Jimquisition: Vertigo

[Erttheking]

I really don't see how this is a bad thing. It's basically the Bechdel Test. Not passing it isn't a bad thing. The sheer number of things that don't pass it is.

And as I've made clear in that earlier post, the Bechdel Test is also worthless, counterproductive bullshit.

I really don't understand how people can say "the Becdel test doesn't measure much at all", then get all uppity and upset that so many things don't pass it. Why even bother acknowledge it at all if the SUPPORTERS OF THE TEST THEMSELVES are aware of how arbitrary it is? You're just pulling hairs and nitpicking for no particularly good reason at that point when there are plenty other things to judge merit/quality. Other than...than...if you're The Chart Says guys [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsNrwHA6Big], I suppose this all makes sense to you.

Can we not look at media from a market executive's POV anymore and go back to looking at it from an audience perspective? Ya know, those olden days where we used to care about solid storytelling rather than all these politics?

What? In this hyperbolic Internet age where everyone wants to be a lobbyist rather than a consumer, that's too much to ask for?

It isn't a big deal on a small scale. On a large scale it is a very big deal. Like I said, it's like eating chocolate ice cream. The act in of itself is ok. When you do nothing else its a bit of a problem. It's not exactly a hypocritical concept.

Actually having more than one token female character and have the two talk about something else other than men? How is that arbitrary? In fact, let's do the opposite. Point out all the movies where there aren't at least two men who never talk to each other about anything other than woman. You will find that the list will be significant;y shorter. That's the problem, compared to male representation in movies and other media, women are sorely lacking.

Chart says?...what?... First of all I never said anything about charts or statistics, second, wasn't one of the main arguments against female characters in games was that they don't sell and that men want to play as men?

I do care about solid story telling. And there's something I noticed about all these games with bland predictable characters. 90% of their stories are shit. Meanwhile games like Fallout NV have a massive cast of characters from all different backgrounds, gender and races are freaking awesome. So yeah.

People criticize the things that they care about. That is the way things are. That is the way things will always be. Not to mention I fail to see how this is a bad thing. And people are not lobbyists. This isn't political. I don't want developers to reflect my political views. I want them to get off of their fat asses and stop selling me the same bland shit they've been selling me for years now.

 

[wulf3n]

I don't want developers to reflect my political views. I want them to get off of their fat asses and stop selling me the same bland shit they've been selling me for years now.

That's the spirit, insult those that you want to make things for you, because that will convince them to go out of their way to please you

 

[Erttheking]

I don't want developers to reflect my political views. I want them to get off of their fat asses and stop selling me the same bland shit they've been selling me for years now.

That's the spirit, insult those that you want to make things for you, because that will convince them to go out of their way to please you

Those swear words were not born out of hatred towards the developers, but the frustration that has been building up inside of me from the extensive period of time I have been arguing in this thread and is me venting some of it out. Also, I find it rather odd that I of all people got singled out for this considering that when it comes to criticism, people on this website tend to be very crude when it comes to insulting developers, I personally feel very sorry for Gearbox right now. Not to mention I have a hard time buying that I should be ashamed about that statement considering I didn't single anyone out or insult them personally. If I had insulted the people at Activision or Epic Games it'd be a different story. No offense but I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

 

[wulf3n]

Those swear words were not born out of hatred towards the developers, but the frustration that has been building up inside of me from the extensive period of time I have been arguing in this thread and is me venting some of it out. Also, I find it rather odd that I of all people got singled out for this considering that when it comes to criticism, people on this website tend to be very crude when it comes to insulting developers, I personally feel very sorry for Gearbox right now. Not to mention I have a hard time buying that I should be ashamed about that statement considering I didn't single anyone out or insult them personally. If I had insulted the people at Activision or Epic Games it'd be a different story. No offense but I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

It wasn't so much singling you out, as it was bringing to the surface the tendency in gaming culture and nerd culture in general to intertwine criticism with insult and the idea that is it any wonder we don't get what we want.

 

[Erttheking]

Those swear words were not born out of hatred towards the developers, but the frustration that has been building up inside of me from the extensive period of time I have been arguing in this thread and is me venting some of it out. Also, I find it rather odd that I of all people got singled out for this considering that when it comes to criticism, people on this website tend to be very crude when it comes to insulting developers, I personally feel very sorry for Gearbox right now. Not to mention I have a hard time buying that I should be ashamed about that statement considering I didn't single anyone out or insult them personally. If I had insulted the people at Activision or Epic Games it'd be a different story. No offense but I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

It wasn't so much singling you out, as it was bringing to the surface the tendency in gaming culture and nerd culture in general to intertwine criticism with insult and the idea that is it any wonder we don't get what we want.

To be perfectly honest I don't really do that. I do my best to remain calm and respectful when criticizing games. Prolonged debates on these forums cause me to lose my temper sometimes. That's all.

 

[direkiller]

What about characters from League of Legends? Some of the most popular females in that game aren't standard, sexy, or attractive. There's several non-human females. There's Vayne, a hunter who wears a (surprisingly) non-sexualized cat suit. There's the punky brawler Vi. The armored dragoness Shyvana.

There's also a few non-sexualized characters from Skullgirls.

And don't give me crap about them being from games where you can pick your character. Vertigo came from a fighting game. Just how far did you research this?

The yordals and anivia are the only ones that fit his criteria, Vayne, Vi, and Shyvana still very much fit the attractive mold, most of them have a tragedy that put them on that path in life and Annie is too young for woman status.

Also the point of the show was not to get lecture on what is the newest charter to break the mold, simply how few there are.

Hell the only human one I could think of is KOTOR II:Kreia.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

In other words you're too much of a mangina to admit that women don't want what you want them to want.

One of the more baffling things (among many) about your argument is that you don't seem to understand that different women like different things. You talk about them as if they're some kind of hive mind who all have the same tastes. The same applies for men, too, of course. It's a pretty simple concept to grasp - different people have different preferences.

Some women are attracted slender, pretty young men. Some women like older, rugged-looking men. And here's a shocker - some women like other women, and aren't sexually attracted to men at all! Weird, right?

You know, it's also not a good sign for the strength of your arguments when you resort to childish name-calling and questioning people's masculinity like using "mangina" or the ridiculous "White Knight" so many like to throw around.

P.S:

Would it hurt any of you to trim your quotes to just the relevant points you are responding to, rather than quoting the entire previous thread just to add a sentence or two at the end??

 

[wulf3n]

To be perfectly honest I don't really do that. I do my best to remain calm and respectful when criticizing games. Prolonged debates on these forums cause me to lose my temper sometimes. That's all.

While I quoted you, I was referring to the phenomena in general. Look at practically any video game and it's reviews/discussion and your bound to find a not insignificant portion of the "fan base" insulting and attacking the developers.

I can understand why the developers/publishers tend to ignore the criticism and fall back on market research and what sells.

 

[Psychobabble]

Hmmm, you know after discussing this episode with a friend of mine I've come to the possible conclusion that this whole segment was nothing but a clever ruse on the part of Mr. Sterling to entice one of his fans to send him a "Dino Vagina" from that weird sex toy site.

 

[Erttheking]

To be perfectly honest I don't really do that. I do my best to remain calm and respectful when criticizing games. Prolonged debates on these forums cause me to lose my temper sometimes. That's all.

While I quoted you, I was referring to the phenomena in general. Look at practically any video game and it's reviews/discussion and your bound to find a not insignificant portion of the "fan base" insulting and attacking the developers.

I can understand why the developers/publishers tend to ignore the criticism and fall back on market research and what sells.

Oh. Well if that's what you're going for then yeah that is a bit of a problem. It's not that black and white if the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut, the Dark Souls PC port and X-COM Enemy Unknown are anything to go by...but I really do with that people could say what they don't like in a game without losing their shit. I agree with you that we could do with that.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Hello, hello
(Hola!)
I'm at a place called Vertigo
(Dónde está!)
It's everything I wish I didn't know
Except you give me something
I can feel, feel!

... oh wrong Vertigo.
Not like the one Jim's talking about is actually a fresh example, though.

Thank god for Jim! It's almost entertaining watching the White Guy Defense Force try and prove him wrong, and fail a lot. Bending, and breaking rules in a desperate attempt to make the representation of female characters look far better than it is.
It's almost adoreable, their futile attempts plinking off the armor of reality like peas off a tank. And for over 10 pages, and I'm still reading!

What few examples (frankly I haven't seen any solid ones, and I went almost through the entire thread if not the entire thread reading) people dredge up are old, obscure, and/or barely fit the criteria if they do at all.
I mean theres a few, lots of people backing Amaterasu, but the fact is she's a force of good. Jim spoke of villains. Ammy doesn't really make the best example.

How is it not telling due to the fact they gotta try so damn hard, or pretty much cheat by ignoring, bending, and breaking the guidelines? And even -with- all the disingenuos attempts the list is small, and outdated to say the least!

Ye'olde "It's not good for business" excuses pop up with no consideration that maybe, just maybe, the market's changing, and alienating customers likely created this whole "guys are the majority" players. In effect, attempts to protect the status quo. The market won't grow, or mature all that well with the status quo. And the game industry's in a serious hurt financially.
I can't wait for it to come down to "cater to women, or die" in a business sense.
Game produciton costs are going up. Almost exclusively catering to the Dude-bro, and Douche-bro has gotta fail sooner or later.

Oh, and the BS that guys can't write for women. TV, the Movie industry, and books generally prove that wrong.
There's a long list of old (And I do mean old. People are fond of pointing me to the list on Giant Bomb that goes back to the dawn of gaming, and even then the list is small considering that) games that prove that wrong. A lot of iconic female characters in gaming blow that argument out of the water. Shame the future's so bleak towards proving "guys can't write for women" wrong. I blame the anti-female mentality in the industry in general.
While I'm speaking of the list, it's not the answer. Modern, and future releases are the answer and they're lacking in general.
May as well say Aya Brea, Lara Croft, virtually every last fighting game woman, and virtually every last Resident Evil female character doesn't exist while yer at it.

I keep saying it. If we simply had a large variety of female protagonists in modern gaming, we wouldn't be here talking about the lack of them, or putting almost every last one we get under a magnifying glass.
We have market testers, the producers, consumers, and the developers to thank for this in part. Not all of them, thank god, but enough of them to make these topics so common.
Especially the producers as they interfere with the game. The latter is pretty toxic to gaming as it creates ripples of anti-female presense (ya know, sexism, misogyny, right? By the very frikking the definitions of them at the least.) across every level of the gaming industry.

Shit, I'd settle for a Catwoman (comic version)/ Gotham City Sirens-esque game as far as a game with amorally grey woman. Sure she'd be sexualized but at least she owns it, and I'd be playing as her which makes a metric fuck-ton of difference. I don't see her having a shot in hell in getting her own game, though. Yeah, she was in Arkham City and playable (and largely secondary) but you did so very little with her.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Mainstream media in GENERAL is going to gear toward young and attractive REGARDLESS of gender. Young attractive men, young attractive women. That's how it is for EVERYONE.

Except for the fact that's not true. There's a definite double-standard. How many TV shows are there where the husband is fat and/or balding or even just average looking and middle-aged, but has a hot younger-looking wife? How often do you see the reverse?

Bueller...? Beuller...?

 

[Jan Smejkal]

Not that would not agree with the state of industry and the message. But I don't think you did enough research on the non-cliche-female, Jim, considering you really mean what you proposed as only valid example. I think you completely evaded female NPCs n RPGs.

What about Tandi, Lynette or the Village Elder in Arroyo from Fallout 2?

EDIT: oh, playable. My bad. Now that is really harder.

 

[wulf3n]

Oh, and the BS that guys can't write for women. TV, the Movie industry, and books generally prove that wrong.
There's a long list of old (And I do mean old. People are fond of pointing me to the list on Giant Bomb that goes back to the dawn of gaming, and even then the list is small considering that) games that prove that wrong. A lot of iconic female characters in gaming blow that argument out of the water. Shame the future's so bleak towards proving "guys can't write for women" wrong. I blame the anti-female mentality in the industry in general.

I think it's like saying short People can't play Basketball, you could find numerous relatively short professional basketball players throughout the history of the sport, but you'll find being tall is still an advantage.

 

[Mr_Terrific]

A few of the ladies from Dragon Age might fit the bill. Maybe not Origins, as all women had basically the same model so even the old healer in your group was stacked like a 20 year old...but Aveline from DA2 was not attractive at all....At ALL..

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Plus, there is far more variety in what an attractive woman can look like than an attractive man. Women can wear any color and have thousands of fashion options available, including everything available to men.

I think you're overstating it - there are people who are into men who are fat, who are "bears," guys who wear makeup or skirts, or assless pants. It might not be as common in the heterosexual world as in the gay world, but it's definitely there, and there are plenty of heterosexual women who have such attractions. Just as there are people of both genders who find intelligence and personality to factor more highly in their attraction than outward physical appearance.

I'm sure you could avail yourself of any of the same fashion options women have and find a partner who is attracted to it.

 

[Nurb]

Oh come on! This again?

Any time fat, ugly, or evil females are in a game, women complain that they're being mocked. "Fat-shaming!" is one thing popping up recently, some groups will condemn you for showing women being capable of cruelty and murder... Any time attractive slim women are in a game, you hear complaints of obectification and sexist gamers.

Nothing will ever be good enough for many women when it comes to representation. Remember this?
"Ellie isn't strong and independent enough!"
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126648-Naughty-Dog-Responds-to-The-Last-of-Us-Sexism-Claims

It's all stupid opinions from minorities, just like those coming from guys about anything else, but the problem is the video game industry media treats EVERY opinion from a female group seriously, and as a valid concern for the game industry.

This also falls under the usual "Men enjoying eye-candy in video games learn to treat women as objects".

Mainstream media in GENERAL is going to gear toward young and attractive REGARDLESS of gender. Young attractive men, young attractive women. That's how it is for EVERYONE.

Except for the fact that's not true. There's a definite double-standard. How many TV shows are there where the husband is fat and/or balding or even just average looking and middle-aged, but has a hot younger-looking wife? How often do you see the reverse?

Bueller...? Beuller...?

The husbands are also dumb, often dumber than their children. It's considered anti-woman to portray women as a fat, dumb wife in a marriage on TV. She always has to be the smart one that can insult or hit her husband when the script calls for it.