The New York Times Criticizes The Last of Us for Having a Male Protagonist

[Rebel_Raven]

Then again, there's also implied attempted rape of Ellie in TLOU, and it hasn't gained controversy either, which makes me think that the people who start controversies about these games aren't the same people who actually *play* games.

...What? What implied attempted rape of Ellie? I'm pretty sure that never happened. yells that if Ellie is allowed to be free, she'll just be raped and murdered, but that's as far as any rape implications go.

Well, by "tank" I meant hold agro in general, not necessarily take damage. I'm not sure if there's a monicker for people who hold agro and dodge/block everything, negating damage as much as possible.

Blink tank.

You quoted the wrong person in the first part. I never said anyting about the threat of rape on Ellie.

Blink tank? huh I though that was exclusive to Final Fantasy XI. Much appreciated for the info.

 

[Kopikatsu]

The thing is the game is realistic-ish, and there are just no women in US special forces. Just none. They won't pass the physical requirements. Unless it's transgender, like that MMA ex-guy who is now controversially literally smashing women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0hgmFdLw8

Thanks for the links.

The physical requirements for women in law enforcement are literally half that of men, which was done because not enough women were passing the exam.

But then you realize that a certain level of physical strength is absolutely necessary when you're going to be dealing with life or death situations on occasion.

Blink tank? huh I though that was exclusive to Final Fantasy XI. Much appreciated for the info.

Blink tank has been used since the early 90's.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Her movement isn't getting fought hard by gaming media because, well, her statements have roots in truth, unlike Mr. Thompson.

Its because she is female and gaming "journalist " would rather label all gamers as misogynists than dare tell a woman she is wrong

Great article btw, shows a hatred of men while complaining about sexism, but thats feminism for you

So you're saying she's wrong in pointing out that there is sexism in the videogame industry?

Not really, but you're free to interpret it as you will

My point was that everyone on both sides are sexist as hell, feminists openly define everyone by gender. The idea that a game having a male character is an act of sexism , is itself sexist

I'd like to think not all feminists are terrible terrible people, and vice versa.

I just asked so I didn't get my interpretation wrong.

And on the flip side of what you brought up, the game industry relegating women to the back of the box, making the female character a male, denying female characters outright, fighting to lower their agency in a game, emphasising the female gender as the one getting victimized in large quantities, not taking the time to ask women their opinions in a focus group, blaming female protagonists for why a game fails when it could be many other reasons, and so forth is pretty sexist, too.

Thats a lot of questions for one sentence

It should always be up to the makers of the game who they put in and how they portray them, no ifs, no buts.
Turning a female character into a man because something money yarda is stupid, the blatant pandering some games do is really hurting me interest in games
"denying female characters outright, fighting to lower their agency in a game" can you give some examples, not really sure what you mean
The truth is most of this is down to one of the greatest evils developed countries face, marketing, not sexism exactly but it is everything wrong with humanity call it sexism if you want but it is also responsible for people like Anita Sarkieen

Sorry if I went overboard on the questions. Well, it's not really questions, it's my opinion.

Denying female characters outright?
http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/05/01/god-of-war-ascension-multiplayer/ or http://www.gameinformer.com/games/god_of_war_ascension/b/ps3/archive/2012/04/30/sony-unveils-god-of-war-ascensions-multiplayer.aspx
http://www.gamecritics.com/brad-gallaway/brink-no-girls-allowed
http://www.giantbomb.com/sleeping-dogs/3030-29441/
Maybee
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/28/dragon-age-iiis-gaider-on-the-impracticality-of-sexism/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RockPaperShotgun+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%29

I gotta wonder how a woman is expected to change the "conventional wisdom" is no one's going to let her?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

That shed any light on things?

I don't buy the marketing excuse. Women are increasingly interested in videogames, and are still being left out of the loop.
Market testing is flawed. Societal pressures cause skewed answers, people say what they think sounds good, but don't fully believe in what they say.
Market testing doesn't really test the market so much as get a focused group of like minded people in a less than random group.
Companies chase CoD dollars, but fail to realise they're not going to make that sort of bank unless CoD goes away.
IMO, games loose their soul when they bust out the checklist of tihngs to have. The transofmration from Overstrike to Fuse is a lamentable example of how market testing is flawed, and likely how people are chasing CoD bucks in my opinion.

The definition of sexism as is follows:
Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

The game industry is well in that category.

Yes, humanity has it's radicals, and overly passionate people on all sides of the matter. Hell, I'm guilty about being passionate about wanting female protagonsits in games, and some good representation every now and then to boot.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Just wait as Anita Sarkeesian will tell you how Mai oppresses you and has to go.

Vietnam was full of sex (and drugs and violence). Remember that film that I recommended? It's about a hooker too (an ex-Vietcong hooker no less). The film is just beautiful. It's very Buddhist spiritual. If you're okay with watching pirated stuff it's full there (in 10 parts_: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU972dRWy64

Vietcong 2: I'll just leave it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tBS4EUUEBI (the guys at the end of the outro cutscene are from the American campaign).

Eh, I don't like shooting women. Fallout 3, I could because everyone's so ugly faced But seriously, in the original Fallouts I'd cease fire if a woman enemy was low on HP and running away. (One game in FO2 I played as a total pacifist, I only fought animals and never humans.)

The thing is the game is realistic-ish, and there are just no women in US special forces. Just none. They won't pass the physical requirements. Unless it's transgender, like that MMA ex-guy who is now controversially literally smashing women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0hgmFdLw8

Thanks for the links.

I'll wait, and see what Anita says on Mai, and odds are really good I'll thoroughly disagree with her on most, of not all her points.
Like I said before, Mai is far from the standard woman in King of Fighters.

Movies are kinda apples and oranges comapred to videogames. Movies are rarely interactive. I appreciate the recommendation, though.

As for Vietcong 2, I gotta say, I'm actually impressed that they have you in the role of the Vietcong at times, and shows some of their point of view. I really, and truly was impressed. It's a sad thing that soldiers do horrible things in the line of duty. It can't be good for mental, and emotional health.
Do they do anything with the US soldiers that pulled less than ethical things?

If you don't like shooting/harming women, I'm okay with that. there's absolutely nothing wrong with that preference. It's nice to have the option to not kill women, isn't it?
It in itself isn't bad, but it does raise an interesting problem. Guys use the fact that most of the enemy fodder are men as ammo against people speaking out against sexism in the industry, overlooking the fact that it's often used to try and silence the person complaining.
And there's people who don't like hurting women, and don't want them in the enemy forces.
There's no easy answer there short of not having every game have women as fodder enemies, but it's still going to be men as the majority of fodder unless we take steps back into the PC era where enemies are commonly robots (TMNT)... or no one really dies (G.I Joe.).
You know, it's kinda funny. Games rarely deal with people who realize they're in over their head, and surrender, or run away. The last one I remember was Skyrim, but as soon as they're in the clear from the figting, they come right back at you. It becomes something of an all or nothing life and death struggle.
I dunno, any thoughts?

Red Dead Redemption springs to mind. On one hand, there's a trophy for lassoing a woman, and leaving her on railroad tracks. But there's random missions where women are involved, and they either legitimately need a lift, want to steal your horse, or they call for help because men are forcing her to be bait in an ambush. There's a woefully short mission where you track down someone who took a man's horse, but all is not as it seems! The person you're after is one of the greatest female NPCs I've ever had the pleasure to encounter, and desperately wished there was more of her in the game... but she vanishes.
All these women are optional kills.

While you do say it jokingly that the women are ugly in fallout 3, I'd like to add that I agree in a non joking way, and it's true in New Vegas, too, for the most part. Making your own female character isn't a walk in the park. You'll look diffirent from the face creation engine once you're out in the world.
I like looking awesome, and the face construction engine in fallout 3, and 4 is woefully inadequate in that. :/
There's not many times I pine for better graphics.

As for women in the special forces, women were hard pressed to even get on the front lines, and had to sue for the chance. Once they get the chance, who knows?

 

[Schadrach]

Then again, there's also implied attempted rape of Ellie in TLOU, and it hasn't gained controversy either, which makes me think that the people who start controversies about these games aren't the same people who actually *play* games.

...What? What implied attempted rape of Ellie? I'm pretty sure that never happened. yells that if Ellie is allowed to be free, she'll just be raped and murdered, but that's as far as any rape implications go.

Well, by "tank" I meant hold agro in general, not necessarily take damage. I'm not sure if there's a monicker for people who hold agro and dodge/block everything, negating damage as much as possible.

Blink tank.

You meant to quote me on the first part, but I was referring to $SPOILER_NAME in the Winter chapter, and essentially the only real "boss fight" in the game (unless you want to count that first bloater). Just pay attention to how he acts towards her before they get ready to kill her, and how she acts after she kills him. It's pretty clear what its being implied he was going to do.

Also, interview with his voice actor (note: spoileriffic):

 

[Kopikatsu]

You meant to quote me on the first part, but I was referring to $SPOILER_NAME in the Winter chapter, and essentially the only real "boss fight" in the game (unless you want to count that first bloater). Just pay attention to how he acts towards her before they get ready to kill her, and how she acts after she kills him. It's pretty clear what its being implied he was going to do.

Also, interview with his voice actor (note: spoileriffic):

He said he wanted her to join their group (Of which there were other women and children there, which they obviously cared about because the first thing he said when things start going south is 'Take the women and children and get them to a safe place!'), and was just nice to her- probably because he was a calm, charismatic person.

I'm really confused as to how anyone would take away 'If a man is nice to a girl, it's because he wants to have sex with her' from their interaction. Also, I didn't really notice anything that supported that in the interview, but I did just skim it.

 

[Schadrach]

Oooohh... I see. My mistake, then. I didn't realize there'd be 2 scenes where the protagonist has a sex scene, not that it's under the most ideal of situations when he's having intercourse. It's arguable he's even participating in the one you brought up.
Eugh. What a stomache turning notion. X(

Here's the real question: Would you consider it "arguable" if a woman is participating if a man gave her hallucinogenic drugs and had sex with her while she was tripping? Most wouldn't even question it.

And again, Keith. Sold to a man as a sex slave.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Oooohh... I see. My mistake, then. I didn't realize there'd be 2 scenes where the protagonist has a sex scene, not that it's under the most ideal of situations when he's having intercourse. It's arguable he's even participating in the one you brought up.
Eugh. What a stomache turning notion. X(

Here's the real question: Would you consider it "arguable" if a woman is participating if a man gave her hallucinogenic drugs and had sex with her while she was tripping? Most wouldn't even question it.

And again, Keith. Sold to a man as a sex slave.

Honestly, if she knew the guy used drugs in sex, and was genuinely liking him with that knowledge, it'd be arguable to me. Some people are into that. Who am I to judge? People engage in dangerous sex.

When I said it was arguable, I was talking about towards the end of the game. By then, I'm sure it's safe to assume he knows how Citra rolls when it comes to copulation.

Without context? Anyone drugging anyone to have intercourse with them without conscnt is wrong. As I said some people are into that. That's on them if they're conscenting adults.

And yes, Keith being sold as a sex slave is as bad as if one of the women were sold as sex slaves. I'm not sure what you want me to say about it. I can't say it makes everything all better as far as my view of the gaming industry goes.
I'm not a champion of equality, feminism, or sarkeesianism, honestly, I'm a gamer trying to get more women as protagonists, especially in their own game. That's where my passion is.

I can play devil's advocate some, when in the mood, but it's not really me. I'm not a master debater, and I'm not that great of a diplomat.

edit: Also, I meant to comment on Keith, but lately I've been having browser problems, and my posts have gotten lost more than once, and today's been hectic, so I likely ended up not commenting on it as I meant to. Sorry about that.

 

[generals3]

Huh, and yet here people are claiming that she's caling sexism on the game industry? The overused tropes is a part of it. It repeatedly shines a light on the woman being the victim. It's a part of that whole sexism in the industry problem.

That's a way to interpret it but unfortunately it isn't the evidence of sexism. And for every female victim you have 1000 male ones. The only thing that is happening in the videogame industry is that most protagonists are men. Women are not being victimized more. That's just narrow-minded silliness coming from Anita.

On the point of harassment, unless there's a camera, the harasser will never see the ethnicity of the person they're harassing. Voice isn't always telling of ethnicity as there's black people in the UK, france, etc. Do people really say "I'm black!" in their bio? Do harassers even look at a person's bio?
If you don't tell people your religion, you're not going to get harassed about it, are you? Unless you are on video, and have religious symbols, or something.
A lot of that harassment seems like it'd be either a lucky guess, or baseless since it's things that have to be broadcast.

I've seen people get insulted on the GR chat in CoH because their name was arab-sounding. (Muhamed, etc.) The amount of dirty muslim terrorist nonsense flying around was astonishing. And that chat is also often filled with people shitting on jews, gays, blacks, etc. all the time. No specific player is targeted but imagine if in one way or an other those morons got to know a player fit those traits? The fact it's harder to hide you're a woman doesn't suddenly transform the fact the internet is filled with assholes who'd use any difference against anyone into it being filled with sexists. And this is a key aspect you need to understand. Because you'll NEVER solve the sexist attacks by trying to fight sexism. The reason why is because most of those people are probably not even sexist, they just like to abuse anonymity to be assholes. The only way to fix the problem is by fixing the attitude of people online in general, which won't ever happen i fear.

Hell, I'd wager pre-pubescent boys don't get much age-related flak as women do gender specefic flak.

I don't know for sure but being 12y old is one of the most used insults on the net. I was called a 12y old asshole yesterday for killing a guy repeatedly in CoD.

How are devs making women shallow sex objects? By writing shallow women, and presenting them sexily? That'd basically be how.

The problem here is that we aren't talking about women but a bunch of pixels. On top of that it seems you have entered rape apologist territory. Being sexy =/= sex object. There are women fighting for that in RL.

Lipstick? Again? You've never heard of little boys screwing around with their mother's makeup? Not that women would appreciate their expensive lipstick being used as toys, but why not see what sort of makeup boys would like more?
Little boys aside, some men do use lipstick in costume, in their lifestyle as transvestites, drag queens, and so forth. Oh, and in their work as makeup artists. Heck, watch an episode of faceoff, and see the vast majority of the make-up artists on there be guys.

The fact you don't see where you are going wrong is worrying me. The reason WHY is because you shouldn't give a shit about minority consumers. You aren't going to listen to 10% of you costumer and ignore the main target "just because". You aren't going to ask women what they think of the new coke zero ad either. Doing that would be idiotic.

Pixels that are REPRESENTATIVE OF FEMALES. I "give a fuck." We've been through this before. Must we rehash this?

And since when do we give a fuck about the rights of pixels? Do you know why excluding women in RL is bad? Because the excluded persons are being disadvantaged/harmed. Since when do we care about pixels being disadvantaged/harmed? I know the expression "first world problem" but this is taking it a tad too far. Female pixels being excluded is not/cannot/should not be a problem in itself. It may cause you problems because you like female pixels but that's about as far as the problem gets.

You know what? If you wanna hide sexism behind the shield of making money, go ahead. Just don't point that at me again. I'm not going ever buy it. I deem that sort of business bad, and it's not going to make me smile if I ever have to do business with people like that, if I ever do business with people like that.

I'm not hiding anything. You're trying to hide an economic issue behind a social one. And I think you're going to smile a lot if you ever do business. Sex based segmentation in marketing is still heavily used. (And the reason why is because it's still very useful)

 

[Smeatza]

I juuust wanted to be sure where he stood so I didn't accuse him of anything wrongfully. Never can tell when someone who thinks the gaming industry is fine as is is around.

I didn't touch the first part because I wasn't disagreeing with him. And as I said before, misandry is wrong. Sexism is wrong.

Frankly I liked his own defense better.

I'm not defending anything. I'm using your sensationalism to exemplify why people are wary of certain political groups (like Feminism).
Justify it however you want but your response to his statement deliberately ignored important information and in doing so misrepresented his position.

Oh and for the record, Sarkeesian is wrong.
She has no overarching point outside of "Look at these examples, I think they're sexist."
And when you consider the fact her examples and deliberately misleading, deceitful and devoid of context, well, she hasn't got anything left to be right about.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

So, Dinosaur planet had a Brother AND sister -team- in which the sister was a choice of character from the get go according to the vid you linked me. And yet krystal gets removed from being selectable, gets played only briefly, and is pretty much a DiD. And I'd say the concept art is more modest than what she ended up wearing in starfox adventures.

So, in essense, krystal was still playable, she ended up not playable in the final produce in favor of a male only lead, and ended up a DiD for a considerable length in the game. I'm not really sure if that's any better than what Sarkeesian's spin on it.

So, here you are, conveniently ignoring the fact krystal was playable even though the proof was in your own link, focusing on the male protagonist only as if that's the only thing that matters. I dare say you're doing what you hate Sarkeesian for in misrepresenting your side.

Validity in her arguments? The damsel in distress trope, and the variants are pretty widely used. They certainly were back in the day, too. I don't see her as wrong on that matter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJbTWlyk4Uk (from the same author, but about part 2) is about her as well as you, to a degree.

Seriously, you seem to have no problem with playing as a vaguely humanoid alien fox creature, but only if it's a female? What?

A Vietnam game that was supposed to be all about the "war is hell" aspect of it as a theme was Shellshock '67, except it turned out to be a really bad and cheesy game that felt like some exploitation film about Vietnam made by Italians in the 1980s. And the sequel Blood Trails went into a campy direction so much that it introduced biological warfare zombies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10eQBSRju7k

The 1990 Amiga survival RPG Lost Patrol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GHmI5ioLUg was so much better as a "serious" game, even as it feels really minimalistic today and players need to put their imagination to work. It's also crazy to think that much more time has passed since it was released, then between the war's end and the game's release... makes me feel old.

*Sigh* So much anger, and lack of civility in that critic, it's such a turn off. So much for being professional? Also, lets not forget that I never said Anita was professional, either.
You do raelize he doesn't entirely disagree with her despite being angry at her? He says as much.
Even her critics are usually willing to concede some points. Of course it generally boils down to the theme of hating on her as a person, and not necessarily what it is she brings up, which is kinda comforting in they're not really dense enough to not see the problems women have in the industry.

Seriously, what part of "I prefer playing as female characters" haven't you grasped so far? I really enjoy playing my own gender, and getting that representation in a game.
I've spent decades largely playing as guys. I've seeen a lot of the average male protagonists from their limited portfolio of personalities, and appearances. I'm jaded towards playing more guys because they rarely stand out from one another. I really do want to enjoy the person I'll be spending, on average 10 hours with, beating their game, and longer than that if there's reason to go back and complete things, or the game's interesting/amusing enough. If I can't gel with the protagonist somehow, or another, I really don't want the game as they'll annoy me to no end.

That's not to say I don't like ANY male characters. It helps a lot if they actually stand out from the crowd, though. John Marston, Deadpool, Batman. People in their own games I've eagerly gotten, and played, or am looking forward to doing that. Also Lee Everett from The Walking Dead game from tell tale games.

I've played many a game that switched from male to female perspectives, and played many a game that made be be a guy before I could be a girl, not that I enjoyed all the experiences.

And more than anything, I spent decades playing games that had only male protagonists.

Fox? He never really grabbed my attention.
Krystal? I'll never raelly know since she got relegated, largely, to unplayable. At least I could've related to her more due to shared gender, eh? But realistically, odds are, she'd get treated like a woman from what little dialogue I've seen. Were she still a character option, gender would've mattered to the NPCs to some extent. It's really nice when a game does take gender into account.
No, not all games need to take gender into account, but I'd like to not worry if I'll see another game like that any time soon.
The female PoV in a game is raelly interesting coz it's so damned rare I get to experience it. Believe me, finding out why it's so bleeding rare was just rubbing salt in the wounds. That, to this day, it goes on, and no doubt will continue on for some time just keeps the salt in my wounds.

As for military games, I generally prefer Rainbow Six: Vegas 1, and 2. I get to be a professional military woman, and I get to carry the big guns and not get penalized for it! The tactical pacing of it is pretty nice, too.
I've gotten quite a soft spot for the MG36 with that lovely beta mag, and built in scope, and the p-90 thanks in part to Ghost in the Shell's interpretation of it, and the Stargate series using it a great deal.
The glock 18 makes me giddy as machine pistols are really awesome, nevermind Glocks being pretty awesome in and of themselves.

My significant other loves pretty much anything made by Heckler and Koch. I can't say I blame her on that as the company makes some nice products. She also digs the Raging Bull.
We played together a lot in co-op for a while. Ah, fond memories.
I guess you could say I'm something of a tomboy.

But as far as warfare goes, I honestly prefer pre-20th century, or outright fantasy in movies, and in games. The older, the better. Kessen, Romance of the three Kingdoms, Nobunaga's Ambition, Shogun Total War, Warlords: battlecry III and Civilizations even though it's not a dedicated war game as far as games go.
Yeah, I kinda dwell in asia's history of warfare, I guess. Being half Korean, it's the closest I can get to a connection to my heritage. <.<
Melee fights tend to be more interesting to me. Especially visually.

Some futuristic shooters are alright. Mass effect, namely.
Fallouts are pretty nice, too.

I like apocalyptic scenarios, and zomtbies. Both of them together? Generally appealing!
The only thing that really stopped me from getting Last of Us was the worry I'd not like Joel as a person, and not based solely on his gender, and the fact I'd play as him most of the time.
Also I've never liked escort missions in games, and the game seemed like one big one, and then there's the worry of Ellie as a character, and how she's handled as an ally due to the game seeming like one big escort mission. On that note, I don't automatically like a character just because she's female. All being female does, really, is get my attention more.
None the less, I've been talked into getting the game, and once my budget allows it, I will.

Few modern shooters, and wargames, including ones set in the last 113 years, get my attention. Not just because they generally omit women as playable, but because they're gray, and brown, and gritty, and/or "realistic."
I alrady know war is hell.
Still, I can be impressed at learning there's games that take that facet seriously, and dwell on them a bit. It's an ugly side of war most are scared to show.
I can also be less impressed when it doesn't really do much but demonize the enemies.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Huh, and yet here people are claiming that she's caling sexism on the game industry? The overused tropes is a part of it. It repeatedly shines a light on the woman being the victim. It's a part of that whole sexism in the industry problem.

That's a way to interpret it but unfortunately it isn't the evidence of sexism. And for every female victim you have 1000 male ones. The only thing that is happening in the videogame industry is that most protagonists are men. Women are not being victimized more. That's just narrow-minded silliness coming from Anita.

On the point of harassment, unless there's a camera, the harasser will never see the ethnicity of the person they're harassing. Voice isn't always telling of ethnicity as there's black people in the UK, france, etc. Do people really say "I'm black!" in their bio? Do harassers even look at a person's bio?
If you don't tell people your religion, you're not going to get harassed about it, are you? Unless you are on video, and have religious symbols, or something.
A lot of that harassment seems like it'd be either a lucky guess, or baseless since it's things that have to be broadcast.

I've seen people get insulted on the GR chat in CoH because their name was arab-sounding. (Muhamed, etc.) The amount of dirty muslim terrorist nonsense flying around was astonishing. And that chat is also often filled with people shitting on jews, gays, blacks, etc. all the time. No specific player is targeted but imagine if in one way or an other those morons got to know a player fit those traits? The fact it's harder to hide you're a woman doesn't suddenly transform the fact the internet is filled with assholes who'd use any difference against anyone into it being filled with sexists. And this is a key aspect you need to understand. Because you'll NEVER solve the sexist attacks by trying to fight sexism. The reason why is because most of those people are probably not even sexist, they just like to abuse anonymity to be assholes. The only way to fix the problem is by fixing the attitude of people online in general, which won't ever happen i fear.

Hell, I'd wager pre-pubescent boys don't get much age-related flak as women do gender specefic flak.

I don't know for sure but being 12y old is one of the most used insults on the net. I was called a 12y old asshole yesterday for killing a guy repeatedly in CoD.

How are devs making women shallow sex objects? By writing shallow women, and presenting them sexily? That'd basically be how.

The problem here is that we aren't talking about women but a bunch of pixels. On top of that it seems you have entered rape apologist territory. Being sexy =/= sex object. There are women fighting for that in RL.

Lipstick? Again? You've never heard of little boys screwing around with their mother's makeup? Not that women would appreciate their expensive lipstick being used as toys, but why not see what sort of makeup boys would like more?
Little boys aside, some men do use lipstick in costume, in their lifestyle as transvestites, drag queens, and so forth. Oh, and in their work as makeup artists. Heck, watch an episode of faceoff, and see the vast majority of the make-up artists on there be guys.

The fact you don't see where you are going wrong is worrying me. The reason WHY is because you shouldn't give a shit about minority consumers. You aren't going to listen to 10% of you costumer and ignore the main target "just because". You aren't going to ask women what they think of the new coke zero ad either. Doing that would be idiotic.

Pixels that are REPRESENTATIVE OF FEMALES. I "give a fuck." We've been through this before. Must we rehash this?

And since when do we give a fuck about the rights of pixels? Do you know why excluding women in RL is bad? Because the excluded persons are being disadvantaged/harmed. Since when do we care about pixels being disadvantaged/harmed? I know the expression "first world problem" but this is taking it a tad too far. Female pixels being excluded is not/cannot/should not be a problem in itself. It may cause you problems because you like female pixels but that's about as far as the problem gets.

You know what? If you wanna hide sexism behind the shield of making money, go ahead. Just don't point that at me again. I'm not going ever buy it. I deem that sort of business bad, and it's not going to make me smile if I ever have to do business with people like that, if I ever do business with people like that.

I'm not hiding anything. You're trying to hide an economic issue behind a social one. And I think you're going to smile a lot if you ever do business. Sex based segmentation in marketing is still heavily used. (And the reason why is because it's still very useful)

There's a diffirence between damsels in distress, and nameless fodder men you kill. The diffirence is that the nameless fodder men are trying to kill you, too. And when you kill them, they all don't get a dramatic cutscene for their death throes. Games generally don't make a huge deal over it.

And you say it like I have a problem with female enemies?

I know there's a lot of hatred for the people in the middle east. A buncha bad apples hadn't done them any favors in that department.
Still, just because they sound like they're Arabic doesn't mean they are. Until it's verified, any accusations are baseless.
Yeah, it'll suck if the random bigotry ends up hitting close to home! No kidding! But the odds of it hitting close to home?

Who says I'm trying to fix the problem of people being assholes on the internet? I'm just pointing out it exists, and it's not welcome. I know damn well I can't fix humanity. No one can.
Still, I can at least hope that eventually the game industry will at least act like they're neutral on genders.

Yeah, it's common to call someone pre-pubescent in games, but again, it's pretty baseless most of the time.

Again, those pixels -represent- a female.

"rape apologist territory?" You'll pardon me if I don't know what that is.
I'm well aware that being sexy =/= sex object. Sex object generally denotes a lack of human attributes beyond the sexiness.

I worry you? It goes both ways, here. You're willing to deny representation of potential customers in the name of "business" even though it'd fall squarely in the definition of sexism.

Again, those pixels represent a gender. A gender that gets shafted, and hated on. It cuts into the representation, and doesn't exactly invite the real people the gender of the pixels represent to join in.
That sort of business is, well, dumb. If you have 75% of the people buying your stuff, why not invite the other 25% and get profits from them, too?
It doesn't mean you have to stop catering to your current fan base.

Listen, the game industry can make it's money (even though the game industry claims it's failing in general, and people genuinely fear another gaming crash. Possibly because they're not welcoming more customers?) but it doesn't have to drag it's slimy carcass over "minorities" to do it. Infact it might be self-defeating to do so.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I juuust wanted to be sure where he stood so I didn't accuse him of anything wrongfully. Never can tell when someone who thinks the gaming industry is fine as is is around.

I didn't touch the first part because I wasn't disagreeing with him. And as I said before, misandry is wrong. Sexism is wrong.

Frankly I liked his own defense better.

I'm not defending anything. I'm using your sensationalism to exemplify why people are wary of certain political groups (like Feminism).
Justify it however you want but your response to his statement deliberately ignored important information and in doing so misrepresented his position.

Oh and for the record, Sarkeesian is wrong.
She has no overarching point outside of "Look at these examples, I think they're sexist."
And when you consider the fact her examples and deliberately misleading, deceitful and devoid of context, well, she hasn't got anything left to be right about.

I never claimed to be perfect. No one is perfect. No post is perfect. Hell, I've lost post all over the place yesterday due to computer problems, and had to rewrite a lot from scratch. Chaotic as I am, I'll miss things.

You're not telling me anything I don't already know in you pointing out that every movement has it's bad apples. Dosen't mean I can't listen to their points. It doesn't mean I have to listen to them, either. Or like them, or not like them.

You don't agree with Sarkeesian? I never said you had to. You are entitled to your opinion, but don't expect me to take it as gospel.

 

[generals3]

There's a diffirence between damsels in distress, and nameless fodder men you kill. The diffirence is that the nameless fodder men are trying to kill you, too. And when you kill them, they all don't get a dramatic cutscene for their death throes. Games generally don't make a huge deal over it.

And the fact they don't make a huge deal over it is actually something that works against the point you're trying to make. Killing women is always shown as something bad in games, heck even Anita's GTA3 example shows that considering the protagonist is a villain. Female victimization is always shown as bad (ok "always" is an overstatement but you get the point) and as such i can't see how that can work as evidence of sexism. Well I guess it can work as example of sexism towards men... And about that whole point of "they try to kill you too". Well sure but that doesn't change the fact they were victims of my rampage, and nobody forced the protagonist to make these people shoot him, on top of that the whole situation is one of either the male protagonist dies or the npc's, in both cases men die and are victims of the antagonists plans.

And you say it like I have a problem with female enemies?

Well if you have a problem with female victimization you should.

Still, I can at least hope that eventually the game industry will at least act like they're neutral on genders.

That will never happen until tastes are gender neutral. Business is rarely gender neutral because it is inefficient.

Again, those pixels -represent- a female.

"rape apologist territory?" You'll pardon me if I don't know what that is.
I'm well aware that being sexy =/= sex object. Sex object generally denotes a lack of human attributes beyond the sexiness.

The fact they represent females is quite irrelevant to the fact the treatment of said pixels cannot in itself be problematic. Otherwise shooters should de-facto be problematic due to people shooting pixels.

But in many games only speculation allows one to assume said sexualized women are sex objects. Whether it be DOA, Bikini MMORPG's or whatever.

You're willing to deny representation of potential customers in the name of "business" even though it'd fall squarely in the definition of sexism.

That's what we're taught in business school. To make money. I wasn't told to care as much about women when marketing a product mainly purchased by men in my marketing classes and I don't think anyone is being told that. As long as you're not abusing people or the environment everything goes. And since pixels are neither people or the air I can do whatever I want with them to make money, if that means putting dicks on female protagonists so be it.

Again, those pixels represent a gender. A gender that gets shafted, and hated on. It cuts into the representation, and doesn't exactly invite the real people the gender of the pixels represent to join in.
That sort of business is, well, dumb. If you have 75% of the people buying your stuff, why not invite the other 25% and get profits from them, too?
It doesn't mean you have to stop catering to your current fan base.

Listen, the game industry can make it's money (even though the game industry claims it's failing in general, and people genuinely fear another gaming crash. Possibly because they're not welcoming more customers?) but it doesn't have to drag it's slimy carcass over "minorities" to do it. Infact it might be self-defeating to do so.

The reason why you don't invite the 25% is because that's not how it works. You think it's as easy as that to increase your costumer base? What probably happens is that while trying to invite the 25% you're alienating the 75% and are left with a lower costumer base. If it was possible to get everyone and do it easily everyone would do it.

I could give you a simple example. Carrefour in Belgium has always struggled exactly because it tried to be "everywhere". You have food retailers like Delhaize which try to aim for the richer people by focusing on quality and asking high prices and on the other end you have food retailers like Colruyt and Aldi which focus on low prices. Meanwhile Carrefour thought it could do both, work on prices and quality. The result? people who want quality go Delhaize, people who want low prices go colruyt or aldi and only very few lost souls go to carrefour. Their attempt at getting everyone (price and quality seekers) got them no one.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

There's a diffirence between damsels in distress, and nameless fodder men you kill. The diffirence is that the nameless fodder men are trying to kill you, too. And when you kill them, they all don't get a dramatic cutscene for their death throes. Games generally don't make a huge deal over it.

And the fact they don't make a huge deal over it is actually something that works against the point you're trying to make. Killing women is always shown as something bad in games, heck even Anita's GTA3 example shows that considering the protagonist is a villain. Female victimization is always shown as bad (ok "always" is an overstatement but you get the point) and as such i can't see how that can work as evidence of sexism. Well I guess it can work as example of sexism towards men... And about that whole point of "they try to kill you too". Well sure but that doesn't change the fact they were victims of my rampage, and nobody forced the protagonist to make these people shoot him, on top of that the whole situation is one of either the male protagonist dies or the npc's, in both cases men die and are victims of the antagonists plans.

If they don't have a problem with it removes the whole point of them using it as an argument, doesn't it? If the people using it as ammo against others don't care, why should the person that they're trying to silence with said ammo?

And you say it like I have a problem with female enemies?

Well if you have a problem with female victimization you should.

There's a large difference between having female enemies as fodder, and making it a point to know that a woman is going to die.
Realistically, anyone taking up arms against someone else should know they put themselves at risk. If a woman was shooting at me, trying to end my life, then taking her out isn't a problem.

Grabbing a guy's innocent wife/girlfriend/daughter/etc. restraining/subduing/kidnapping/mutating her, putting a gun to her head, and blowing her brains out, or making th protagonist do it is not the same thing as shooting a woman trying to shoot you. Not by a lognshot.

That's why I don't have a problem with women as enemies compared to women being turned into a DiD, and even then I don't care if it happens occassionally.

Still, I can at least hope that eventually the game industry will at least act like they're neutral on genders.

That will never happen until tastes are gender neutral. Business is rarely gender neutral because it is inefficient.

Well, maybe if market testers actually market tested properly, they might find out what the people who market tested for Legend of Korra did in that people didn't -care- about the gender of the protagonist, and they'd accept a woman if she was cool.

Again, those pixels -represent- a female.

"rape apologist territory?" You'll pardon me if I don't know what that is.
I'm well aware that being sexy =/= sex object. Sex object generally denotes a lack of human attributes beyond the sexiness.

The fact they represent females is quite irrelevant to the fact the treatment of said pixels cannot in itself be problematic. Otherwise shooters should de-facto be problematic due to people shooting pixels.

But in many games only speculation allows one to assume said sexualized women are sex objects. Whether it be DOA, Bikini MMORPG's or whatever.

I'm sorry, it's not irrelevant. If it was then I wouldn't be here complaining about the crappy treatment the gender those pixels represent get. If it was irrelevent, then there'd be no problem as the representation of women wouldn't be an issue, they'd get representation as protagonists, and there wouldn't be any worry about how they sell. Taste wouldn't be used as an argument in this sort of topic.

The industry cares. I care. It's hypocracy to tell me to not care when it's apparent others do.
Especially when -you- do, too since you're treating the pixels, and code that represent women diffirently than code, anmd pixels that represent men.

You're willing to deny representation of potential customers in the name of "business" even though it'd fall squarely in the definition of sexism.

That's what we're taught in business school. To make money. I wasn't told to care as much about women when marketing a product mainly purchased by men in my marketing classes and I don't think anyone is being told that. As long as you're not abusing people or the environment everything goes. And since pixels are neither people or the air I can do whatever I want with them to make money, if that means putting dicks on female protagonists so be it.

You can question what you're taught, you know.

Again, those pixels represent a gender. A gender that gets shafted, and hated on. It cuts into the representation, and doesn't exactly invite the real people the gender of the pixels represent to join in.
That sort of business is, well, dumb. If you have 75% of the people buying your stuff, why not invite the other 25% and get profits from them, too?
It doesn't mean you have to stop catering to your current fan base.

Listen, the game industry can make it's money (even though the game industry claims it's failing in general, and people genuinely fear another gaming crash. Possibly because they're not welcoming more customers?) but it doesn't have to drag it's slimy carcass over "minorities" to do it. Infact it might be self-defeating to do so.

The reason why you don't invite the 25% is because that's not how it works. You think it's as easy as that to increase your costumer base? What probably happens is that while trying to invite the 25% you're alienating the 75% and are left with a lower costumer base. If it was possible to get everyone and do it easily everyone would do it.

I could give you a simple example. Carrefour in Belgium has always struggled exactly because it tried to be "everywhere". You have food retailers like Delhaize which try to aim for the richer people by focusing on quality and asking high prices and on the other end you have food retailers like Colruyt and Aldi which focus on low prices. Meanwhile Carrefour thought it could do both, work on prices and quality. The result? people who want quality go Delhaize, people who want low prices go colruyt or aldi and only very few lost souls go to carrefour. Their attempt at getting everyone (price and quality seekers) got them no one.

The thing is, that 25% is likely to have a considerable sum of people who'll buy the product of videogames if the industry gave a damn about them, or they'd know someone who would, or would raise to people who would. If people feel good about a product, they'll get it for their kids, and instil, early, a demand for the product.

A bad rep means less word of mouth. Less word of mouth is less advertisement, nevermind less -free- advertisement.

A good rep = more word of mouth. For example, if I see a game with a female protagonist, I tell my significant other, and vice versa. I might be a minority, but it's safe to say I'm not alone in this practice. I have friends who'll do the same for me, too. I'll do the same for anyone I know who wants me to. Hell, I'd do it if they didn't want me to if the game was good enough.

If you don't grow, and adapt your product, or how it's marketed you'll go under. Especially in a field like videogames where the demographics are changing rapidly thanks to generations being born into videogaming, both men, and women. If it wasn't the case, so many videogame companies wouldn't have gone under, especially recently. There wouldn't be any complaints.

Ever consider there might be diffirent reasons for the failures of Carrefour? Perhaps bad locations comapred to the competition? Also, they're attempting to fill niches that were already filled?

No one is really trying to fill the niche of games with female protagonists. There's virtually no competition in that regard. Not that anyone delving into the niche has to specialize in it, but they can put forth a good effort, and make a female protagonist that people would like. Infact, if a female protagonist could get by the poisoned, toxic market testers, then odds are good she'd actually sell to people like that, and the character might actually be popular enough to be the next legendary character.

Think outside the box. Businesses get their start by taking chances, and filling gaps in society. If no one ever took chances like that, we'd be living in the stoneage... scratch that, we wouldn't be here at all. We wouldn't have fire because no one would've played with something that dangerous. We wouldn't have food of any sort if no one took a chance and hunted animals, or attempted to eat plants because some are poisonous.
It's no guarentee that you'll be a success, but there's no guarentee of success.
Infact your "smart businss" practice of using market testers is no guarentee of success. If it were a guarentee of success, then no comapny EVER would EVER go out of business.
And I gotta wonder where we'd be if the minority listened to the majority, and not vice versa. Living on some "flat earth" to say the least.

 

[Dangit2019]

Saying that a game is brought down by having a man as the main character in a game that has little to do with gender issues is just a sexist as criticizing it for having a women.

Also, it may just be my understanding, but perhaps Ellie is the subordinate character because she's fucking 14 years old? What, was she supposed to be a chainsaw wielding badass?

 

[captnb2thep]

I am completely in shock by this article, only because its the New York Times, a very big, respected (by some) publication and I think the grounds for the argument are EXTREMELY weak at best. I always felt like the whole story was centered around Ellie, but you play as Joel, and its just as much about the world that they live in, what it has become.

On the "sexism" front, I find MUCH more issue with the fact that there are NO female hunter enemies in the game at all, there are plenty of female infected, but not a single female human enemy. And ironically I feel like Naughty Dog intentionally did that in order to AVOID a lot of this "violence against women! SEXISM! MISOGYNY" stuff that has been infecting gaming discussions lately.