Thank you Deep Silver, you make us look bad >.>

[Moth_Monk]

Sometimes, I dare to crawl out of my hive of gaming sub-culture to see what the rest of the world thinks to us. And what do I find?

Well, thanks to Deep Silver's recent PR stunt, the gaming community looks like a bunch of misogynistic children. Take a look at this blog post by the (relatively well known) biologist P.Z. Myers.:

OK, gaming community, could you please grow up a little bit? There?s some new game about fighting zombies called ?Dead Island Riptide? which has come out with a promotional boxed copy that includes a statuette.
A statuette of a bikini-clad woman?s torso, bloodily decapitated and dismembered.
Ugh. Ugly, tasteless, useless crap. Even if it weren?t vilely misogynist, why would anyone want such a hideous and pointless thing? I can only imagine that it?s fuel for fantasies about treating women as dead meat.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/15/make-a-striking-conversation-piece-on-any-discerning-zombie-gamers-mantel/comment-page-1/#comment-536319

So according to this guy, "the gaming community" are all children, all male and all have fantasies about treating women as dead meat. It's finding stuff out like this that makes me think that no progress has been made in making gaming be taken seriously by "everyone else." :/

 

[shrekfan246]

And yet again the word "misogynist" is thrown around with no regards to its actual meaning...

Tasteless, ugly, and useless, I'll agree with. You could even make an argument that it's objectifying, in some... weird way. But unless you'd throw around the term "misandrist" if the torso were male instead, then kindly STFU.

This means that every movie that's ever portrayed a female getting killed is misogynistic, then, right? Because how could we not hate those darn females if we're killing them off in our fictional media! And there's no such thing as female zombies! Or females who go to the beach! Nope, us dirty, filthy, evil men are just pouring all of our hatred for women into a tacky, pointless piece of memorabilia for a zombie game based on a tropical island.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the controversy is going to fly over this PoS. Just makes me think more and more that Dead Island would've been a much better game if it had been anything like that original trailer made it seem.

 

[Moth_Monk]

FFS just look at some of the comments to this guy's post as well:

So?what?

We let the angry menchildren have a space where they can froth at the mouth about dem bitches? And when no women dare tiptoe into the Inner Sanctum, they will be rewarded by not being subjected to misogyny?

How exactly does this solve anything?

So us gamers are angry menchildren who are -made worse- by Deep Silver's marketing, as if we all have a problem that needs to be solved.

*facepalm*

 

[Zhukov]

I'd say the gaming community, especially the online gaming community, gets exactly the reputation it deserves.

Here in our little bubble world we like to convince ourselves that gaming is a totally legit art form for adults and blah-de-blah-de-blah.

Every now and again we are reminded that the rest of the world sees out hobby as a juvenile series of mostly violence-fuelled thematically derivative power fantasies with the approximate depth of a tea tray.

Quite frankly, I still can't see much reason to say they're wrong.

I guess the situation will change when either (a) everyone currently over the age of 30 has died or (b) the industry as a whole starts putting out good stuff on a regular basis.

 

[Moth_Monk]

I'd say the gaming community, especially the online gaming community, gets exactly the reputation it deserves.

Here in our little bubble world we like to convince ourselves that gaming is a totally legit art form for adults and blah-de-blah-de-blah.

I don't see how it isn't a totally legit art form for adults and blah-de-blah-de blah, who are you to define it otherwise? :/

Every now and again we are reminded that the rest of the world sees out hobby as a juvenile series of mostly violence-fuelled thematically derivative power fantasies with the approximate depth of a tea tray.

Quite frankly, I still can't see much reason to say they're wrong.

Quite frankly, I can.

You could of at least provided examples of games, that would accurately represent the majority, as fitting your description.

In fact, there are whole genres that are nothing to do with power fantasies and are indeed more complex in design and mental skills required; take for example the entire platformer, puzzle game, RTS, and even, ffs, Sports game genres, not to mention educational games and online games that revolve around interacting with other people. I'll just assume that you just think of all games as FPSes and possibly RPGs.

How are, for example, Portal and Journey just power fantasies?

Besides that, the majority of all other art forms are not any more 'sophisticated' than these video games you're banging on about, just take films for example, the majority are just mindless action. At least video games have the benefit of being interactive.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I guess the situation will change when either (a) everyone currently over the age of 30 has died or (b) the industry as a whole starts putting out good stuff on a regular basis.

By what do you define "regular basis"? I mean, the industry has been putting out great stuff every year for a good while now.

 

[Tanis]

Hey at least we aren't like the religious fan clubs.

They dismember females and treat them as meat for REAL.

All we do is digital.

Captcha:
Come Clean

Okay, it's true, I STILL haven't played the first Dead Island game because it looked boring.

 

[Doclector]

Well, the majority of gamers seemed to agree it was pretty tasteless. This is just one idiot thinking that because some moron of a PR guy thinks zombie boobs'll sell games, that instantly means every single gamer agreed with that.

I'm not saying that the gaming community doesn't have a problem with misogyny. Thankfully, it's a minority, but it's definately there. However, to suggest the entire gaming community is misogynistic because of one ill advised marketing campaign that has now been pulled is a rather obvious brand of complete, unforgivable stupidity and ignorance.

 

[Erttheking]

You know, if we want to work on people outside the gaming community insulting us we need to work on OURSELVES insulting the gaming community. Seriously, on this website alone, how many times have users called various groups of gamers entitled, selfish, stupid, obsessive, etc etc. Yeah I don't see why these people bother tearing the gaming community apart, WE DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB OURSELVES.

 

[krazykidd]

Oh look it's the next new thing to hate? Live and let live people . For the love of all that's undead ...

 

[BreakfastMan]

You know, if we want to work on people outside the gaming community insulting us we need to work on OURSELVES insulting the gaming community. Seriously, on this website alone, how many times have users called various groups of gamers entitled, selfish, stupid, obsessive, etc etc. Yeah I don't see why these people bother tearing the gaming community apart, WE DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB OURSELVES.

Maybe when the community stops being a cesspool, we can stop. Otherwise... Saying people should be quiet because you don't like their criticism is ridiculous.

 

[Erttheking]

You know, if we want to work on people outside the gaming community insulting us we need to work on OURSELVES insulting the gaming community. Seriously, on this website alone, how many times have users called various groups of gamers entitled, selfish, stupid, obsessive, etc etc. Yeah I don't see why these people bother tearing the gaming community apart, WE DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB OURSELVES.

Maybe when the community stops being a cesspool, we can stop. Otherwise... Saying people should be quiet because you don't like their criticism is ridiculous.

I seriously hope that you're talking about the OP with saying people should be quiet and not me, I'm just pointing out that people shouldn't be complaining about people insulting the gaming community when we do it all the freaking time.

 

[BreakfastMan]

You know, if we want to work on people outside the gaming community insulting us we need to work on OURSELVES insulting the gaming community. Seriously, on this website alone, how many times have users called various groups of gamers entitled, selfish, stupid, obsessive, etc etc. Yeah I don't see why these people bother tearing the gaming community apart, WE DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB OURSELVES.

Maybe when the community stops being a cesspool, we can stop. Otherwise... Saying people should be quiet because you don't like their criticism is ridiculous.

I seriously hope that you're talking about the OP with saying people should be quiet and not me, I'm just pointing out that people shouldn't be complaining about people insulting the gaming community when we do it all the freaking time.

Methinks it carries a different significance when people who are a member of the community and know what they are talking about take to criticizing it than when someone from the outside the community with little knowledge of what they are talking about takes to criticizing it...

 

[Erttheking]

You know, if we want to work on people outside the gaming community insulting us we need to work on OURSELVES insulting the gaming community. Seriously, on this website alone, how many times have users called various groups of gamers entitled, selfish, stupid, obsessive, etc etc. Yeah I don't see why these people bother tearing the gaming community apart, WE DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB OURSELVES.

Maybe when the community stops being a cesspool, we can stop. Otherwise... Saying people should be quiet because you don't like their criticism is ridiculous.

I seriously hope that you're talking about the OP with saying people should be quiet and not me, I'm just pointing out that people shouldn't be complaining about people insulting the gaming community when we do it all the freaking time.

Methinks it carries a different significance when people who are a member of the community and know what they are talking about take to criticizing it than when someone from the outside the community with little knowledge of what they are talking about takes to criticizing it...

It's still rather hypocritical, considering that some of the complaints on that page are some of the exact same complaints that have been used on this website in the past, such as the high amounts of online misogyny. Also, doesn't that line of thought imply that gamers can only ever be criticized by other gamers, and that non-gamers are incapable of legitimate criticism.

 

[sanquin]

Is the statue misogynist? No. Is it sexist? Hell yes in my opinion. Why did it have to specifically be a big-breasted, slim female body in a rather small bikini? It being a female body, fine. There's a 50% chance it could be female after all. But why couldn't they have put a tank top on? Or a ripped t-shirt? And why did the boobs have to be DD size?

Imo it's marketing like this that makes the gaming community look worse than it actually is. Yes there are plenty of area's of the gaming and internet community that are a filthy cesspool of bile that you should stay away from. But the largest part is far more mature and reasonable than that. Yet companies still insist on mainly marketing to perverted teenage boys, like that is what 3/4 or more of their customer base is.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

i diddent know i need this, but after seeing the statuette i must have it.
if i want a mutilated corpse of a once was attractive woman on my mantle piece (tv cabinet) then i can have one after a cash/money exchange. also im a horror fan.
so this appeal's to my bloodlust and gamer in me.

in fact if this was done for a movie, would heads even turn.
or more importantly,
would horror fans be labeled as misogynist and etc

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Every now and again we are reminded that the rest of the world sees out hobby as a juvenile series of mostly violence-fuelled thematically derivative power fantasies with the approximate depth of a tea tray.

Quite frankly, I still can't see much reason to say they're wrong.

Quite frankly, I can.

You could of at least provided examples of games, that would accurately represent the majority, as fitting your description.

In fact, there are whole genres that are nothing to do with power fantasies and are indeed more complex in design and mental skills required; take for example the entire platformer, puzzle game, RTS, and even, ffs, Sports game genres, not to mention educational games and online games that revolve around interacting with other people. I'll just assume that you just think of all games as FPSes and possibly RPGs.

How are, for example, Portal and Journey just power fantasies?

Besides that, the majority of all other art forms are not any more 'sophisticated' than these video games you're banging on about, just take films for example, the majority are just mindless action. At least video games have the benefit of being interactive.

I think i know who we could blame for this "image" of the gamers:

http://metagearsolid.org/2011/07/video-games-in-the-master-plan/

 

[BreakfastMan]

You know, if we want to work on people outside the gaming community insulting us we need to work on OURSELVES insulting the gaming community. Seriously, on this website alone, how many times have users called various groups of gamers entitled, selfish, stupid, obsessive, etc etc. Yeah I don't see why these people bother tearing the gaming community apart, WE DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB OURSELVES.

Maybe when the community stops being a cesspool, we can stop. Otherwise... Saying people should be quiet because you don't like their criticism is ridiculous.

I seriously hope that you're talking about the OP with saying people should be quiet and not me, I'm just pointing out that people shouldn't be complaining about people insulting the gaming community when we do it all the freaking time.

Methinks it carries a different significance when people who are a member of the community and know what they are talking about take to criticizing it than when someone from the outside the community with little knowledge of what they are talking about takes to criticizing it...

It's still rather hypocritical, considering that some of the complaints on that page are some of the exact same complaints that have been used on this website in the past, such as the high amounts of online misogyny.

The difference being, those comments where made by people who know what they are talking about.

Also, doesn't that line of thought imply that gamers can only ever be criticized by other gamers, and that non-gamers are incapable of legitimate criticism.

Not really, just don't expect people to take you seriously if you don't know what you are talking about. If a non-gamer has spent a lot of time studying gaming communities and provides criticism, fine. If not...

 

[xPixelatedx]

Why did it have to specifically be a big-breasted, slim female body in a rather small bikini? It being a female body, fine. There's a 50% chance it could be female after all. But why couldn't they have put a tank top on? Or a ripped t-shirt? And why did the boobs have to be DD size?

Going to play devil's advocate here and state the obvious: it takes place on an island resort. Also those aren't DD, not even close... I think the more disturbing question is why, under no circumstances, couldn't it have been a slim figured woman?

I can only imagine that it's fuel for fantasies about treating women as dead meat.

Oh yes, I believe this to be completely true and make perfect scene in every way. Every depiction of violence against women in fiction (throughout all of human history) has just been made for sickos who fantasize about hurting women. I am now going to aware the creator of the article in Op's link with the "Most Rational Thinker" award.

It is my highest honor!

 

[hazabaza1]

I don't get why that blog post is all "GOD GROW UP GAMING COMMUNITY CUNTS" when Deep Silver made this, advertised this, and got backlash from the gaming community so large that it made them realize they were being fucking retarded.