Poll: (Another) feminism discussion

[generals3]

The thing is about a lot of the industries you mention, is that they market to both genders way more than the game industry does, and they recognize the importance of it, too. Even automotives are marketed towards women even though at face value, it's directed at men a great deal.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/cars-men-women-lifestyle-vehicles-trucks-crossovers.html

How much they target one segment is irrelevant. And I would like to mention that the game industry does target women. it just so happens you are interested in a specific segment where they barely do it, if millions of women find games to enjoy i really don't think we can say "they don't target them enough". It's like going in a men's clothing store and complaining the clothing industry doesn't care about you.

But that is still irrelevant because regardless of how much they target who it is still sex-based targeting. and thus still sexism by your definition.

Soda?
Diet Coke's aimed at women for the most part.
Dr. Pepper Ten is obscenely marketed towards men with it's "It's not for women!" campaign that doesn't end there with it's macho flavored marketing.

see above. (and same for all the other examples)

Pretending videogame marketing is even remotely equal to the marketing of both genders a lot of other companies do is absurd. Videogames are bad enough that people are complaining about it despite so much other "marketing" out there. That's telling, to me.

It is equal. In both cases they market products to the interested gender. Women spend less time gaming and much less money as such get a lower share of the supply. That's 100% normal.

Marketing is -not- immoral in and of itself. It's a tool. But like a hammer, you can use it to build something positive, like an inclusive gaming industry, building more inoffensive female representations, etc. or something bad like bashing our skulls in with so much rampant sexism.
All marketing is not equal in it's sexism, or any -ism.

What is an inclusive industry? One where every sub segment has equal supply for both genders? Do you complain there aren't as many suites made for women and skirts for men? It's exactly the same. They sell where the money is at. A lot of casual games are gender neutral or aimed at women because there women are a strong segment. Nintendo does it too with many of it's "casual" games. But since AAA violent games don't sell well to women they aren't targeted. You're basically in the same dilemma as a man being into skirts.

 

[generals3]

It is a strawman, here's how

1: The argument assumes that the critic is unaware of how capitalism works.
2: The argument assumes that the critic is unaware of how targeted marketing works.
3: The argument assumes that the critic's real problem is with capitalism.

Even if it weren't a strawman, that doesn't stop it from being a red herring. Your response has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, it's an active attempt to derail and nothing more.

That's not how a strawman works, please try again. A strawman is addressing a point not made.
I'm arguing a point made: the fact women are targeted less. That my argument doesn't happen to be the one you expect doesn't make it a strawman. That would be too easy.

On top of that i'm not assuming the person is not aware of it (at least i wasn't until you came in with your false strawman, and there i just did because i had a hard time taking the false strawman seriously). What I was doing is addressing the obvious element that the person isn't in favor of it when the market doesn't give to him what he wants.

Another red herring! And a strawman! You're absolutely terrible at this! Either address the argument based on its merits or don't bother.

This was indeed a strawman. That's because you did the same. You made claims about the positions taken in general (you extrapolated one specific argument in a specific context to one that is used to debate any argument in the broader context) so i gave a piece of cake back to you. You make assumptions, I do the same. You call me out on it, by doing so you called yourself out on it. Which is great because i get to have fun seeing you calling yourself out on your own mistakes.

You should know, it seems to be your thing. The fact that the female gamer demographic may not be large enough to warrant pandering does not excuse pandering to male gamers, simple. But of course, the issue isn't pandering or even "targeted marketing" -- it's sexism.

Actually it does in fact excuse it. Pandering hurts no one and makes perfect business sense. And when good marketing hurts no one it's perfectly justified. (and no some gamers not liking the game because of it doesn't count as "being hurt")

I saw you provide a link to Oxford that only mentioned one definition. Where is the one you used?

I'm also going to note that you ignored a little under 2/3 of my post to focus on what I'm sure you consider to be your strongest points. Of course, that would mean you aren't arguing in good faith...

That's because you missed my last post. And like i said i didn't even bother reading it because the posts you quoted were part of a discussion which went quite out of topic and as such a waste of space (mainly considering you quoted the older ones and the latest)

 

[Rebel_Raven]

The thing is about a lot of the industries you mention, is that they market to both genders way more than the game industry does, and they recognize the importance of it, too. Even automotives are marketed towards women even though at face value, it's directed at men a great deal.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/cars-men-women-lifestyle-vehicles-trucks-crossovers.html

How much they target one segment is irrelevant. And I would like to mention that the game industry does target women. it just so happens you are interested in a specific segment where they barely do it, if millions of women find games to enjoy i really don't think we can say "they don't target them enough". It's like going in a men's clothing store and complaining the clothing industry doesn't care about you.

But that is still irrelevant because regardless of how much they target who it is still sex-based targeting. and thus still sexism by your definition.

Soda?
Diet Coke's aimed at women for the most part.
Dr. Pepper Ten is obscenely marketed towards men with it's "It's not for women!" campaign that doesn't end there with it's macho flavored marketing.

see above. (and same for all the other examples)

Pretending videogame marketing is even remotely equal to the marketing of both genders a lot of other companies do is absurd. Videogames are bad enough that people are complaining about it despite so much other "marketing" out there. That's telling, to me.

It is equal. In both cases they market products to the interested gender. Women spend less time gaming and much less money as such get a lower share of the supply. That's 100% normal.

Marketing is -not- immoral in and of itself. It's a tool. But like a hammer, you can use it to build something positive, like an inclusive gaming industry, building more inoffensive female representations, etc. or something bad like bashing our skulls in with so much rampant sexism.
All marketing is not equal in it's sexism, or any -ism.

What is an inclusive industry? One where every sub segment has equal supply for both genders? Do you complain there aren't as many suites made for women and skirts for men? It's exactly the same. They sell where the money is at. A lot of casual games are gender neutral or aimed at women because there women are a strong segment. Nintendo does it too with many of it's "casual" games. But since AAA violent games don't sell well to women they aren't targeted. You're basically in the same dilemma as a man being into skirts.

How much they target one segment is irrelevant

No, it isn't. It just isn't. If it was, this topic wouldn't exist.
The gaming industry barely caters to women, period, and it'll go so far as show women in some of the most degrading clothing as possible. Yeah, there's guys shirtless, and in loin cloths, but when was the last time you saw one in a bannana hammock, and little else, and how often? Or wearing improbable clothes that just barely covers erogenous zones?

It's incredibly unfair that you pick a clothing store for guys as an example, especially when we both know full well that there's shops for women as much as men. Stores will often have sections where there's areas for men's, and women's clothing. That goes to show just how much catering the clothing industry does for both genders.
I'm not asking for -that- degree of catering from the game industry, but I'd like more than they do now.

A man being into skirts? I'm sure the kilt industry exists. I'm sure there's a lot of transvestite clothing, too.

All marketing is -not- equal. Lets take my clothing example. I've NEVER seen a "women's aisle" in a videogames store, nor a game store catering solely to them. I've never even heard of a game company that caters solely to them!

The AAA of clothing caters to -both- genders. Individual companies may not, but there's enough diversity among them that the AAA clothing industry hardly leaves people wanting.

Pretending the game industry is on par with the clothing industry with it's inclusiveness is something I can't comprehend.

What's inclusive? How about not alienating the potential market of women who game?
I wonder when the last attempt to invite women into violent gaming was?

 

[generals3]

A straw man is to apply a position to another that they do not hold, it doesn't require you to argue the point at all. In fact, straw man arguments are more effective when you don't bother to address them at all. And of course, this is precisely what you're doing. See the paragraph below.

This is the straw man. Your argument is predicated on your opponent holding that capitalism is bad when it doesn't pander to them specifically, which is an argument no one is making. You even admit that you assumed this, you don't know you just tossed it out there because addressing arguments that exist in your mind is easier than holding a discussion with real people.

Actually i edited my post as soon as i noticed my wrong usage of the word "assume". It was not assuming but noticing. When someone is calling "sexism" on the idea one sex is being favored in a typical male segment, that is indeed being against the free market when it doesn't give what you want. It's literally saying: the market forces don't yield the results i want so i'm going to say "sexism". The fact the person may not see how he is arguing against the free market is irrelevant. What matters is what they're arguing. I can say muslims are all crooks and not consider myself a racist but i don't think screaming "Strawman" everyone when called upon my dislike of muslims would actually accomplish anything.

You're simply trying to hard to avoid addressing the issue at hand.

Except that mine was an observation of something true; your position is literally "yeah it's sexism, but capitalism". There's no way to call me out for making a straw man of what you actually believe. So you didn't give me "a piece of cake" -- you kind of just mentally sputtered and died for a few moments. It's kind of like you had an e-stroke, you puttered out and stared off in the distance for a moment before turning back and shouting "got ya!"

It was actually not. I'm sorry but no. You made a generalized claim which actually doesn't hold up. My position is not "yeah it's sexism, but capitalism". My position is The free market has resulted in this segment being more profitable when marketed towards men and since we live in a capitalistic society people want to make money and thus target the more profitable segment. And I find the principle of calling that sexist quite awful.

"I've provided massive amounts of links where the female protagonist has been replaced by a male one. We've treateded that topic pretty well.

But you seem to be talking about the sexialuzation factor. It's really simple. Protagonists are usually designed for the target audience you say the games are aimed at. Men.
That means protagonists of either gender are made for men first, women second...if ever. The easiest way to get a guy's attention is generally a woman's T&A, looking attractive, and guns, especially regarding women.
Bad games are built on this idea like X-Blades.
Even playable games are built on this.

I'm hard pressed to think of a AAA where the female protagonist was actually designed to be ugly. Guys generally aren't restrained by looks at all.
Most female protagonsits are at least inoffensive to look at. In fact more than a few are actually based on models. Generally this is not for the benefit of women, mind you. While guys can be based on models, it's sure not for the benefit of women for the most part."

She was quite well making the case: aiming so much at men = sexism. My case was quite simply: no that's free market in a capitalistic society.

Now if you would have actually bothered getting some context we wouldn't be wasting our time with a silly discussion.

You should avoid trying to make arguments for me, the issue isn't that they don't like the game or the marketing, it's the game/marketing itself is misogynistic. I already demonstrated that your defense of the industry is wrong, that it can be shown to be sexist. At this point you're simply refusing to acknowledge anything you can't spin; you're actually editing out entire snippets of my post to avoid having to address things I've said!

Once again, no it does not excuse it. You haven't demonstrated that there's no harm in it, you simply want me to accept that it's harmless. I've already posted about the potential harm in my response to sjwho2 at the top of the page. There is indeed harm in normalizing attitudes about people; imagine the difference if the media presented the majority of black men as criminals and women as vapid, shallow eye-candy. Since this is essentially what happens today, we can guess at the effects.

Media does not occur in a vacuum.

Great... You invoked the vacuum. I'm sorry but after Anita abusing that (without ever providing any evidence for any of her claims) I have a hard time taking anyone invoking it seriously. I don't give a damn about the vacuum cleaner. As long as you can't present evidence of negative effects you can just use that vacuum to clean up your argument.

The games and marketing are not misogynistic. I'm sorry but don't abuse words like that. Just throwing buzzwords won't convince anyone. The marketing nor the games hate women, neither do the people making them. So really no case there.

And they're only sexist in their marketing targeting. Which a majority of industries are. So that's a pointless argument. On any other aspect I would say they're not.

And i've only edited a reply given to a derailed part of this topic, nothing else (and i also clearly stated i did).

I don't have to demonstrate there is no harm because i don't believe in "guilty until proven innocent". Prove me your act of posting on this forum doesn't harm society! (good luck with that)

What attitudes does it normalize? Looking at big tits? looking at skimpy clothed pixels? I think the porn industry is the big enemy there.

What point? I have yet to see you actually make a point. So far your purpose in the thread is to obfuscate and ignore. I did see your post after you mentioned it to me, kudos. I wasn't actually ignoring anything though, when I first started writing my response post 172 was the highest this thread had gotten to yet. When I finally posted my response four more posts had been made. This isn't ignoring, it's simply being unaware.

However, once again the definition you provide undermines your argument. Each link you provide continues to undermine the definition you selected to support your argument. In the second part of the definition you initially provided it explicitly mentions stereotyping of genders as a form of sexism. It's not hard to see why you excluded it now and the others have similar definitions. Suffice to say you are glaringly, hilariously wrong.

I said poSt not poINt.

And let me ask you what is the stereotyping? I've got to ask? Take DC for instance. That women are as powerful as men but like skimpy clothes? No wait the elf doesn't have skimpy clothes. Oh shit... Or wait because in a game like Mario the princess happens to be a women it's stereotyping against women? Yes let's all games with a hero and a victim have to have a hero in the same gender as the victim, otherwise it's stereotyping!

 

[NoeL]

I see your point, but with all due respect this is getting completely away from the core issue, which is whether or not the games industry has an issue with sexism. Call it what you will, there's a not insignificant portion of gamers that take issue with the way women have generally been portrayed in the medium. That's a sexist issue by definition.

But is it really:

"1
: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women"

=> There is no prejudice. (unless one can prove me the devs think all women have big tits and don't like clothes)
=> There is no discrimination based on sex of actual people. Now one could argue there is discrimination based on sex towards the female characters. To which i say: Who-Gives-A-F*ck-About-Pixels?! I kill pixels on a daily basis, so really if we're gonna defend the pixel's rights we should start there!

If you ask me there is no sexism problem. Just people angry they don't get what they want and others bandwagonning to be PC or to be a White Knight.

It looks like other people have already pulled you up on it, but when you give a definition you should a) quote the source, and b) not cherry pick the only definition that supports your point.

Other definitions for "sexism" include:

"attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles." (Dictionary.com [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism])

and

"behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex" (Merriam-Webster [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism])

Both of these definitions apply perfectly to the common depiction of women in video games (and other pop media, but we're talking about games here), so it's completely appropriate to call it a sexist issue.

EDIT: God damnit, I made a massive addendum then the Escapist fucked up. So to paraphrase myself:

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. People aren't claiming sexism because games tend to market to men more than women, they're claiming sexism because the way women are generally portrayed in that marketing is degrading. That they choose to market primarily to men in a non-issue.

To give you another example, this company [http://www.jihawg.com/] makes and sells bullets laced with pork so they can send jihadists "straight to hell". The product is targeted at gun-toting, xenophobic, American "good 'ol boys", and liberal winos aren't about to complain that there's no vegan option (I guess that would be a regular bullet? ). What they will complain about is the implicit racism (even though Islam isn't a race the marketing implies Muslims aren't American) and blatant prejudice against Islam in general (mocking and making light of their religious beliefs).

Now, I can make Nascar-themed beer helmets and market to the exact same demographic and be perfectly ok. No one is going to accuse me of being racist or discriminating against other demographics. As long as I'm not demonising or degrading a group of people in the process there's nothing wrong.

Do you understand now?

 

[Jinxzy]

Games don't need less fanservice, they need more MANSERVICE!

Yeah! lets go drink our manly Dr. Pepper 10 and spray ourselves with ax before we put in [insert manly game here]! Manly men gaming. Bro-five!

OT: I don't care how characters are designed or what roles they take in a video game, I'm more interested in the game it's self. I play games for fun and love to wrap myself in the experience for good or bad. I play these games because they are a fun and interactive media that I love and enjoy. I love playing all types of game even if they don't have any female roles in them.

Heck I even feel like the damsel in distress can be a good thing at times because it shows that the character in the game has a deep bond with the person they are trying to save. It creates a more in-depth story. Now I'm not saying every game should be a damsel in distress because frankly it's getting old. I mean almost every disney move back then were about a princess finding prince charming and him coming to her rescue. Even half (or maybe more) of romance novels are stories about hot hunks saving the main character.

I feel that right now games are an easy target to pick on and cry out that they are sexist even thought the numbers are slowly creeping to an equal amount of male and female players. Males still dominate the gaming world. Also lets face it when they try to bring out "girl games" they're awful and even more stereotypical then the games that have these over dramatic female characters.

Maybe I'm not a hardcore feminism and I'm not going to jump on the band wagon anytime soon, but heck if your going to lambast sexism in video games take a good hard look at all other medias. Also I'm seeing the trend of a game not having a girl character option to play as, so I'm not going to play it. That's kinda silly cause your going to keep missing out on games that have wonderful stories in them. So all I have to do is say this:

1) Leave my games alone and let the artists, developers, writers and other people in the creative process do what they do. I love their ideas and I love their stories.

2) Try the games, don't judge them on there cover. Cause I'm having a blast playing Dragons Crow no matter how many times I see her boobs, they are boobs get over it. You don't see to have a problem when victoria secret ads pop up and they do sexy poses in undergarments. That's real jiggle, not pixelated jiggle.

3) I'm sorry but I would have booker dewitt save me any day, along with a few others.

 

[generals3]

Other definitions for "sexism" include:

"attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles." (Dictionary.com [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism])

and

"behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex" (Merriam-Webster [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism])

Both of these definitions apply perfectly to the common depiction of women in video games (and other pop media, but we're talking about games here), so it's completely appropriate to call it a sexist issue.

As i said in one of my last posts in the discussion with whatshisnameagain, no. There is no proof games foster anything.

And there is also one big problem; a game cannot behave or have an attitude so that one can't even apply.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. People aren't claiming sexism because games tend to market to men more than women, they're claiming sexism because the way women are generally portrayed in that marketing is degrading. That they choose to market primarily to men in a non-issue.

See now, it depends. And raven can correct me if she wants but as far as i gathered her problem is that there is so much male-targeted games and not enough targeted towards women. So like i said to the other guy: context matters. You can't just take someone's argument in a specific conversation and apply it to the entire issue.

To give you another example, this company [http://www.jihawg.com/] makes and sells bullets laced with pork so they can send jihadists "straight to hell". The product is targeted at gun-toting, xenophobic, American "good 'ol boys", and liberal winos aren't about to complain that there's no vegan option (I guess that would be a regular bullet? ). What they will complain about is the implicit racism (even though Islam isn't a race the marketing implies Muslims aren't American) and blatant prejudice against Islam in general (mocking and making light of their religious beliefs).

Couple of things:
A) the target are muslim haters. games with sexy women don't target mysoginistic people. At worst you could say "perverts".
B) The product itself is designed to harm muslims. Same can't be said about games.

That's the big difference.

In videogames what happens is that in many cases women are made sexy for their male audience and protagonists have dicks. Sexy women isn't somehow a negative representation of women, it's not trying to degrade them or anything alike. It's on par with the fact most protagonists are muscled. It's just giving something aesthetically liked by the audience.

Now, I can make Nascar-themed beer helmets and market to the exact same demographic and be perfectly ok. No one is going to accuse me of being racist or discriminating against other demographics. As long as I'm not demonising or degrading a group of people in the process there's nothing wrong.

Do you understand now?

But games are doing neither. (well, let me reiterate, because there will always be one, most games are doing neither)

 

[generals3]

It doesn't matter, change it to "I peered into their souls and saw the truth of things" and it changes your argument not one bit, it's still loaded to the brim with straw.

I get it i get it. On spot reply to one person = strawman.

Generalizations about a whole side's stance/defence = observation.

Basically, what someone else says= strawman. What you say = wise observation. Yeah, no, not gonna work with me. But please keep on trying.

You treat marketing and capitalism like magic, anti-criticism devices. Yeah, any product can be considered to be a product of marketing and capitalism. Following this logic there's no such thing as a bad anything because everything is made with a demographic in mind, or can be argued to be for such.

Nope. I do however believe focusing on a target = good business and not sexism. See if developers would add a built in device that simply doesn't allow a woman to play their games than i would agree there is sexism. But we ain't there yet.

I'm going to spell this out for you, slowly. No one here has made any argument against capitalism or marketing. The argument against sexism in media can still be true while allowing for free market capitalism. By these two facts no one can reasonably conclude that an argument against sexism in media is an argument against capitalism, anymore than an argument against the war in Iraq is an argument for Saddam. This is a straw man, you made up the argument to address instead of addressing real points.

Yawn. Get some context and come again. Someone made a very clear case that targeting one sex too much = sexism. I've even quoted it in my previous post for crying out loud.

Excuse me but what?! Let's get one thing clear, the free market has nothing to do with this. The posters aren't arguing for government intervention to prevent sexism in games, they're having a discussion that sexism in games is a real thing. They are bringing awareness to the issue in hopes of changing demand so people will demand more and better varied female characters.

Again, context matey. If you just refuse to even look at who and what i was answering to with my free market response. why the hell am i even bothering.

And this is how I can see the irrationality of your argument; you're arguing for a special exemption. Pandering to young men is just good business sense, free market capitalism. But in exercising their voice in the freest market, that of ideas, the subaltern is showing itself to be motivated by anti-capitalist whining. So the subaltern is given no means by which to voice their distress, not without being labelled anti-capitalist, politically correct, pro-censorship, thought police, whiners, anti-art, misandrists, etc. Not that you've used all these labels yourself, but you're in favor of the status quo that gave us them and you've used several yourself. Interestingly, by declaring an attempt by the subaltern to bring their distress to light and perhaps change minds and increase demand for varied female characters, you're actually being an anti-capitalist whiner.

See now you're going full strawman again. Oh no wait, when you do it it's "just an observation" i forgot.

Again: get some frigging context.

And Secondly I have nothing again people pushing forward their ideas. I have however something against people who throw around buzzwords because they think it will give their opinion more weight.

You just broke all the irony meters.

I'm not that good.

Yes, it is! You're excusing sexism because sexism is profitable. The slave trade was profitable too, but that didn't really make it ethical.

conteeeeeeeexxxtttt.

"The free market" doesn't result in anything being profitable, it just seizes upon and exploits what is profitable. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but many things are profitable that are unethical. The sex trade, for instance. And I too find calling free market capitalism sexist to be abhorrent, it's a good thing that only happens in your mind.

My mind and the post i initially answered to. But obviously you insist on pulling a fox news by omitting context.

It's both; your counter-argument does not actually counter the argument. You make an irrelevant point, end of story.

No it's not. Unless you apply social morals to targeting. (and than i'd suggest you to just burn every marketing books you see because they're eeeviiiilllll)

You think we're talking about vacuum cleaners...I'm sorry it just explains so much.

If you think i'm that stupid that explains a lot about your responses. I was more than obviously making fun of the "VG's don't exist in a vacuum" argument which is often used but never back up with tangible evidence of actual influences of VG's on society.

...all of my facepalms

The truth hurts?^^

They don't have to, if anything you've demonstrated the problem is institutional. It's not a matter of individual attitudes, it's a whole damn system!

The whole damn system?! What now?! Persecution complex much?

Wait...so they're sexist but not sexist? Can you get your arguments straigt?

No the targeting is sex-based (thus technically sexist). But crying "sexism" over that is stupid because than you'd need to cry sexism at almost the whole god damn world.

That's not how the burden of proof works.]

Right... So people make the claim VG's are somehow harmful when it comes to sexism and i'm supposed to prove it isn't? I'm not sure where you live or what science you've studied but that's not how works.

Presenting women with an idealized, unreachable standard of beauty. Did you bother to read the link I provided?

Every media idealizes most of its characters. And games don't even represent real people and proportions are often iffy. I don't think pixels representing a fictional thing supposed to represent a human (or not) is what's gonna make people wanna reach the unreachable. Heck games are often said to be about escapism. you know, escaping from reality.


PS: You can't just pretend that my reply wasn't a reply to raven and strawman my argument into one aimed at everyone who claims there is sexism in the VG industry. If you want me to even take you seriously try by stopping the strawman. Because for someone who's so quick to accuse people of strawmanning you sure are missing the biggest one, your own.

 

[generals3]

No, it isn't. It just isn't. If it was, this topic wouldn't exist.
The gaming industry barely caters to women, period, and it'll go so far as show women in some of the most degrading clothing as possible. Yeah, there's guys shirtless, and in loin cloths, but when was the last time you saw one in a bannana hammock, and little else, and how often? Or wearing improbable clothes that just barely covers erogenous zones?

No it's not. Stop generalizing the gaming industry's targeting in one segment to their tactics in general.

And I wouldn't call skimpy clothing "degrading" maybe i just listened to the slut walk too much. But if women are trying to fight against this preconception, i'd say i'm the on the right track.

And again we don't see it being done with men because that's not what their consumers want. You won't see a lot of bikinis and extremely short shorts in the male clothing segment either.

It's incredibly unfair that you pick a clothing store for guys as an example, especially when we both know full well that there's shops for women as much as men. Stores will often have sections where there's areas for men's, and women's clothing. That goes to show just how much catering the clothing industry does for both genders.
I'm not asking for -that- degree of catering from the game industry, but I'd like more than they do now.

And everyone should know there are gaming segments who don't focus as much on men. So it's still pretty much the same.

A man being into skirts? I'm sure the kilt industry exists. I'm sure there's a lot of transvestite clothing, too.

Yes and unless they live in Scotland good luck finding skirts for men. Less likely than finding a AAA violent VG with a female protagonist who doesn't just wear a bikini.

All marketing is -not- equal. Lets take my clothing example. I've NEVER seen a "women's aisle" in a videogames store, nor a game store catering solely to them. I've never even heard of a game company that caters solely to them!

And yes the targeting is more subtle in gaming. Heck if anything that tells us it's less sexist than the clothing industry. At least they aren't telling you "you're not supposed to play this".

The AAA of clothing caters to -both- genders. Individual companies may not, but there's enough diversity among them that the AAA clothing industry hardly leaves people wanting.

Depends who. I'm willing to bet there are men who wish there was more AAA women's clothes aimed at men and vice versa. When you're in a niche market that's what happens.

Pretending the game industry is on par with the clothing industry with it's inclusiveness is something I can't comprehend.

You're right, it's less inclusive because it clearly says who should buy what. Games don't.

What's inclusive? How about not alienating the potential market of women who game?
I wonder when the last attempt to invite women into violent gaming was?

Women who want to play games aren't alienated. Otherwise games really fail at what they're trying to do, with the female segment growing and all. However one specific game segment does, the AAA violent VG segment, because there the segment is much smaller than the male one. Niche demand gets Niche supply.

 

[NoeL]

As i said in one of my last posts in the discussion with whatshisnameagain, no. There is no proof games foster anything.

And there is also one big problem a game; cannot behave or have an attitude so that one can't even apply.

Three points:

1) We're not talking about games, we're talking about the games industry. The games industry can do those things.

2) In the context of that definition it would be the attitudes of the developers/publishers that foster the stereotypes present in games.

3) You don't have to nitpick individual words in definitions, because that's not what's important. You're playing a game of semantics and it's only making you look obtuse and unreasonable.

See now, it depends. And raven can correct me if she wants but as far as i gathered her problem is that there is so much male-targeted games and not enough targeted towards women. So like i said to the other guy: context matters. You can't just take someone's argument in a specific conversation and apply it to the entire issue.

I'm not defending what Raven said. I actually think she also missed the point initially and had difficulty articulating the problem, but in her second post she managed to spell it out a bit clearer. While I'm sure we'd LIKE there to be more games aimed at women, and that's it's own issue, the issue with sexism is with representation.

Couple of things:
A) the target are muslim haters. games with sexy women don't target mysoginistic people. At worst you could say "perverts".
B) The product itself is designed to harm muslims. Same can't be said about games.

That's the big difference.

No! No different! Only different in your mind!

In principle it's directly analogous to what you were advocating - that free market capitalism bows to no one, and as long as the company is making money it's immune to criticism. But you would still argue the bullets are racist, no? That's the point I'm getting at - whether something is ethically problematic is wholly different to whether or not it sells.

What you're doing now is invoking the question of intent - can something be sexist/racist/whatever without malevolent intent? And the answer to that is a definite 'yes', as evidenced by earlier examples I gave like Dumbo and Coal Black, or even more recent examples like Metroid: Other M. So the question of intent is irrelevant.

In videogames what happens is that in many cases women are made sexy for their male audience and protagonists have dicks. Sexy women isn't somehow a negative representation of women, it's not trying to degrade them or anything alike. It's on par with the fact most protagonists are muscled. It's just giving something aesthetically liked by the audience.

I don't disagree with you. But the issue isn't having sexy women, it's sexing up women. And it's not even just that, because sexing up women for the sake of sex is fine (DoA for example - that's ok). It becomes a problem when developers can't seem to go without sexing up a character, and an otherwise respectable character devolves into gratuity. A classic example is Cortana. "If we're gonna have a female companion, we better make damn sure our players can fap over them otherwise what's the point? May as well be a dude." And that sentiment rings true for a massive chunk of female characters, not just in the way they look but how they behave. It's like the classic team of the leader, the egghead, the bruiser, the cool one, and "the girl". "Female" is treated as a personality type rather than a gender - something that gets slapped on an otherwise-would-be-male character just to give the cast more diversity and a chance to shoehorn in some eye candy.

But games are doing neither. (well, let me reiterate, because there will always be one, most games are doing neither)

Regardless of whether or not you agree with me, do you understand what the issue is?

 

[I.Muir]

Point 1 I disagree that scantily clad women or men even in any situation is sexist especially if those people don't actually exist.
Point 2 I don't think the above promotes hatred of women and ogling of the traditional fertility symbols in any form is not exactly new.
Point 3 Should women be treated in a way in game that actually is sexist beyond reasonable doubt then it has the same likelihood of translating into the real world as violence i.e insignificant.
Point 4 Anita is another in the long line of Ivory tower feminists that promote nothing but censorship in their mad quest to find anything and everything sexist in some way so long as they can profit from it.
Point 5 I strongly dislike the idea that things should be censored because it implies people can't think for themselves. So Anita can prattle on as long as she wants, I doubt she will make much impact anyway and now that I think about it she doesn't really want to either. If she actually made any instructive and informative points at all and things did start to change for the better then she would be out of things to complain about for Google assets money. Also anybody that thinks her work is Academic clearly is not.

 

[marscentral]

The problem is there are still parts of the game industry that think women are only casual gamers. Game publisher, ProSiebenSat.1, use the phrase "from female casual gamers to male core gamers" on their website [http://www.prosiebensat1games.com/en/index.10.html] (second paragraph). They could have said they make casual and hard core games, no gender there. Or they could have said they make some games aimed at men and some at female gamers, which doesn't infer one is more dedicated than the other.

So yes, I think there is a problem.

 

[CloudAtlas]

I still don't have a fucking clue what the issue is here. Why do people care so much about the artstyle in these games? How does it possibly affect anyone negatively at all?

Frankly anyone who seriously finds this kind of thing offensive needs to fucking reconsider their priorities in life.

If someone complaining about it 'needs to fucking reconsider their priorities in life', what about someone complaining about people complaining? After all, how would a change 'possibly affect anyone negatively at all'?

 

[generals3]

Three points:

1) We're not talking about games, we're talking about the games industry. The games industry can do those things.

Can yes, but does? And tbh, it gets really confusing in discussions where games, gaming industry and sometimes even gamers get used interchangeably.

2) In the context of that definition it would be the attitudes of the developers/publishers that foster the stereotypes present in games.

But you need to be careful with that. GTA san andreas also presented a lot of black "gangsters", does it mean they're fostering a stereotype? GTA is a game that is about crooks and criminals so one "group" is always going to be badly represented. What i'm basically saying, context matters. And often (i'm not saying always and everyone), context is thrown out of the window (take Anita for instance)

3) You don't have to nitpick individual words in definitions, because that's not what's important. You're playing a game of semantics and it's only making you look obtuse and unreasonable.

Semantics is important when the word holds a very negative connotation. If i call people (eg) Nazis they sure are going to play on semantics. Calling something "sexist" isn't something that is taken lightly, and rightfully so.

I'm not defending what Raven said. I actually think she also missed the point initially and had difficulty articulating the problem, but in her second post she managed to spell it out a bit clearer. While I'm sure we'd LIKE there to be more games aimed at women, and that's it's own issue, the issue with sexism is with representation.

I'm not saying you're but you can't say i misunderstand the issue when i replied to a specific post. I wasn't claiming my reply was an "i win" response to all the issues raised. It was specifically aimed at raven's post.

No! No different! Only different in your mind!

So in your mind T&A in games is aimed to please misogynistic people?
Or are you claiming that devs want to harm women?

Because unless you say yes to both it IS different.

In principle it's directly analogous to what you were advocating - that free market capitalism bows to no one, and as long as the company is making money it's immune to criticism. But you would still argue the bullets are racist, no? That's the point I'm getting at - whether something is ethically problematic is wholly different to whether or not it sells.

I never said free market and capitalism bows to no one. You're taking a response out of its context. And frankly i'm tired of it. You're the second one doing it. I guess I should at least be happy you didn't just scream "strawman" at my post.

What you're doing now is invoking the question of intent - can something be sexist/racist/whatever without malevolent intent? And the answer to that is a definite 'yes', as evidenced by earlier examples I gave like Dumbo and Coal Black, or even more recent examples like Metroid: Other M. So the question of intent is irrelevant.

Intent is always important because it's part of the context, which is essential to any assessment. Can something be sexist without bad intent? Sure. But the big question is what "how is it sexist". Raven said the mere focusing on men is sexist. I don't that's just business, I will not recognize the idea basic marketing principles (target the potential consumers) are some kind of societal moral problem.

So yeah, you can't take a reply out of its context and apply it to an other.

I don't disagree with you. But the issue isn't having sexy women, it's sexing up women. And it's not even just that, because sexing up women for the sake of sex is fine (DoA for example - that's ok). It becomes a problem when developers can't seem to go without sexing up a character, and an otherwise respectable character devolves into gratuity. A classic example is Cortana. "If we're gonna have a female companion, we better make damn sure our players can fap over them otherwise what's the point? May as well be a dude." And that sentiment rings true for a massive chunk of female characters, not just in the way they look but how they behave. It's like the classic team of the leader, the egghead, the bruiser, the cool one, and "the girl". "Female" is treated as a personality type rather than a gender - something that gets slapped on an otherwise-would-be-male character just to give the cast more diversity and a chance to shoehorn in some eye candy.

The problem is that it devolving there is your perception. It can just as well be seen as: that character is awesome and sexy, double win! Why is it wrong to sex up a good character? Because being sexed up somehow transforms women into cheap hookers?

The lack of willingness of Naomi to close her lab coat entirely didn't somehow reduce her value as an awesome character in MGS4, same applies to Eva in MGS2.

I can totally understand people not liking it. But you can't simply say that your perception of what it does is what it actually does. Well you can, but you need to remain skeptical of your own assessment.

I see things as they are: sexing up = sexing up. That's it. What that does to characters in the eyes of people is 100% subjective.

And i can't really comment on the "women = a trait on itself" part because my gaming experience tells me otherwise but not having played all the games my view may be biased.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with me, do you understand what the issue is?

I understand the issue. I have since a long time. But I don't agree with the way it is being approached and the implications of said approach.

 

[generals3]

The problem is there are still parts of the game industry that think women are only casual gamers.

I think "only" is an exaggeration. But the belief women are much more likely to be casual gamers is backed up by studies and stats. So I don't call it a problem.

I'll agree though there was no need to add female and male to that phrase.

 

[marscentral]

The problem is there are still parts of the game industry that think women are only casual gamers.

I think "only" is an exaggeration. But the belief women are much more likely to be casual gamers is backed up by studies and stats. So I don't call it a problem.

I'll agree though there was no need to add female and male to that phrase.

But if the game industry assumes that women won't play "core" games and tailor them to men then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If the majority of games starred generic, white, brown haired women out to save the Earth with the help of their love interest man-candy, I bet a lot less men would be playing video games.

 

[generals3]

But if the game industry assumes that women won't play "core" games and tailor them to men then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If the majority of games starred generic, white, brown haired women out to save the Earth with the help of their love interest man-candy, I bet a lot less men would be playing video games.

That's because you assume they assume. Companies make very little unfounded assumptions. There is always data behind it. And that argument can be used for every single product/service because they are all targeted towards specific audiences.

 

[TehCookie]

Games don't need less fanservice, they need more MANSERVICE!

Yeah! lets go drink our manly Dr. Pepper 10 and spray ourselves with ax before we put in [insert manly game here]! Manly men gaming. Bro-five!

I meant it as in fanservice for women, hot shirtless guys, ass cam with men as the focus, more than one male character design etc. Then again since you have no problem with character design or role you could still enjoy the game for the gameplay