The Most Dangerous Woman in Videogames - Anita Sarkeesian

[Farther than stars]

1. I was not using the 'academic system' in my post, whatever nebulous properties you may have assigned to it.

2. You compared the forming of an opinion to the creation of an invention, then became upset when I called you out on your highly imprudent statement.

First of all, don't presume to know the emotional state of your opponent; it's just not good manners.
Second of all, both 'invention' and 'opinion' can be classified as forms of innovation. So I didn't compare inventions to opinions directly, but I discussed how they can each be related to the general concept of innovation, hence the illicit major, considering you left out the major group (innovation) and therefor only saw the connection between the two minor groups (invention and opinion).
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by 'academic system', but recognizing logical fallacies has nothing to with academia; it's only about using logic, the most basic requisite for having any kind of fruitful debate.

 

[Gindil]

-snip-

Just to add to your comments, Sakamoto did a lot to throw Retro under the bus and undermine the Prime games with a lot of intentional sabotage of Samus' character. I believe he tried to rewrite Other M to make it seem as if the games never existed.

It's kind of sad though... The Prime series is far superior compared to what Other M did...

 

[Bonecrusher]

I've yet to see any well-written article against what she's doing. As far as I know, the only hate comes from the "little people" of the internet.

If there is one, I'd be interested in reading it.

I know Jim Sterling did an episode about it, but I think that focused more on the community and their insults than it did her arguments or agenda.

There are a lot of videos, well explained arguments about extreme Feminist approach of Anita Sarkeesian in Youtube. And some of them are made by female gamers. Her videos are mostly based on her biases, prejudices and distortions. There are no proper research and knowledge, and her most arguments are wrong or inadequate.

But sadly, some people insist that critics of Anita are all "HATER LITTLE PEOPLE OF INTERNET". In each Anita Sarkeesian topic, many people argue that gamers hate her without any reason, like in this topic...

Please at least watch this:

 

[DarkSpartan]

Wikipedia is kind of a deplorable place for you to get citations from though. TVTropes too to an extent.


DAMMIT THIS IS COLLEGE LEVEL STUFF. HOW CAN SHE NOT KNOW THIS.

Actually, high school just perpetuates that idea because of reasons.

Wikipedia is basically like Metacritic; So long as what you're reading is accurately cited and you can go check out the original source for yourself, it's pretty much the best aggregate of general knowledge you could hope to find. Most of the time random trolling gets shut down and reversed pretty quickly. I imagine most schools don't want you relying on Wikipedia just because it's simply the "lazy" option.

I've been known to use Wikipedia this way, and the ease at which it may be edited on nothing more than a IP address log is why we in Academia prefer to avoid using it directly. For Academic puropses, it's not particularly attributable, and you still get people that make poorly-supported statements in the name of some cause or another that gets missed because there's an inline citation that nobody catches.

My usual habit is to compare Wikipedia to another "overview" source, and then start digging through the cited works, particularly those that have been peer reviewed.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Anita's an unusual case. I can't say I like the way she presents things. Putting aside personal attacks against her, too.
Thing is she has a point. Several. If all of her points are getitng dismissed odds are you probably see no problems with the industry. I could be wrong, though.

Games with female protagonists doing worse is often a matter of quality of the game (Generally lacking when it comes to women. Wonder why?), lack of advertisement, and generally just not giving it the push most male only games get that succeede, so of course they're going to under perform. And so they think all games with female leads are going to underperform. And we enter the past 13 years of little representation with games with female characters nearly set up to fail.

More reward, less risk, I get that. Thing is, it's not all that safe. I mean a lot of companies are failing. A lot of companies have failed recently. Some of them even played it safe.
Sure some companies are bulletproof, but most just aren't and I think those smaller companies are trying to be too much like the larger companies. It's a business model that might be worth following, but it involves following a niche that's already full so it's only good for the companies that are successful. The rest of the smaller companies have to compete against them, though which leads to failing.

The issue with Anita is because the way she presents things and the way she herself is in relation to the industry and the community, truly coming off as an outside trying to moralize and preach in the same vein as the anti-violence crusaders, it creates more confrontation then insight. Add to that how she has become larger then the actual issues themselves, and suddenly she is harmful to the discussion entirely, eclipsing most talk on the issue as you have to fight down the bitterness and resentment on both sides just to talk about the actual issue like a person instead of a caricature of a feminazi or a militant MRA. While you may argue she has some points, one can argue that creationists have a point that when they say that science hasn't disproved god's existence, and while true, it does nothing to help the actual discussion on the whole and everything to distract and derail it. I honestly think Anita is one of the worst things to happen to the discussion of female representation, portrayal and feminism in gaming for what she has turned the discussions into. What few points she may have is lost in a sea of her own lack of journalistic integrity and the pile machine she keeps feeding.

I would agree with you that by having every triple A company trying for the same audience and doing the same thing, it is not a safe or reliable plan, but no individual company likes to take risks and the industry itself is just an assortment of individual companies, most now run by corporate culture and people at top who simply do not care about the product they make. And the industry has had over 30 years of not targeting the female demographic the same as the male, from back in the days of arcades. 30 years of not buying the product nearly as much does nothing but lend to the assumptions of the bean counters that they have who they should be marketing too. And any outreach they try often does fail, very true. Hell, a lot of the failure is because they try to market the female demographic with the same sort of stereotypes hey use to market to males, only without a quality game mechanic underneath. Again, a result of corporate culture and the ones calling the shots having no interest in actually making good games, merely selling games. The exception I would think would be Nintendo, as apparent by their not shifting their efforts to fps and brown pallet gaming, though they in turn fall victim more to the aspect I mentioned in my last post: less plot means less likely female characters. Nintendo has never been great with rich plot or deep stories, and worry more about reliable and fun gameplay. Hell, Samus, Dixie kong and the female pokemon trainers show off the general "flour sack" think I talked about too. But nintendo is also resting on its laurels and never changes the story of any of its games. You still stopping the metroids, rescuing DK or his banana and being the very best in every subsequent game. And nintendo is not one for new IP either.

so most of the triple A industry doesn't care because they are so wrapped in marketing and corporate bs, while the ones most likely to at least use more female characters are caught in loop of churning out new games that have to be like the old ones, thus only allowing them to try to make gameplay better (which is good) but allows them to ignore any sort of story, and thus character as well.

But I would say it is not helpless, even once we acknowledge the limits to likelihood companies have to actually change. Kickstarters can do much to show a demand which will make companies pay closer attention. No one pays attention to the person who doesn't buy their product when they have plenty who do, especially when them not buying it is already assumed and calculated as a risk. What does stand out is when the people written off go en mass to support a competitor. All the more when the competitor has much less resources. When notch hit it big with minecraft, developers payed attention. God, the rise of "open world games" as a buzz word showed they didn't understand the appeal quite right, but that they did pay attention. And the games inspired by that game, such as terraria or cubeworld showed that even if developers didn't jump on the idea, other indies sure did and released quality follow up games (even if cubeworld updates once every 6 months, i is still a decent game for a 2 man team).

The thing is, Anita is more well known than anyone else I know of on the topic. She gets the most attention for better or worse.
Until someone can eclipse her, or at least get as well known as her, she's likely to be the go-to person on this topic.
Like it or not, she's pretty much the champion of the cause due to being more of a household name than, say, Jim Sterling who's a better, IMO in presentation.
People can criticise her all they want, but until someone who can do a better job arises, odds are she'll be the only one listened to.
Sadly, I don't see anyone really qualified on the subject, and job trying to take her place as opposed to criticise her to no end.


You talk sense about the business practices up until kickstarters, IMO. Kickstarters are extremely unlikely to generate the money needed to make a game, and not likely to generate a profit, so due to it only showing interest and not necessarily profit, they're likely to ignore it completely.
It doesn't help any that Double Fine failed with their kickstarter attempt in that they asked for a certain amount of money, but, despite reaching that point, needed more as development costs grew unexpectedly.

As far as Nintendo goes, they seem most likely to have games with gender select. Yeah, it might amount to a sack of flour character, but it's closer than not having gender select, and having to play as a dude, so it's something better. It's nothing to live off of in gaming, mind you, but it's something.
Sooner or later, diversity'll be necessary.

Despite Terrarria, and Minecraft going to console, and the success, it seems like a pet project to game companies more than anything. I doubt they're saying "Wow, that forumla was really successful! We shoulf make a AAA version of that, huh?"
And if a winning formula isn't getting copied by the big leagues trying to cash in on it, it's really unlikely they'll emulate the idea of female protagonists. I really don't see Indie games changing anything.
If an indie game were to change the industry's views on female protagonists, it deserves more awards than those that exists. Even a series could be pretty ground breaking if it made the game industry realize female protagonists could be profitable... but then they'll prolly strip the formula, and replace the woman with a guy in hopes of even more money... and probably screw up the formula in the process.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

1: The first giant bomb list is hillariously short. I think you meant the long unsorted list that goes back to the dawn of gaming and counts games where you have to play the game first as a guy to unlock a woman to play as, or play as a woman for even the briefrst part of the game. Pretty sure foreign language games are in there, too. That's not really helpful, nor does it offer a lot of hope for the future.
http://www.giantbomb.com/female-protagonists/3015-2287/characters/

Did you really not see the 345 results on the right from Ada Wong to Zelda? That is quite a lot of characters to write off.

2: The second list counts women who aren't the main boss, and also counts women that join your party, and stop being antagonists and become NPCs in your group. That wasn't quite what the guy was getting at, I think, when he said women as the main villain, plus you play as a woman.

Yes, because the opposite of the protagonist is the antagonist. A boss is nothing more than someone that opposes the player for their own aims. And since I got a message from the person about how the game Portal was a "point taken", particularly with a popular game that fits the qualifications I think this is more what you want in games.

The third list is pretty short, and repeditive, too. Most of the games are on steam, though there are some that have gotten to consoles. Not sure if I mentioned it, but my laptop isn't exactly a gaming machine, and I utilize it more for social matters, and work than gaming.

Ok... There's a list for you of games that fit your standards.

What's sexist about princess maker? I'm more irritated that it's basically PC exclusive. But do you play as the princess, or the guy raising her? I forget. pretty sure it's the latter.

You get a lot of people not enjoying the game for whatever reason and you play as a counselor. Imagine the counselor being male or female, but you never see yourself.

I'm not really looking at AAA so much as wanting to focus on console games, to be blunt. I recently got a 2ds to try and get away from my problems with console games.
Not everyone wants to game purely on the indie circuit either. Believe me, i don't. Do note I said purely. Doesn't mean I won't play an indie game.

I do know of games women like to play, being one.
Gender neutral genres are murky, and generally not what I'm talking about in games with female protagonists.

Yes, my list is very selective. It's about female protagonists in games where you only play as female. That's the whole point of what I'm talking about. It certainly helps to have sights set on console games that came out in the past 5 years, and games coming out.

All of this still doesn't say much about genres preferred or anything about gameplay that people like, just that the criteria is limited.

And why not play as an ugly woman every once in a while?

Been there, done that...

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Quina_Quen

345 results since 1983? That factors into 11 women a year in games. round abouts, but before you get happy here, lets consider several things:
Not all of them from english games. Considering I don't want to learn another language just to game more, those are gunna have to be deducted. I'm not alone in this. It's pretty unreasonable to expect it.
They count gender select characters, which aren't to be included in my list. As venerable as Femshep is, she's not the star of her own game.
Some of whom are system exclusive. I'm pretty SoL as are others if I don't have that system, huh?
Some of whom are only briefly playable in a game that you otherwise play as a guy in. Well, I don't buy games to play as a guy unless they're pretty stellar, and I don't buy games to play as a female for only a fraction of the game.
Some of whom are only playble after beating the game as a guy. Having said that, I don't want the game spoiled before I even get to play as the female.
Some are NPC members of your party. I generally have to pick those up over time, and, well, they're NPCs. Side characters, not people you ply as from start to finish, starring in their own game. Deduct those.
The list is really padded by fighting game women. Fighting games, despite, ironically, being one of the greatest sources of playable women doesn't fit my list because those games don't focus on one character from start to end. No one has their own game in that.
It covers even the briefest of indie games.
Basically the list is so dilluted with stuff that doesn't apply to what I want, it's practically useless.
That list is includes things invalid to my argument and in no way invalidates my grievances with the industry. It's not just the lack of female characters for me to play, and apparently reeasonably have access to as you're saying I should have a gaming PC, a Dreamcast, an NES, a N64, a gamecube, and pretty much every system under the sun, then the free time to track down the older games on the list, isn't the entirity of my problem with the industry.

Lemme ask, how many games with female protagonists you play as from start to finish, with no jumping through hoops to get there, are we getting next year? And the year after that? What systems? Will the games be any good, and well marketed, or pretty much set up to fail against the male competition? What's the future of female repreentation, and the modern times of it?
That's what really important. Going retro, and expecting people to buy old systems, nevermind buy multiple systems, and track down old games is pretty unreasonable. One really should consider "What if I have all the games off that list I can reasonably get, and I beat them all, and have no more intense drive to play them anymore? What's going to be coming out? What's new?" I'm pretty close there now, though a 3ds opened up my options a lil'bit.

Consider people just coming into games. The sort of people that can make you more money as they are willing, and able to spend it. Making them jump through hoops to get into what you want them to buy is only going to take you so far, if it takes you anywhere at all.

How is it even remotely inviting to basically say "Oh, we don't really include you these days. If you want to game as your own gender, go buy old stuff, and be sure to pick up a bunch of old systems."
In otherwords, I'm looking at a bigger picture than just what I want. I'm looking out for potential newcomers to gaming which is going to be necessary.


Instead of inviting in more customers, the industry's more interested in segregating them away while they focus on an group that can't support the entire industry. At least not until so much compeititon dies off that monoplies happen. Oh wait, that's kinda happening now. CoD, and MW are practiclaly unchallenged, most sports games are only liscenced to one studio and competition is hard to mount. GTA is killing pretty much every open world game to where it's really hard to compete.
So why do people try and compete instead of take the paths of least resistance?

Since your point was accepted by the guy that made the list, I'm not interested in continuing talking about it. I only had a horse in the race because I figured you were splitting hairs trying to pad the list with stuff that doesn't necessarily fit.

The third list fails to fix the prolems with lack of representation in the console arena, though, doesn't it? PC isn't the only gaming system.

If it's obvious via gendered words implying that you're a guy, you're a guy in a game. It's not fun overlooking it coz either way you're reminded of the gender of the character you're playing.

I like playing most anything under the sun so long as it's not reliant on PVP, or comes with a subscription fee. I've a prefereence for console games, too.
Since I like playing virtually anything that I can get my hands on that interests me, making a list of what I want in -a- game is absurd.

It certainly helps when it's possible to play as a female. Even as a nameless/faceless entity as in X-Com it's more tolerable than being referred to as a dude the entire game.
One game isn't going to fill the gap in gaming as one game cannot be all things to someone.
Hence why I am vague. What's needed is a lot of female lead games of various genres that aren't almost entirely PC only.

Quina is not a playable female character that you play as from start to finish, she's a party member. Having an NPC in your party =/= playing as them from start to finish.
Playing as a female character for a fraction of the game's total play time = cop out.
They don't apply to the list.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I don't agree with your views on one, and 2. It's reasonable to me since guys get 1, and 2 all the time.

1 on it's own is reasonable. Add point two into the equation and you're excluding loads of games arbitrarily.

On 3, Gears of war you might have a point on.
Farcry 3? I think it'd make a huge difference what with Citra, and the pregnancy theme here, and there.

Well for my example I was assuming Citra would be a man in this case in which case the game would remain pretty much unchanged.

The recent Tomb Raider seemed like it took too much from the Uncharted series to the point you're probably right on that.
I don't agree that applies equally.
Lets look at Red Dead Redemption. Jane marston having her wife, and son held hostage while Jane Marston has to do the government's bidding? Maybe if it were her husband instead of wife. Then there's Bonnie's flirting with John which would prolly have to be altered. I really don't think they'd interact the same if John were Jane.

You thought Bonnie was flirting with Marston? I saw it as the other way round. I've not played the game in years anyway so maybe I'm remembering that wrong. But same as above, it would be Jane Marston having her husband and daughter held hostage.

Similar comes up when we come up to Michael in GTAV.

Same as above.

Getting away from Rockstar, Catherine would definitely get a bit warped if the protagonist were a woman, wouldn't it?

Not if it were Valerie Brooks dealing with an incubus called Christopher.

God of War? Again, family would have to be altered, wouldn't it? And the orgies. Unless there's going to be a somewhat rampant lesbian theme through the series, anyhow. I wouldn't complain, personally.

You see the running theme here? I'll elaborate next.

There's a lot of games where gender isn't interchangeable as freely as you insist. At least for guy protagonist games. mainly the ones where the guy has a romantic relationship with a woman, which is quite a few of them. As much of a fan as I am of LGBT themes, another area I think is sorely underserved, I don't think these plots would be what was envisioned for the male protagonists.

And that's my point, the only thing that would change about these games the only thing would be their sexual preference, and to prevent that changing all you have to do is gender swap their love interest.
They remain the same character with the same motivations, skills, flaws and strengths.

4: Because there's games out there that are male power fantasies told from a male point of view, seen through a male view.
Few games feel really neutral.
Basically it's a matter of experiencing the game as a female character. Not being reminded you're playing as a guy every second you're on the screen, and by every NPC that ever speaks to you. Yeah, it's tolerable every now and then to play as the opposite gender, but almost all the time?
I mean how is it neutral that you're reminded of the gender of the character you're playing all the time?

Please note, the following refers to gender neutral games where you can play as either gender.
I see this as a cop-out. You're using an arbitrary, general, partially subjective and easily manipulated term to group together a bunch of games where the only similarity is saving the world/country/whatever. The term "male power fantasy" not only assumes great swathes of things about the games themselves and why they were designed that way, but also on how the user consumes them.

The gender neutral games I was referring to were Mass Effect, Dragon Age Origins type games. Where you can play as either gender and like above, the only thing that changes is your potential love interests (and in some of the "everybody is bi" games that doesn't even change.

5: You're probably right as far as PC gaming being more mature, but that doesn't mean the console market can't catch up.

It might catch up the level PC gaming was on but if the trend continues then PC gaming will always be ahead of the curve in this regard.

I'd PC game if I felt like it was as easy as Console gaming, but most of my stints in PC gaming show that's not the case. Torchlight had issues with going into windowed mode, I can't run Vindictus worth a damn, I can't run warframe worth a damn, I tried to emulate road war 2000, a game from the Dos days, and it went hillariously bad. I got several free games from GoG, and most wouldn't run on my laptop, and I found out I miss a controller a lot. That said, controller compatibility is never guarenteed without possibly a program that's spyware for some place in china.
Modding wasn't as quick and easy as people make it out to be.
I'd have to use the PC exclusively for gaming. Heaven help me if I catch a virus on it somehow. And I'll have to remember to keep it optimized as PC performance tends to degrade as it keeps a lot of junk to take up space, fragment the disk, and slow it down in general.
Maybe next time I get a system, I'll get a more gaming aimed PC instead, though I doubt I'll have a ton to spend on it, and put up with all the headaches that come with PC gaming.
Oh, is it just me, or is it hard to get PC games from a brick, and mortar store?

A sacrifice I might willingly make in your situation.
If you want to avoid issues running games you will have invest significantly for your initial purchase, but it becomes much cheaper from then on out as you wont have to buy a new system for a very long time and can simply upgrade parts as required. Factor in the reduced cost of the games themselves an, well it's like insulating your house. Yes it will cost a fair chunk of money, but you'll make that back in reduced costs over a year or two, and then it's all profit.
This is a bit off topic though.

The thing about making -a- game towards my request is that, well, like anyone, I'd assume, one game will never really cut it. Not forever. New experiences wil be craved, and it's unlikely a single game will ever cover them all. If such a perfect game were made, then the industry would prolly go broke.
So, yeah, you're right. I'd prolly be dissapointed on some levels with the game no matter what. It's why I'd want multiple games.

Fair point.

I mean, has any game ever perfectly suited all your needs from a videogame? If you ever wanted to hit some virutal person with a baseball bat, or you just wanted to sit down and admire your work sculpting a landscape, or build a home, or stealthily sneak into a building to steal someting valueable, play an RTS, amd so forth, would one game cover all of that?

You are correct, but there's a point where this stops being an gender related ethical issue and becomes simply an issue of personal preference, I think you have crossed that line.

I liek a wide variety of things in gaming. I'll play most any game under the sun if I can get my hands on it, even if I don't think I'll like it. It helps to have something I want, though. NBA Jam's a male dominated game as one would expect, but there's Team EA, and SSX, both of which have women, which brightened the hell out of my mood.

Did you not play NBA Jam because it's male dominated? As somebody who loves that game it seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The gender has nothing to do with the gameplay, the game has no story to be gender weighted. If you like basketball or even Looney Tunes cartoons, that game should appeal to you.
If you couldn't enjoy that game because the NBA characters were (naturally) male then I would say the problem is with you, not the game or the industry. Beside the character models, there would be literally no difference between an NBA Jam game and a WNBA Jam game. It isn't a game where you're supposed to empathise or identify with your character, they are simply a tool for putting a ball through a hole.
It's like not playing pong because you can't play as a female paddle.

Racing games, tactical games, sims, RPGs, T/FPSes I love diversity. The only thing I don't dig is straight PvP. It tends to lead to me meeting a buncha people that give gaming a bad name. I'm unlucky like that.

It's a sad fact that people often get nasty when things get competitive. You only have to look at Football (or soccer) teams to see that.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree on points 1, and 2, then since you find it unreasonable to balance the fact that there's dozens of games per year that are guy only.

If Citra was a man, the whole pregnancy arc would be to try an impregnate the main character, probably. I think that's quite a large change. The levels of creepiness could vary a lot. Heck it was creepy the way it is.

Yeah, I thought Bonnie was flirting with Marston. To be fair she didn't know he was married, I figure. John seems a bit loyal to really flirt considering he brings it up to prostitutes a lot that he's married. It's not like that'd stop every guy.
I wouldn't complain if it were Jane Marston or Michelle De-Santa as main characters, but R* seems adverse to female leads. They hadn't utlized one since Oni, and that was a joint game with Bungie.

I'll skip the rest of the family/main character gender swapping stuff, and get to the point. The point is, it could happen, but it doesn't. Just because it could happen doesn't make things better. It doesn't raise the amount of playable female protagonists.

Gender Neutral games where you can play as both genders are pretty limited in scope of story as everyhing has sync because there's a single script, romances aside, and living off those, and those alone is a pretty unreasonable thing to suggest. They don't even come out all that frequently, and they do vary in quality, but are largely RPGs.
Don't get me wrong, they're nice to play once, or twice, and that there's some LGBT options is really nice, but pretending a handful of games over the span of a few years repairs the problem is stretching it.

5: Yeah, PC may be ahead of the curve in maturity, but consoles can still mature to the point where I can't really complain.

I'm not willing to put up with the headache of PC gaming just yet. I've too much time constraints to deal with something that isn't going to work quickly.

Nah, I haven't crossed the line. Putting out a very small amount of games that provide 1, and 2 on my list is under representation. It just gives ammo for people complaining about the lack of representation as the few playable women in games get overscrutinized because they're so prominent, and NPCs are, well, they're NPCs. NPCs are nice, but they're no replacement for playable characters.
Those handful of games don't always cover genres well, either.

I must've been more tired than I thought last night as people are misunderstnading.
I do have NBA Jam.

There is no WNBA Jam. WNBA doesn't even piggyback on NBA games. Infact there's not much in th way of sports games with female athletes, is there?
If you wanna pretend there's no problems with the lack of female representation in sports games, that's up to you.

Yeah, and I'm not a fan of being around nasty people. I enjoy civility.

 

[Bonecrusher]

I think the collective fawning over KiteTales is evidence of how badly Sarkeesian's detractors want a sensible counter-argument.
Her response is essentially a 13 minute strawman

It is really hard to explain why Anita Sarkeesian's ideas are wrong and her behavior towards games and gaming culture is wrong, in a simple post.
There are tons of videos explaining these in every detail.
But there are some people see "us" as enemies, an "obstacle" to woman rights and modernism.
Even you quickly tag KiteTales with "strawman"...

I can write a huge article about Anita Sarkeesian and her view of gaming is not really helpful towards games and woman rights.
But who cares? People just call names to opposition of Anita, and whatever we write, we tell, we explain, Anita's popularity will make her "the Hero" and us "the Haters".

Am I exaggerating? Maybe.
But even in Bob Chipman's editorial, I only see one-sided attitude. He doesn't explain why those events happened. He just claims those events happened because they were women and gamers hate women.

 

[Do4600]

They attacked her for "stealing" let's play footage, even though, A.) she has the right to use this footage under Fair Use and B.) Let's Player are breaking copyright laws and are the real thieves.

Okay, how about I attack her for having $160,000 to produce the show, buying a mountain of video games which she then takes pictures with, and then instead of using that resource to get her own footage that explicitly captures the quality she's looking for, she uses youtube footage. That's so lazy, especially if you already have money and because of money you have plenty of time to produce these episodes, think about that. She doesn't even take the time to film the video games she bought, which she claims she's passionate about, and is trying to argue have sexist overtones, how much do you suppose she actually cares about this if she's not even passionate enough to find the actual examples in the source material? This is the equivalent of citing Wikipedia articles on an academic paper. Not only that but if she's just skipping through "let's play" videos she's also viewing the source material out of context, which is the worst possible way of examining evidence, and would lead to her things like oh...I don't know...making a claim about a moment out of context when the context surrounding that moment doesn't support the claim that she's making.

On the other end of the spectrum, James Rolfe, who is an entertainer, not even an activist, films and edits every aspect of his episodes even before he was paid for it.

With $160,000 you could send video off for professional post production, I'm not even asking for that, I'm asking that she uses her own footage in support of her own arguments, very simple.

Feminism is a great movement and she's its worst proponent, but she's also the most visible proponent in the entertainment industry.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I agree that they don't get as much flak with male models as they do female models. And you're right. Odds are males have never been handled like that.
Maybe if females weren't handled like that, and more like guys, something positive could happen? Have they ever been handled like the guys get handled?
That fear is going to have to be gotten over, IMO, or else the gaming industry will never get passed being called sexist, and what not.

Women's representation in games is a mess for certain.

But Arnita says that treating them like males is also just mysoginistic and sexist.. because its simply attributing masculine criteria to a female character.. thus making it a male with tits basicly.

See even if you try to find a solution you can shoot it down with her argumentation in an instant. There is no room whatsoever for female chars to shine if you really follow her arguments taking her entire work and not only tropes vs. women into account.

And you cant have one without the other, after all that would be rather dishonest now wouldnt it?

According to ms Sarkesian her opinions are also undeniable "FACTS":

There IS a patriarchy entitiy at work trying to actively surpress womens rights in everydays live.

It DOES use video games to reinforce gender biased stereotypes and thus influences people to treat females negatively in RL.

Violence against women IS ALLWAYS not acceptable no matter the context.

Attributing male positive qualities to a female IS mysoginistic.

These extremes all leave no room to move for anyone and sound more like the ramblings of a fanatic then a real critic.

No matter what you do.. even if youre a female developer writing a female char you will be sexist to Arnita Sarkesian. Why?

Because she said so! Thats why.

I never said Anita was the perfect spokeswoman. I don't entirely agree with her.
Thing is she'll never go away until someone else becomes the go to name over the issues of representation of women either by equal, or greater fame. I don't really see people rushing to compete with her, me included as I suck at talking to people beyond forums.

See, the issues exists according to many, that there's problems with women's representation in gaming. People talk about this. Anita is invariably brought up because she's the most famous figure related to the issue. People perpetuate the hate on Anita. ALl in all Anita gets talked about more, and more.
There's a saying
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
Oscar Wilde
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 - 1900)

As for treating women like men, well, I'm not saying to treat all women like men. Just some. Treat other women other ways. Just so long as it's not uniform treatment, and the women are the stars of the game, people complaining about representation will likely see some representation they do like. Kinda takes the sting out of being bombarded with the more or less uniform treatment women get now where they're often scantily clad, and improperly dressed to be out in public outside of special occassions.

So you really don't think there's men out there that hate women? I hadn't looked, but I'd say it's a safe bet there's a website or two dedicated to allowing guys that hate women to get together, and trade ideas.
I'm not saying it's illuminati level world wide power, but dismissing that they exist, and thus not really giving a damn what jobs they hold seems a bit, well, messed up.

Well, motives aside, there is a "conventional wisdom" in the gaming industry that women hurt game sales. Bioshock Infinite's moving of Elisabeth, Naughty Dog deciding not to move the little girl (Ellie? Jodie? I'm bad with names.) to the back of the box, for instance.
And market testers leaving women out.
They make an effort to -not- give a damn about what women want, it seems.

Violence against women. That's pretty sticky. Always wrong? No. Overly done as a theme to women who've done nothing to deserve it aside from be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and/or knowing the wrong people? Yeah, in the big picture it sucks ass. Women geting victimized coz they're women, and the game designers being unable to be arsed to make it a guy once in a while.
Meaninglessly killing people, male or female? Sucks.
A female enemy coming at you with the intent on killing you? 'z okay in my book.
Women in fightng games? Sure, they know what they're getting in to story wise.
Of course I have more complex views on the issue.

As towards attributing anyhing to women, I'm really not representative of the average woman so my opinions are just my opinions. Honestly, I just want variety so more women feel like they can relate to someone of their own gender in a game.
Making one female protagonist won't satisfy everyone. *Shrugs*

 

[DarkSpartan]

I'll give KiteTales one thing: Her production values are considerably better. She credits others when appropriate, and presents a more moderate voice that at least has the appearance of academic rigor.

So whilst I'm not about to "fawn" all over her, I do see her as another voice to add to the discussion. This one just happens to want to see a balanced view of the subject matter, rather than Anita's ultimatums. I saw her Master's paper, and what she wants in a feminist recasting wouldn't make a very good game.

I recommend everyone have a look-- it's available free of charge, and comes to some... Interesting conclusions.

 

[DarkSpartan]

Okay, how about I attack her for having $160,000 to produce the show, buying a mountain of video games which she then takes pictures with, and then instead of using that resource to get her own footage that explicitly captures the quality she's looking for, she uses youtube footage.

Not to nit-pick your argument, but you make an assumption here on facts that are not in evidence-- she has a crew, some of which no doubt own games themselves. it is therefore entirely possible that the pile of games you're seeing is not, in fact, games she spent the KS money on, but the conglomeration of other people's collections.

It would certainly fit in with her other noted behavior. Without seeing paper receipts, we'll never know the provenance of the collection in that photo. It's entirely possible that the photo you're referring to is older than the Kickstarter.

 

[AdagioBoognish]

snip

snip

Call me a nitpicking nerd if you must but this has been bugging me.

Why do you keep referring to what Samus was wearing at the end of Metroid [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQppamJoDqc] as a Bikini, as in swim wear?

Wouldn't the much simpler explanation be that under her armour she is wearing underwear?

Anyone else read Dune? I'm pretty sure as an individual that goes to planets with extreme environments Samus must be wearing something like a still suit under her armor. It'd be thin, form fitting, and used in conjunction with her armor to regulate body temperature and recycle water, which is crazy essential when fighting aliens on a foreign planet.

 

[Bonecrusher]

But there are some people see "us" as enemies, an "obstacle" to woman rights and modernism.

Honestly, have you considered that you might be?

But even in Bob Chipman's editorial, I only see one-sided attitude. He doesn't explain why those events happened. He just claims those events happened because they were women and gamers hate women.

He's not wrong.

See, that's the negative behaviour I'm talking about.

People like you just see everything around you, or what we do as a big conspiracy towards female rights...

Let me tell you about something.
There are many gamers that oppose to Anita's feminist view, but still support women rights and support female gamers and female characters.

The problem with Anita is, she already concluded to a result. She believes all male gamers hate women, and the games are made to oppress the women rights. In her videos, she twists the facts in order to fit her result. This is not a fair and ethical behaviour. You need to make the idea around the facts, not the facts around the idea. This is why we don't like Anita, not for she is a woman.

In gaming communities, there are well appraised games with female protagonist like Portal, Oni, No One Lives Forever 1/2, Beyond Good & Evil, American McGee's Alice... These are some of the most loved games for the alleged "women hater" male gamers. I'd be happy to see sequels to those games, and I am sure male gamers will, too. Many fan-favorite RPG classics like Fallout 1/2, Morrowind, World Of Warcraft, VTM Bloodlines, Baldur's Gate 1/2, Diablo 1/2, Kotor 1/2 enable to choose male/female sex for the character. But Anita still argues that male audience of all these games hate women or plot againsts the women rights, just because Mario and Zelda games used "Damsel in Distress" stories...

But you know what, nevermind... It is hard to discuss this situation with someone already jumped to the conclusion. You still think the story Bob Chipman told is the whole event, and there is no other side of those events. So what can we do to express and explain ourselves, when you already reached to the end...