I don't really understand why people protest things like this. Sexism, racism, and all that annoy me more than the average person, but I just don't see how things like this help at all by themselves. People need to be taught critical thinking, and how to not think using stereotypes and generalizations. I can't even count the number of times I've had someone ***** to me about one thing only to reinforce something else.
The ism's in gaming
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I don't usually go for the really big topics of racism and sexism but this intrests me as what can anyone possibly achevie? Yes it's a big subject and yes companies sometimes change thier games because some group desn't like them picking on a certain group. As long as your kiling white people nobody cares. Does anyone see something wrong with that statement. Now no one has ever said "oh my god that's racist killing only white people". Why? because we just don't care. What do ethnic minorities or whoever think we'll do. "Wow this is awesome killing black people in the game I wonder if it's this much fun killing real black people" I'm sorry but that just doesn't happen. The only true racism is in real life by stupid retards who can't handle someone being a different colour or coming from somewhere else.
Sexism is in gaming that's for sure. The reason 95% of all game developers are male and untill that changes quit your bitching. When its 50/50 or close to that and games are still sexist then you can start complaining. Because the game developers just don't care what you think now and they never will.
Sexism is in gaming that's for sure. The reason 95% of all game developers are male and untill that changes quit your bitching. When its 50/50 or close to that and games are still sexist then you can start complaining. Because the game developers just don't care what you think now and they never will.
Sure they do. Questions like "Hey, how come every single person in this game is white?" and "Hey, why is this game all about killing?" get raised all the time.mendez said:
A group consisting entirely of men (or entirely of women) should be able to create a responsible, sensible depiction of a woman (or man) without needing a woman (or man) there to hold their hand at every turn.mendez said:
-- Alex
When? I sure as hell havnt seen any of it.Alex_P said:
Ok maybe if you got the right group of guys/girls but you get a group of normal guys to make a game it'll have a stereotypical girl in it and only one maybe 2. You kinda do need the balance on most ocasions.Alex_P said:
Yeah, that's the problem with being a young movement. I've seen that in a number of manifestations. The hardest part is convincing people that something is wrong, which is why it frustrates me that the masculine stereotype issue is perceived as incompatible with feminism. Feminists have husbands and brothers and sons and male friends. We don't hate men. They do piss us off though. A lot. But to be fair, so do women.Decoy Doctorpus said:
Good catch. Part of that is that I'm trying to say what I mean in a way that I hope will be recognized by the people I'm trying to speak to. Why guys should believe it necessary and natural to "suck it up" under a rain of constant verbal abuse on Xbox Live and yet excuse themselves from acting on their declared beliefs because people criticize them makes absolutely no sense to me.
But I'm also a really big non-fan of the victim thing. I've been in enough feminist groups where the person who could lay claim to the most victimhood (often a person who was, in the grand scope of things, pretty well off) got to pretty much control the discussion and the actions, and it was all done in the most touchy-feely, passive-aggressive, "when you [blank], I feel [blank]" psychobabble, bullshit fashion. Finally I got sick of it. "OK, so you are the big victim. So what do we do about it? No practical ideas? Yeah, that's what I thought. Until you have something we can do about it, suck it up." Sometimes getting a little butch is just what a conversation needs.
I'm not sure if I should be flattered by this, but I am a little bit. This is a bit off-topic, but I've sat and listened to my coworkers giving each other shit while playing Halo, and I just imagine how much worse it would be if they didn't know and like each other, and that puts me off of online play (that and I kind of suck but anyway). But the thing that gets me when I hear gamer griefing, it's not that it's aggressive, it's not that it's mean, it's not even that it's racist, sexist, and homophobic. It's that it's repetitive and boring. If I could go online and argue about whether or not slam poetry was really poetry or not, or whether the movie "Hero" supports a basically tyrannical worldview, or argue about the sustainability of the American middle class while running around and shooting people, I would be in heaven. "Shakespeare was just a front, the plays were really written by the Earl of Oxford." "Take that back, you snob!" "Oxford rules, Shakespeare drools..." BOOM HEADSHOT!
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. I'm fine with aggression, as long as a person had some aim and isn't just spraying the place down with a bullet-hose.
Yeah, there's Darfur and the whole shit-we-broke-the-planet thing, but I do want to stick up for the importance of this topic. I worry about guys, about young guys. It kind of goes back to the talk I had with Joeshie, and it definitely has to do with this conversation. Somehow, nobody seems to think young men are important as anything other than a consumer demographic. As long as you are spending money in predictable patterns, no one seems to care, other than to make sure you get the job skills so that you can grow up, stay employed, and keep spending money in predictable patterns. The young men is see around me just seem really discouraged and unhappy and disengaged and perpetually bored. It's like the culture isn't giving them anything real to do or any real reason to do it. The thing is, as a female feminist, I can only challenge them, I can't really offer them solutions, because I'm not one of them. So yeah, I get up in your face, but I really try not to tell you what to do, because I don't know what you should do. So all I can say is, "Yeah? So what are you doing about it?" and tell them, yeah, it's hard, it's hard all over, and it's going to get harder. So what are you going to do about it?
Me, I'm going to go back to my RP and keep writing a really fucked-up man-hating female badass character and then try and save her from her own hateful fucked-up-ness while retaining her badass.
It was was said when appropriate. Like when someone went on a rant about how this forum sucks and everyones gay with no life. Of course, when they said that they went on a rant on why the OP was gay and had no life.Alex_P said:
I didn't stay there long.
So, if nothing is holding a single-gender group back from being able to create a sane and sensible depiction of a member of the opposite gender...mendez said:
Why shouldn't we take them to task when they fail miserably at this simple task?
-- Alex
wow.lots of complaining in this thread. I guess if you don't like the stereotypes of games you're left with whining, which never gets anything accomplished. Just not playing the game, which might eventually make developers to take notice of what society wants in a game. Or simply go make your own games.Words never get anything done.I would rather read of people taking action, and the outcome.
So you want a game that'll satisfy the female audience.LisaB1138 said:
Are you really gonna buy a game where the female protagonist is buddied up with a kind, affectionate man who wouldn't question stopping to smell the roses and tell you how beautiful you are? While at the same time he's the buff dream guy. And then the woman (of only average attractiveness and average weight of course!) Will take down the enemy, which I'm not sure what a woman would like to harm, seeing as I'm not one. Well, I guess there's women in the military, sure.
And I don't think men would complain about being stereotyped, I mean there's plenty of games where the main character's a dope. (That one for the wii with the guy who has the beam katana, I can't remember the name!) How much uproar did that cause?
I would love to play an RPG with some bad ass characters that don't act "buddy buddy" and don't always do things the clean way, presented in a j-rpg kind of way. So like fallout meets final fantasy, or just give me a character that's conflicted about "saving the world" since that's what most rpgs boil down to. Or a female character that shows some vulnerability despite playing miss tough.
There's so many things that can be done. To me i will buy a game that isn't really innovative, so long as it's polished and presents people I care about.
There's so many things that can be done. To me i will buy a game that isn't really innovative, so long as it's polished and presents people I care about.
Laying on the stereotypes a bit thick, aren't we? Lisa's talking about a woman who can "kick butt, take names, and save the world" without being presented as a sex object, and you're launching into a little spiel about why romantic comedies wouldn't make for good games.Mikav said:
Women can have badass power fantasies dripping with sex and violence, too.
If you really know what you're doing as a writer/designer, you can create a badass power fantasy dripping with sex and violence that will actually appeal to both numerous men and numerous women, even something they can enjoy together (and something that's sexy to more than just straight people, too).
Of course, stuff other than power fantasy would be nice sometimes, too. But just because something is a power fantasy doesn't mean it has to be schlocky or juvenile or, especially, sexist.
-- Alex
It frustrates me how, in both popular culture and geek culture, "Conan" has really come to stand for "only the shitty parts of Conan." AoC isn't the worst offender here, by far, but it and its players are part of the trend.ElArabDeMagnifico said:
-- Alex
Rest assured. In my mind Conan will always be about sweaty dudes wrestling giant snakes.Alex_P said:
Do you know what the best thing about these heinous and offensive games is?
Not only is no one forcing you too buy them, but if you have bought them by mistake somehow you don't have to play them. Best of all if you do start playing them and find something offensive about them, you can turn the console off, and certainly at at least half a dozen stores you can return the games if it's close to the original purchase date.
Not only is no one forcing you too buy them, but if you have bought them by mistake somehow you don't have to play them. Best of all if you do start playing them and find something offensive about them, you can turn the console off, and certainly at at least half a dozen stores you can return the games if it's close to the original purchase date.
The technological equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing, "la la la la la, I can't hear you!"Armitage Shanks said:
This thread is trying to analyse the problem, saying that is like saying, "He shouldn't have drunk so much," AFTER he's nearly dead in hospital.
We can always just not play the game. But I think most of the people in this thread have played the game. Which really makes that post pointless.
But then you would get someone going "Where are the black people at?", someone like me. All your examples are not racist, you're the one whos racist for thinking along those lines. It doesn't matter to me whether they match the stereotypes or not, I know I don't fit societys stereotypical black male so I'm not going to be offended, the only way you would be offended is if you don't have any balls, actually fit those stereotypes or just want to use the games as a scapegoat for your own insecurities, such as that Fat Princess game.Str8_Sober said:
It's a game, I'll leave racism, sexism, etc for the real world, not for a made up world where it doesn't effect(at least I hope it doesn't)your look on life. I'll enjoy Cole yelling "WOOOOOO" and him generally acting like a badass black man because that is what he is in Gears of War, a game, not in real life, sort the difference out in your head before you speak please.
All these problems can, I think, essentially be boiled down to a single point:
Game writing sucks.
...at least, it usually does. And bad writing usually turns into the use of massive stereotypes, or at least tropes, which means all women are well-endowed flirts, all white guys are grizzled and tough (or small and cowardly, occasionally), and all black guys are gangsta.
The first three non-stereotypical female characters I can think of are:
Alyx Vance - Half-life 2
Heather - Silent Hill 3
Jade - Beyond Good & Evil
All these games are paragons of the game-writing art, and none of them depend on stereotype to tell us a story.
Game writing sucks.
...at least, it usually does. And bad writing usually turns into the use of massive stereotypes, or at least tropes, which means all women are well-endowed flirts, all white guys are grizzled and tough (or small and cowardly, occasionally), and all black guys are gangsta.
The first three non-stereotypical female characters I can think of are:
Alyx Vance - Half-life 2
Heather - Silent Hill 3
Jade - Beyond Good & Evil
All these games are paragons of the game-writing art, and none of them depend on stereotype to tell us a story.