Should Feminism and Gaming Mix?

[Oirish_Martin]

Feminist opinion as a force that restricts roles and content of games is unacceptable

I find this sentiment odd, every time I see it, cause the vast majority of the arguments of feminists in regards to gaming is to call for more varied and interesting depictions of women, gender roles, and content.

This is in direct opposition to the forces that are restricting roles and content of games. Your argument makes no sense.

That's because you are taking just half of the argument into perspective. Whole this started with Anita and backlash against Dragon's Crown (and now Miami Hotline 2). Their narration wasn't one of including more variety and deeper characters but one of condemning already present character as socially bad (regressive crap, harming image of women etc. to quote some). While word "censorship" was never used, implying that something is socially unacceptable is calling for removal of said content. And that is unacceptable to me.

I don't know how that is called but it's one of the oldest trick in the book. Tie one questionable notion to one everyone will agree upon and when first is rejected blame them for rejecting the second. Here, when I reject removal of content, I'm attacked as if I said that there shouldn't be more variety because those two notions were first presented as one entity, inseparably tied one to other.

@runic_kight , too


Look at it this way. Let's imagine a hypothetical shoe company, one that makes all the shoes in the world. Now, this fictional shoe company makes high-quality shoes, but they only make them in one color: bright orange. People get tired of only being able to buy orange shoes, so they start petitions and make videos and whatever, trying to let the company know that they'd like shoes of different colors. They do a lot of work, and it's clear that many people want differently colored shoes.

Then the shoe company announces a brand new line of shoes, more comfortable than ever; but, they're orange. Like, the ugliest shade of orange you've ever seen. So of course the people get mad; not because they don't want any orange shoes, but because the shoe company had an opportunity to make shoes of a different color, and they didn't. They made the lazy choice, and made the shoes the same ugly shade of orange that they'd always been.

Of course, then an opposing voice speaks up. They like the color orange, and they're worried that the first group wants to stop the company from making orange shoes (which is a little silly, because they already have hundreds of pairs of orange shoes as it is). They accuse the first group of banning orange shoes, which again, is silly. The first group doesn't want orange shoes banned, they want to be able to wear shoes without them being orange all the time.

It's not "I hate these shoes because they're orange," it's "I really want to like these shoes, but I'm having a hard time because you guys insist on constantly making them orange."

Does that make sense?

I think the problem you're having isn't that your words aren't making sense, it's that your analogy is inadequate.

Think of it more like "Only orange shoes are being made. And some people are (allegedly) using their orange shoes to kick people to death with. Those dastardly ORANGE SHOES."

You might then see the issue people have with Sarkeesian.

 

[runic knight]

@runic_kight , too


Look at it this way. Let's imagine a hypothetical shoe company, one that makes all the shoes in the world. Now, this fictional shoe company makes high-quality shoes, but they only make them in one color: bright orange. People get tired of only being able to buy orange shoes, so they start petitions and make videos and whatever, trying to let the company know that they'd like shoes of different colors. They do a lot of work, and it's clear that many people want differently colored shoes.

Then the shoe company announces a brand new line of shoes, more comfortable than ever; but, they're orange. Like, the ugliest shade of orange you've ever seen. So of course the people get mad; not because they don't want any orange shoes, but because the shoe company had an opportunity to make shoes of a different color, and they didn't. They made the lazy choice, and made the shoes the same ugly shade of orange that they'd always been.

Of course, then an opposing voice speaks up. They like the color orange, and they're worried that the first group wants to stop the company from making orange shoes (which is a little silly, because they already have hundreds of pairs of orange shoes as it is). They accuse the first group of banning orange shoes, which again, is silly. The first group doesn't want orange shoes banned, they want to be able to wear shoes without them being orange all the time.

It's not "I hate these shoes because they're orange," it's "I really want to like these shoes, but I'm having a hard time because you guys insist on constantly making them orange."

Does that make sense?

The problem with your analogy is threefold. First, there is a limited amount of resources the company has to make products, so at some point making blue shoes will mean less orange shoes made. This shouldn't matter if the demand is equal but Secondly the demand for orange shoes has been a stable market. Regardless what people say, the actual numbers show that orange shoes sell really damn well. Finally, and here is the important part, they are already making shoes of every other damn size and color. Seriously, you just have to check in the back and you can find them all. (for games, this is all the games made by developers big and small that don't fall into the tropes). The reason they are in the back though is because no one actually buys them. Be it chicken or egg thing here, the end result is that orange sells, so orange will be supplied and advertised.
Also, as Oirish_Martin said, the campaign to get change is represented by people claiming orange shoes leads to people being kicked. Yes, there are certainly those out there that are fighting just for more publicity for the other colors and bigger name shoes to be orange less often, but the "movement", if you would call it that, seems hell bent to present the argument like orange shoes are morally wrong and causes social problems.

So you have a group of people demonizing orange shoes, claiming they want variety yet not actually buying said available variety, some going as far to label people as colorists and insinuate they lead to a culture of kicking people in the face. They don't represent the interests of the majority people actually buying the product, and while they rarely outright say "don't make orange shoes", the demonizing of the product leads one to ask that if they believe what they are saying, why would they ever support orange shoes being made at all? They lead to face kicking, after all.