admit Other M was flawed but the reaction and the themes and style of the reaction was well out of proportion and grotesque and sends one clear message even to me. Don't use or expand female characters as characters people will only bring their own gender politics with it AND punish and judge you for it so badly your game will flop. Samus should be a character not an icon and this game has dozens of little successes but because Adam is an authority figure who actually bosses you around and NOT evil people put on their minority warrior gear and savaged it.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

You mention wanting her gender to matter. I bring up Other M. I take it you, like many, don't like it. I also mention more female characters won't change what they are doing, especially in popular AAA games. There won't be more socializing, talking it out, or navigating groups or institutions which is more thematic and front and center to female aimed works (Matlock versus Ally McBeal)
Before you go off NO not all women think like X but there is a trend. And VGs in general will have an issue breaking that trend. the deepening of characters with familial and societal context pushes us, *slowly*, to more females back in the forefront as who the character is as to the abilities they will grant will be more of thing and you can get instant empathy with a female character while males being the "default" gender me you're free to do something like Halo 4 to them and it not being against women in gaming
I admit Other M was flawed but the reaction and the themes and style of the reaction was well out of proportion and grotesque and sends one clear message even to me. Don't use or expand female characters as characters people will only bring their own gender politics with it AND punish and judge you for it so badly your game will flop. Samus should be a character not an icon and this game has dozens of little successes but because Adam is an authority figure who actually bosses you around and NOT evil people put on their minority warrior gear and savaged it.

I disagree. More female characters will bring change to what they're doing. That change will be the reduction of the opposition to female protagonists. Something I see as an extremely important first step. What comes after will come more naturlly. FPSes with female protagonists (maybe a perfect dark sequel/reboot), women with various amounts of depth of writing will appear, maybe a heavenly sword sequel/hack and slashes, parkour, asssassin games, stealth games, and generally a smattering of the sort of games guys already star in, plus agency to have intimate relationships they initiate while you play as them.

One less fear in development that something won't sell might embolden developers to be able to freely create things that people say don't sell? Horror games where you can't fight all that well, if at all? Point and clicks, even though Walking Dead shown that could work, and is already getting a sequel?

Maybe, just maybe there will be a boom of increased revenue as welcomed women join in on buying games in earnest?

But seriously, I'm not expecting some grand gaming rennaissance out of this.

I'm not looking for some far reaching changes to society or anything, here, though with more female protagonists the complaints about female representation will prolly spread out more, and lose focus. People will have more general opinions on female protagonists in games because there will be many directions for them to go.

So long as the gaming industry lives in fear of doing things outside of the status quo, the industry will not mature. It will not grow. Infact, judging by the way things are going, it'll reach a gaming crash. It'll be a disaster. It won't die, per say, as people will strive to keep it on life support, but it'll be nearly wiped out.

The Other M's reaction might have been smaller if she had some real, and more numerous, possibly well known competiition. Don't get me wrong, there would have been a reaction what with her being the longest running series with a female only protagonist being roughly 30 years old, but it might not have been so focused on if she weren't the nail that stuck up the most.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

You mention wanting her gender to matter. I bring up Other M. I take it you, like many, don't like it. I also mention more female characters won't change what they are doing, especially in popular AAA games. There won't be more socializing, talking it out, or navigating groups or institutions which is more thematic and front and center to female aimed works (Matlock versus Ally McBeal)
Before you go off NO not all women think like X but there is a trend. And VGs in general will have an issue breaking that trend. the deepening of characters with familial and societal context pushes us, *slowly*, to more females back in the forefront as who the character is as to the abilities they will grant will be more of thing and you can get instant empathy with a female character while males being the "default" gender me you're free to do something like Halo 4 to them and it not being against women in gaming
I admit Other M was flawed but the reaction and the themes and style of the reaction was well out of proportion and grotesque and sends one clear message even to me. Don't use or expand female characters as characters people will only bring their own gender politics with it AND punish and judge you for it so badly your game will flop. Samus should be a character not an icon and this game has dozens of little successes but because Adam is an authority figure who actually bosses you around and NOT evil people put on their minority warrior gear and savaged it.

So i take you didn't read the blog did you?

Also, just like everyone else, you keep assuming that Samus had NO character to fuck over, and the new "character" is welcome since there was nothing to lose by doing so. And you are dead wrong for it.

The devil is in the details my friend. And for a series inspired by Cinema, attention to detail and visual storytelling did more for the whole series and Samus character than a dry monologue would EVER do.

Its about nerdy stuff like this that set people off, they just want consistency to what was presented in previous games. If this were a new character out of the blue without a backstory to fuck up, no one would bat an eye on it. Case in point, the freeware game: IJI. (Thought it deals more with an innocent girl struck in a war scenario and dealing with PTSD, rather than dealing with what it means to be a woman.)

Metroid Other M is THAT kind of game that deserves academy study JUST for the sheer amount of detail that went into making Samus a complete opposite person. Each shot actually has a purpose for this. But if making the most famous Super Heroine of gaming into an submissive ***** wasn't enough, the other females (Samus and 2 others) are equally useless to the plot and they are not even allowed to solve their problems themselves, so its not like there ISN'T a pattern to the sexist argument. Its all over the place.

A similar case happened to Mass Effect 3. People (as in the journalists and the unwashed masses) assumed that they don't wanted Male Shep to be gay cause homophobia and shit, when in reality (where WE live in and the rest of you have to yet catch up) this portrayal is inconsistent with established lore, character, and even announcement of the developers themselves. Proof?:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/shepard-is-heterosexual-by-choice

That announcement existed before ME2 was released. And its one of the many many many many many things that the developers forgot they promised to the audience.

Maybe if the unwashed masses (and the journalist that feeds them) actually do their jobs for once, they would notice that the "vocal minority" actually has a fucking point and facts, not opinions, believe it or not.

 

[Harley Q]

Literally laughed out loud on two separate occasions, and now I shall bring into conversation "Legendary Zelda" and "elegant nipples".

 

[Darmani]

You mention wanting her gender to matter. I bring up Other M. I take it you, like many, don't like it. I also mention more female characters won't change what they are doing, especially in popular AAA games. There won't be more socializing, talking it out, or navigating groups or institutions which is more thematic and front and center to female aimed works (Matlock versus Ally McBeal)
Before you go off NO not all women think like X but there is a trend. And VGs in general will have an issue breaking that trend. the deepening of characters with familial and societal context pushes us, *slowly*, to more females back in the forefront as who the character is as to the abilities they will grant will be more of thing and you can get instant empathy with a female character while males being the "default" gender me you're free to do something like Halo 4 to them and it not being against women in gaming
I admit Other M was flawed but the reaction and the themes and style of the reaction was well out of proportion and grotesque and sends one clear message even to me. Don't use or expand female characters as characters people will only bring their own gender politics with it AND punish and judge you for it so badly your game will flop. Samus should be a character not an icon and this game has dozens of little successes but because Adam is an authority figure who actually bosses you around and NOT evil people put on their minority warrior gear and savaged it.

So i take you didn't read the blog did you?

Also, just like everyone else, you keep assuming that Samus had NO character to fuck over, and the new "character" is welcome since there was nothing to lose by doing so. And you are dead wrong for it.

The devil is in the details my friend. And for a series inspired by Cinema, attention to detail and visual storytelling did more for the whole series and Samus character than a dry monologue would EVER do.

Its about nerdy stuff like this that set people off, they just want consistency to what was presented in previous games. If this were a new character out of the blue without a backstory to fuck up, no one would bat an eye on it. Case in point, the freeware game: IJI. (Thought it deals more with an innocent girl struck in a war scenario and dealing with PTSD, rather than dealing with what it means to be a woman.)

Metroid Other M is THAT kind of game that deserves academy study JUST for the sheer amount of detail that went into making Samus a complete opposite person. Each shot actually has a purpose for this. But if making the most famous Super Heroine of gaming into an submissive ***** wasn't enough, the other females (Samus and 2 others) are equally useless to the plot and they are not even allowed to solve their problems themselves, so its not like there ISN'T a pattern to the sexist argument. Its all over the place.

A similar case happened to Mass Effect 3. People (as in the journalists and the unwashed masses) assumed that they don't wanted Male Shep to be gay cause homophobia and shit, when in reality (where WE live in and the rest of you have to yet catch up) this portrayal is inconsistent with established lore, character, and even announcement of the developers themselves. Proof?:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/shepard-is-heterosexual-by-choice

That announcement existed before ME2 was released. And its one of the many many many many many things that the developers forgot they promised to the audience.

Maybe if the unwashed masses (and the journalist that feeds them) actually do their jobs for once, they would notice that the "vocal minority" actually has a fucking point and facts, not opinions, believe it or not.

I am familiar with Korval's blog. But it starts from an assumption of Samus character when this set out to define it. This was rejected because... it wasn't as appealling by what was made before with the sop excuse and newbies wouldn't get it.
Funny I was new to metroid, I mostly got it. I saw it had flaws but liked it. It didn't despite what butthurt fans keep saying "throw out" Metroid Prime so much as de-emphasized that part.
The problem is fans of Samus came to the conclusion, on their own, Samus having maternal feelings for the baby was bad. I can put to fanfic and other articles indicating this. For the most part she was blank as a character with lots of ideas built around her coming to a consensus with minor input from the author. The author sought to redefine the character along lines he felt more comfortable with and started by focusing on Samus's most distinct trait her gender and famous relationshop with the Metroid hatchling that bonded to her and saved her life.
He used this as a means to redefine the character. WE KNEW THIS WAS COMING YOUR FANFICS WILL BE RUINED

And the butthurt and nerdrage was glorious Some of it valid
I forget her name but the reviewer from G4's Xplay who was deluged in hate mail (not cool nintendo fans, we owe her an apology) pointed out it forced an icon into a story about proving herself. As many women in gaming at every level were going through this hazing being forced to witness this with their hero was unacceptable and the backlash was harsh
This didn't make it correct, ignores that "proving herself" was ultimately to herself and she reasserted herself the whole time. I was there folks. People rejected everything and the quick use of "The Baby" as a meme or that annoying microwave beam gotta make breakfast for Adam gif was ridiculous. Having an acceptable way to validate this bitchiness internet fandom screamed sexism
The shooting mechnics SEXISM.
Lack of exploration SEXISM.
No scanning SEKISM.
Game breaking glitch Sectsimem
Samus taking orders from the highest ranking officer of the army who's property it was on the scene. In tense situaiton like exploring a likely compromised vessel for survivors after proven damaged and infested with enemies? SEXISM
Samus having PTSD flashback for 40 seconds while she's attacked in 2:30 cutscene performing all sorts of flips and shots and screwing up the resolve to reactivate suit in midair while being crushed by giant spacedragon SEXISM (according to Korval the hero is Anthony... uhm yep the guy knocked aside is the hero)
Adam telling you what to do and expecting it done without justifying his orders to you (well actually he did and later we know WHY he's being secretive AND distant) SEXISM
Ridley is a redherrring SEXISM
Motherhood as a theme SEXISM
The Baby SEXISM

Yay for gender equality it validates and replaces any need for criticism. Its why so many years later I defend the game even when, oh yeah, its flawed. But its a flaw of execution and disparate expectations of Samus by fans as a whole (toon link all over again) and protagonists in scifi shooters with military bent (She's not starbuck or the guys from Resistance where authority against her is proven flawed and tedious?)
Korval can recognize this when he takes the piss out of ATLA but not Other M? We have little to talk about and isn't a defense.

 

[thebakedpotato]

Since when was feminist a swear word?
I'm a feminist, and I have a penis. I have watched the Feminist Frequency blogs, I kinda prefer Nostalgia Chick as she's less moralistic, but Anita does have a lot of good points (And I find that she does a lot of videos in a flannel shirt hilarious). And is fighting for general equality, with what affects her being at the forefront. Totally understandable.

Having a penis shouldn't preclude you from playing with dolls and wearing dresses. Having a vagina should not preclude you from building forts.

Duke Nukem isn't offensive because of its content. Duke Nukem is offensive because the content reflects the lack of equality in our world.

Fix the world, the games become harmless.