Should Feminism and Gaming Mix?

[Norithics]

Not 100% clear. You've clarified now, sa'll good.

I... just repeated the same thing, but okay?

Knowing Suda51 any potential issues will be thematically justified or tongue in cheek parody/humour.

Irrelevant, moving goalposts.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 - One, I do not feel it is fair to blame the video game industry for the "mistakes" of the manga industry. Two, from what I've just read about One Piece, Nami (the character you linked) seems to be a capable character, active within the story.

Irrelevant, moving goalposts.

The parts of the design that are common to them (wide hips and large breasts) show fertility and are thematically justified.

Irrelevant, moving goalposts.

Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan - You could find issue with only one character. ... Your assertion isn't correct within this one game, 3 out of 6.

Irrelevant, moving goalposts.

Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn -

Spoiler

Okay, using the harness/subligar armor set as an example is clearly unfair, Norithics, since it's actually more revealing on men than women, last time I checked.

Spoiler

Irrelevant, moving goalposts.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Ultimate Edition - The wiki page you linked me to said that not only did the character you have an issue with guide the PC through the entire game, but she plays an active and integral role in the plot, 3 out of 8.

She's used as the damsel of the story in the very beginning. It's slightly more subtle, but it does happen.

No, I asked you two questions that you have yet to answer.

Because they weren't relevant to my claim. I didn't take the bait on your attempt to change the subject.

"It just means that there are reasons for them to exist."
"So the onus is on you, now, to prove that those girls weren't either wearing skimpy clothing or getting kidnapped and killed for Protagonist Fuel."
With one sentence you admit your judgements are assumptive and could be baseless, with the next you say the responsibility is exclusively on me to prove that's the case. What happened to your responsibility to be honest and thorough?

I did no such thing. They aren't baseless, they're extremely evident by having eyes.

Look, lemme make this simple. I said: "More of them than not are dressed in skimpy outfits and/or kidnapped."
You said: "But there are excuses as to why that happens."
I said: "Yeah, but I never said there weren't, just that it happens. So what's your point?"

See where we're at now?

 

[MaximumTheHormone]

There is no way people don't see how some female characters in games like Dragon's Crown are problematic; no way they don't see a problem with all-male focus testing and developers having to fight tooth and nail just to get a female on the cover of a game; no way they don't understand the difference between sexual fantasy and power fantasy. I'm sorry but I don't believe you when you say these things.

'ZOMG Anita Sarkeesian blocked teh comments! That's against the First Ammendment and a YouTube video IS America!' Well I'd probably do the same if I was threatened with murder and rape and called anti-Semitic slurs because I had the audacity to make some videos. I wonder how many rape threats the guys who started the 'Tropes vs. Men' Kickstarter received? Because I bet it was zero.

OMG, teh dragons crown seriously effects me! Games should be made to particularly market to my progressive tastes!
Even though women hold a slanted minority audience share, and making triple AAA games specific to appeal to an audience who has CONTINUALLY PROVEN ITSELF UNRELIABLE (eg. beyond good and evil) is not good business. Why do most triple A games aim for the attention of the largest market share? hmpf damn patriarchy!

And on the rape threats. If the bleating neckbeards haven't drilled it into your earhole by now, i don't know what will. HER VIDEOS WERE POSTED ON 4CHAN. Maybe you are new to the internet, if so, just to inform you, there's a phenomenon known as trolling which some mean people enjoy where they say outlandish and virile things to evoke a reaction. Following her very predictable troll raids, the reason she has gotten so much hate from the gaming community is because she has acted, in short, like a ****. Using select excepts from obvious trolls to paint the whole gaming community as sexist, and then using either blanket generalizations or examples not fully contextualized examples of games to re-enforce these notions. She dosen't acknowledge (or tokenly dismisses) any positive trends or developments, demanding that a medium that has been primarily aimed at teenage boys and children for the past decade cater to her preferred egalitarian notions as a whole (or at least majority).

 

[m19]

Games should have diversity to satisfy everyone's tastes.

What modern feminism shouldn't have is attacks on things men like instead of promoting diversity.

 

[Vegosiux]

Yes, let's pretend it's not the overt pandering that people take issue with. Let's pretend they believe "prominent sexual characteristics write off the value of women". That'll be a good straw man to knock over. Listen to him rustle! Ha ha!

But...isn't that a rather common argument? Objectification, the woman being reduced to a one-dimensonal character whose main characteristic is a huge rack, with hardly any other established traits or even personality? From that I can infer that if the creators didn't focus on the tits so much, she could have been so much more, and as such her value as a character is vastly reduced.

Yes, people argue it's about "prevalence" and "frequency", but even that, at best (best for that particular argument, that is) such prevalence exists only in certain subsets and/or genres of videogames, which I recognize to be actually happening. And I'm all with the "quit it with the sex-themed marketing" brigade in every case.

 

[Norithics]

and making triple AAA games specific to appeal to an audience who has CONTINUALLY PROVEN ITSELF UNRELIABLE (eg. beyond good and evil) is not good business. Why do most triple A games aim for the attention of the largest market share?

Without acknowledging the rest of your post, I do take exception to this on a basis of economics. If making expensive things for a normally unreliable market was universally a poor business practice, then Henry Ford would've never flourished.

In fact, it's even comparable. Cars were very expensive, so people who weren't rich felt unwelcome by the market. Ford paid his workers enough that they would be able to afford his vehicles, which in turn they not only bought, but injected that wealth into the local economies and brought more prosperity to the rest of the area, which in turn meant even more people could buy his cars. So by making a few painful adjustments in the short term, he was able to create an empire that remains to this day. Similarly, I think perhaps a good deal of possible customers feel alienated from video games still. It used to be the casual market, but Google, Apple and Nintendo struck out to change that with great success. Who's to say the same couldn't be done with women?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

They do mix, OP. Play Gone Home.

You'll have a better sense of what feminism actually is. What your guy was subjected to is just another case of a raging asshole deciding that anonymity justified their hounding someone who'd squarely defeated them in a multiplayer game. Male or female, trans or cis - you absolutely can be a dick online. That poor woman just happens to have a bit of a mean streak and a short fuse, as well as her skewed interpretation of defending her rights as a woman as an excuse to harrass the dude.

Smart feminists are focused on advocacy and hone in on situations and political climates where females absolutely are oppressed. Dumb feminists (as yes, those do exist), use the approach to social studies and activism as an excuse to spew vile shit that honestly has to come from somewhere else.

A lot of folks do that, regardless of their gender. It's called shifting the blame.

 

[Norithics]

The car analogy doesn't work on a number of levels. Disposable and relatively cheap entertainments aren't even... You aren't comparing apples and oranges here you're comparing apples with high end computing equipment. Or to put it another way, lolwut?

Ah, not quite, my friend! Because back then, cars were very much a luxury item by virtue of the fact that few people actually had them. We created lives around our capabilities, not the other way around.

To attempt an answer you're going to ignore and say I just shifted a goal post, nobody,

Well it's not like I'm not unwilling to discuss other issues; I just don't like the thrust of my assertions being ignored.

But you're plain wrong if you think that more female characters and "better"(better here meaning not dressed in certain ways because sex is dirty and appealing to men is shameful for women I guess?) female representation is the key. Cause that's been happening for decades and a lot of people don't even know they exist.

I don't think that, so, okay?

If what some in your camp

Practically nobody is in my camp, sir. My idea of what constitutes the correct direction for this is merely for creative types to understand this conversation is happening at all, thus giving them more pause, and thus, more reasons to hesitate before using tired creative crutches. I said so far earlier in the thread, but I understand; it's a beast to read through all that.

There are a shit load of games with great female representation, and females aren't buying them now any more than they bought them then.

Wow, a shitload! That is a lot. Well, I love good female characters, so apparently I'm just missing out. Care to give me some recommendations?

 

[Callate]

Yes, feminism has a place in gaming.

What feminism does not deserve is regard without examination or criticism, or the presumption that the righteousness of its alleged cause excuses and/or self-corrects the behavior of anyone claiming to practice it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You're the one throwing around words like juvenile and placing yourself above all that because you like small boobs.

I never stated a personal preference in my post at all, nor did I position myself as "above" anything. I'll say it again...there is no reading of the sentences you quoted that supports your response that does not include substantial projection.

Your stake can be about pandering, fine, but you don't speak for everyone.

I'm not sure how my summation of what I believe the principal argument to be is somehow me claiming to be "speaking for everyone", when I was responding to your own summation of what you believed the principal argument to be. I suppose I did accuse you of building a straw man, and that could explain this spate of aggressiveness. If that's the case, you'll have to forgive me, I just found the suggestion that people think "prominent sexual characteristics write off the value of a woman" ludicrous. It struck me as a cartoon argument, intended to vilify a phantom opposition. Perhaps it's something you truly believe. Maybe you even know a person who thinks this. I suppose anything is possible.

But...isn't that a rather common argument? Objectification, the woman being reduced to a one-dimensonal character whose main characteristic is a huge rack, with hardly any other established traits or even personality? From that I can infer that if the creators didn't focus on the tits so much, she could have been so much more, and as such her value as a character is vastly reduced.

Okay, there's a VAST difference between objectification or reducing a character to nothing more than an ambulatory pair of tits, and "prominent sexual characteristics write off the value of a woman". In the latter case, someone might argue that, say, Joan from Mad Men was a terrible, sexist, non-existent character for no reason other than her "prominent sexual characteristics". And I've never heard anyone make an argument like that. As I told Retrograde, I guess it's not IMPOSSIBLE, but it strikes me as mildly disingenuous to prop it up as some kind of primary talking point.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Today, I read someone equate "feminism" with "gender equality" in the most general sense.
And then I laughed.

Then I saw how a meaningless post turned into another 10 page atrocity on a subject that would fix itself if developers and writers put more than token efforts into motivating the player.
And then I sighed.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Snip

(Nods) Three indie games I played fairly recently were also great for female characters. Ib, The Witch's House, and Mad Father. Very good horror games with female leads.

And why is it that no one ever tries to promote Touhou Project? I mean... it's a game series that is made up all but entirely of female characters of all shapes, sizes, and personalities. It has idiots, it has book worms, it has drunkards, it has activists, it has wise characters, it has rash characters, ect. ect. It's a game series that has a huge range of female characters and is HUGELY popular.

 

[Norithics]

But I'm honestly not going to put too much effort in jumping through your hoop because quite honestly I know a trap when I see one. I'll be honest with you, you strike me as the sort that would make a good politician or lawyer that nobody invites to parties.

Sheesh. I mad-dog people, they get upset. I try to play nice, I'm suspected of supervillainy. I was making fun of your unit of measurement, but to be honest seeing good representations of people from any sphere is rare enough to genuinely want the list.

Looking at it, it's obviously a JRPG list, and there are some genuine gems in there. And while I could get into a big thing about what their numbers actually mean in the scheme of larger representation (not to mention the no-confidence vote in advertising for this kind of thing), I think that's much less interesting than the larger question: Why does that seem to be a Japanese thing? I mean, arguably they've had just as many struggles with gender equality as Americans have, if not more, but they seem less... I want to say 'afraid' of the concept of the fem protag? It's also arguable that they have a lot more women in the development side. I wonder if it's a cultural thing.

 

[Archer666]

Feminism needs to be involved in everything to a certain degree.

How's about you keep your political ideology out of my hobby unless you are creating something within the medium and that political ideology is a topic or theme you want to explore. In fact, let's apply that logic to most/all political ideologies, barring only those that directly effect the continued existence hobby itself in some fashion. Hint: Demanding that the art design of a game is somehow morally wrong because you dislike it is not an example of this.

Yes, keep shoving those words in my mouth. I'm sure that eventually I'll be so full you could just pop me with a needle.

Anyway. Just because you don't like a certain thing, like feminism, doesn't mean it should be excluded from "your" hobby. Maybe me and several others like seeing women in an active role and dressed in proper, fitting outfits compared to dudes. I've said "to a certain degree", which you took to mean... something.. But personally, I don't give a damn about the design of Dragons Crown or classic story pieces of girls being kidnapped. They're both non-issues. I'm more interested in having more female protagonists. Have a girl be playable in GTA 5, play a female assassin in AC. This helps even the gender field in games a little, in my opinion. Maybe cut down on giant floppy boobs that are only there for the sake of fan service(Basically, anything designed by NIS). But yeah, thats my own personal brand of feminism: Give us cool girls to play as, dont oversexualize when its not necessary.

 

[runic knight]

and making triple AAA games specific to appeal to an audience who has CONTINUALLY PROVEN ITSELF UNRELIABLE (eg. beyond good and evil) is not good business. Why do most triple A games aim for the attention of the largest market share?

Without acknowledging the rest of your post, I do take exception to this on a basis of economics. If making expensive things for a normally unreliable market was universally a poor business practice, then Henry Ford would've never flourished.

In fact, it's even comparable. Cars were very expensive, so people who weren't rich felt unwelcome by the market. Ford paid his workers enough that they would be able to afford his vehicles, which in turn they not only bought, but injected that wealth into the local economies and brought more prosperity to the rest of the area, which in turn meant even more people could buy his cars. So by making a few painful adjustments in the short term, he was able to create an empire that remains to this day. Similarly, I think perhaps a good deal of possible customers feel alienated from video games still. It used to be the casual market, but Google, Apple and Nintendo struck out to change that with great success. Who's to say the same couldn't be done with women?

Corporate culture. I get what you are saying and I do agree in spirit that there could be a lot of success had if the larger companies struck out a little and did so with some intelligence and intent to do it right. I doubt it would ever happen or be pulled off right though simply because of the way the larger gaming companies are run and handled in general. Look at the complaints people raise about how they don't use female playtesters and developers have to fight for female protagonists and the like. The ones holding the purse strings are not innovative businessmen with vision like Ford could be described as. They wont pay more then a cent they have to, they wont let a cent through their fingers if they can help it. For whatever reason, be it greedy, emotional distance or just corporate culture and stockholder control, EA or Activision will never be like early Ford. As such we should never expect them to go out of their comfort zone with any degree of commitment save perhaps as novelty ideas that would still be aimed more at the main demographic. Even more, with budgets so bloated that games that sell several millions are still seen as failures and entire divisions needing games to be blockbusters or get shut down, companies in the Triple A are more and more worried only about the main demographic because of limited resources and the requirement of success being so high. Hell, a good chunk of the main industry seems to support the idea that you can not make one-shot games anymore because they only see the monsterously wasteful budget as the only way to go. They need to make franchises to sequelize over and over so that by reusing assets and designs they make money back on the second and beyond games. Trying to get that mentality to risk a more direct appeal to women and non-traditional gaming demographics is, unfortunately, laughable.
I think nintendo has the benefit of being run by people with vision and respecting the ones who led to their success, hence why they would be more likely to do so. The others do not dedicate any comparable amount of money to games at all.

 

[VodkaKnight]

I guess the whole 'stop over-sexualizing women' thing is good, but saying that killing you in-game is sexist is ridiculous.
That happened to me, actually. I was playing TF2 and she kept walking into the path of my Sentry Gun.
Feminism missing the point of online multiplayer where the objective is to kill or stop people is also ridiculous.

 

[Smeatza]

Irrelevant, moving goalposts.

Bullshit dude.
I set out mitigating circumstances in my original post, which you took no issue to. If anything the goalposts have been static in a position you don't like.
Sexualised/objectified characters in fiction are not an inherently bad thing. Unnecessary, unjustified sexualisation/objectification is the problem when in disproportionate occurrence.

She's used as the damsel of the story in the very beginning. It's slightly more subtle, but it does happen.

So the character isn't a damsel in distress then? they just were at one point? Or just needed rescuing?
I've been led to believe that it's characters who are defined, who exist only to be rescued by the protagonist that are the issue.

Because they weren't relevant to my claim. I didn't take the bait on your attempt to change the subject.

Yes they are.
Your comment was about the industry as a whole and I'm asking you if it's fair to say that sections of the industry are indicative of it as a whole.

Look, lemme make this simple. I said: "More of them than not are dressed in skimpy outfits and/or kidnapped."
You said: "But there are excuses as to why that happens."
I said: "Yeah, but I never said there weren't, just that it happens. So what's your point?"

See where we're at now?

I see it differently.
You:The problem isn't that women get put in skimpy outfits or kidnapped or anything like that. It's that this has been primarily what happens to them [in video games].
Me: The problem is when it happens unnecessarily and is too frequent. I think your exaggerating on just how often it happens.
You: You're not harsh enough in your judgement.
Me: You're too harsh in your judgement.
You: WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHGGGGGAAAAARRRRBBBBBLLLLLEEEE!!!!
Me: WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHGGGGGAAAAARRRRBBBBBLLLLLEEEE!!!!

And so on.

And so on.