What actually happens if feminists take over the industry?

[renegade7]

I guess this is the big question I have to ask of the whole gamergate controversy. Inevitably the issue seems to fall back to "SJWs" which appears to be a dig at feminists due to the association with tumblr, who are conspiring to wield ideological influence over the video game journalism and video game development industries.

So the question I ask is this: how would you, the player, be harmed/inconvenienced/threatened if every single developer and journalist were to, tomorrow, become a feminist?

Or I guess another way to put it: what would happen if every single developer and journalist were to become MRAs? Atheists? Christians? Liberals? Republicans? Socialists? Gay rights activists? How do the personal politics of people you don't even know have any effect at all on you? The thing is, people normally don't base their every single decision about how to approach their work on their politics.

Or, let's examine the less extreme and infinitely more likely case, that a pro-feminist attitude were to seep into the industry (like it hasn't already, in one of the most left-leaning industries in the world). We get more feminist themes in games? What does that even mean, and how is that a problem? If it means women being treated with a bit more respect in the industry, among the playerbase, and in the games, then you know what, I'm all for it, because that's all that feminists are asking for in regards to video games. I can't possibly be the only male gamer who's kind of sick of "Female armor", boring characters, and the way trolls in online games treat female players.

But, back to the gamergate argument, assuming this is true, what exactly is the feminists' endgame? What I seem to be hearing is that they want to force their ideologies on the development process. But what exactly do they gain from that? If it's to build a propaganda machine, I kind of have my doubts. There have been propaganda games created in the past, all of them were miserable, laughable failures. If the concern is that they are going to replace every single video game with feminist propaganda, then just think for a couple minutes about how feasible such a thing would actually be, because to enforce censorship on such a grand scale they'd have to not only take over video games but infiltrate into the highest levels of government in sufficient numbers to thoroughly re-write anti-censorship laws if their goal is to ban anything that disagrees with them. "Unrealistic" is the word that comes to mind.

So this all breaks down into my final question: what are we actually worried about?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Seems to me that the problem isn't that things will get worse, it's that people will have to admit that things aren't great for everyone as they are. That what works for them isn't what works for everyone, and they have an unfair advantage.

 

[clinicalPsychologist]

I think many people on the GamerGate side that aren't concerned only about journalistic ethics but about "feminist agenda" as well feel insulted by the critical pieces made by feminists. They tend to read it as an attack on the whole game, and thus, they read it as insulting themselves for liking that game. At least I read that very, very often. I find it a bit sad, because even if there are people who actually mean this in an insulting way (I've seen some of that on tumblr, but I stop reading such things immediately, because why should I read this?), most people who are accused of it (e.g. Anita Sarkeesian as prominent example) actually don't mean it that way.
Buuut yeah if something you like is in any way critisized you tend to get defensive and probably not listen all that closely, you just get in that mindset "no she is wrong! wrong! wrong! because I liked that game!"

Nevermind that she actually states in her disclamer at the beginning of each video that you CAN like a piece of media and still point out the parts of it that MAY be problematic. Also she is not saying "ban this all" or "you are sexist for liking this", she is pointing out that the parts in the GAMES are sexist (this does not imply people who make or enjoy it are sexist) and because it's in such a wide range of games, it would be nice to tune that down in later development processes. Many people actually agree that that probably would make more interesting games, even if they are not feminist, because yeah same tropes every game get boring.

So yeah I think it's mostly that people read it as a personal attack and feel like they are called immoral and that's what they don't like about it. I guess only very few, really sexist people would actually say that they like 100% of their games just be titilation for male gamers with ridicoulous female represantation (at least the grown ups). Sure, some games, who doesn't like them? But not all, that is insulting and even sexist against men I think, because it implies that all men care for are T&A, which I know is not true, they like to be challenged by their media and have interesting characters, too. It all boils down to feeling insulted, but yeah, you can't really do anything against that because often they are SO convinced that it is meant in an insulting way that they don't listen if you say "I don't mean to say you are sexist for liking this; I like it too! But still, this particular part is sexist in my opinion, because..." They still think you want to insult them (not everyone of course)