What's with all the "ism's" as of late?

[CloudAtlas]

(everything)

Thank you, you saved me some time here.
I just played Gone Home yesterday, you could add that to your list as well.

 

[chattycathy]

Ugh, you're such a GAMEIST!

 

[Stu35]

For the last few months, I've been seeing a rise in the forums of people talking about the various ism's (sexism, feminism, racism, est.) Maybe it's just, but why is it every week that I keep seeing "is X game racist" this, or "sexuality in game" that, and so on. Admittedly, I'm not big on any of that, But I just want to know why there so much discussion here, on the escapist, as of late?

Short answer?

Some people are cunts, which leads to other people overthinking shit.

Slightly longer answer?

The interweberverse (tm) is full of cunts, cunts who, when given the relative anonymity of the medium, will use it to express their every little vitriolic, hateful, spiteful comment. Immature teenage boys, when not presented with a situation in which they are forced to behave a certain way (as happens in real life), will take out the pain caused every percieved rejection by the girl they fancy in class, every time they've been called a name, beaten up, or any other interaction with another teenage boy, it all comes out.

In the form of squeaky, horrible, racist, misogynist ranting. And threats to do things to my mum.

The joke of course, being entirely on them; my mum would break them in half.

That causes a metaphorical allergic response from the opposite view - everything on the planet gets viewed through a spectrum of "There are teenage boys out there who are cunts, will this in any way teach them to not be cunts? If not then should it be a thing?".

As with any allergic response, the motives are good (an attempt to cleans the metaphorical body of things which may harm it), but it's over the top, and without properly being tempered by antihistamines, actually just makes things a whole lot worse.

 

[Megalodon]

My issue with the need to say "some" is the same issue that I have with the need to say "in my opinion." It's a pointlessly semantical qualifier. It should be obvious when someone states an opinion that what they're saying is an opinion; they shouldn't have to qualify it as that. Conversely, in this situation, CloutAtlas shouldn't have to "some" either and there's no need to get hung up on the semantics of it either.

The context of CloudAtlas' post makes it clear that they're pointing to a growing trend of mature storytelling in games as of late, rather than it being an all-or-none situation. The point, then, that I was making to Faluva was that asking for a list is an inefficient way of dealing with the debate at hand. Arguing over semantics is also an inefficient way of dealing with the debate at hand.

I'll try again to explain my viewpoint, don't think I did it well enough last time.
At the moment there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus about how to treat the games industry, people refer in it as a single entity, which I think is a mistake. It runs such a wide spectrum of products and fans that treating it as one homogeneous mass is doing everyone a disservice. You don't see people making sweeping statements about Cricket fans because football fans have been fighting, but when it comes to games, we're all lumped under 'gamers'. However it is precisely this sort of blanket statement that crops up far too often in -ism 'debates'. From claims that video games promote discrimination against women to the 23/12/13 Jimquisition, there seems to be a trend to treat 'gamers' as some omniscient hive mind with influence wherever a controller is wielded. This is then reflected in the threads such claims spawn, rapidly turning into 2 sides further entrenching their positions and dismissing the equally vehement opposition as white knights/feminazis/MRAs/whatever the go-to put down is.

You say the addition of "some" is pointless semantics, but its absence makes the statement appear like one of these sweeping generalisations that blight threads about -isms. My irritation about such generalisations being what prompted me to post in the first place.

At its simplest, I'd say it comes down to this. We're using an unfortunately limited form of communication. Typed responses are very easy to misinterpret/misread/skim over (which is what I did to this thread this morning), and lose some/all of the intended meaning. In such an environment, the clearer you can make your statements the better. In this light, while not strictly necessary, I think that the addition of "some" as a qualifier would have been useful, not pointless, semantics.

It shouldn't be about the all (in your case) or none (in Faluva's case), but rather if the trend exists or not.

Eh, this confuses me. Where was I arguing for 'all'? My point was that was the impression given by the lack of qualifiers in CloudAtlas's initial statement. I thought I stated clearly in my first post that there seems to be a trend towards such games.

To illustrate this, I was waiting for someone to point out that some of the examples that I listed were rather old and shouldn't be held as an example of this trend. And they would've been correct, too, which is kind of the entire point.

See I'd say there that the majority of those titles are either recent (last 3/4 years), or are franchises with recent instalments (which help[ to blur the line somewhat). On the other hand, is the increase is such games in recent years merely due to the overall expansion of video games as a medium?

 

[Exhuminator]

If their complaining never makes any impact, how come your comment telling them to change their tune will be any different?

We merely disclose what we believe publicly only to reinforce self affirmation, not because we hope others will actually change their minds as a result. Changing the rigid personally held beliefs of others via forum debate is a truly rare event.

 

[Qvar]

or ideas being turned down because "female leads don't sell", "we should not have women on the cover of retail games" or "it's ok and accepted for male leads to get a romantic interest, but women? ewww gross", there is an -ism problem with this industry.

Unless market research says that they are actually right. Whose problem is then? Theirs because they don't want to give the public what should be a standard by now, or ours because we don't want to buy what is politically correct?

Sure, there won't be more female players until they can more easily identify with the lead characters, but good luck convincing companies to inmolate their profits to be the equalitarism martyrs.

 

[Erttheking]

If their complaining never makes any impact, how come your comment telling them to change their tune will be any different?

We merely disclose what we believe publicly only to reinforce self affirmation, not because we hope others will actually change their minds as a result. Changing the rigid personally held beliefs of others via forum debate is a truly rare event.

No offense, but it does kind of sound like you're doing the same thing you were criticizing others for doing.

 

[Exhuminator]

No offense, but it does kind of sound like you're doing the same thing you were criticizing others for doing.

And what exactly is that?

 

[Erttheking]

No offense, but it does kind of sound like you're doing the same thing you were criticizing others for doing.

And what exactly is that?

Well, you were getting on people for complaining on the internet about the way people act by complaining on the internet about the way people act.

I could be missing the point here, please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Exhuminator]

Well, you were getting on people for complaining on the internet about the way people act by complaining on the internet about the way people act.

Perhaps you should reexamine my original post in this thread.

I was "getting on people" for complaining about video games having too much feminism/racism in them, when in reality it would be better for said people to concern themselves with activism towards feminism/racism in the labor market first. While it might be unsettling to see females/minorities exploited in certain video games, I find it far more unsettling to see struggling single mothers or minorities butting their heads against the occupational glass ceiling in real life. So I think activism towards equality in labor is more important than activism towards equality in entertainment. That is not to say equality in entertainment is not important. But it is far more secondary to serious labor market problems females/minorities face 24/7, rather than when you see it fictionalized in a video game.

 

[Erttheking]

Well, you were getting on people for complaining on the internet about the way people act by complaining on the internet about the way people act.

Perhaps you should reexamine my original post in this thread.

I was "getting on people" for complaining about video games having too much feminism/racism in them, when in reality it would be better for said people to concern themselves with activism towards feminism/racism in the labor market first. While it might be unsettling to see females/minorities exploited in certain video games, I find it far more unsettling to see struggling single mothers or minorities butting their heads against the occupational glass ceiling in real life. So I think activism towards equality in labor is more important than activism towards equality in entertainment. That is not to say equality in entertainment is not important. But it is far more secondary to serious every day problems females/minorities face 24/7, rather than when you see it fictionalized in a video game.

Ah. Fair enough. I would just like to say it is very possible to be upset about both. There seems to be a mindset out there that if you care about problems that some people would deem small, you must not care about bigger problems. In most cases, this is simply untrue. I care about both of those problems. I care about the lack of women in games, and how crazy assholes in Texas are talking about kidnapping them for daring to want to get an abortion. I care about the lack of gay people in games, and how yesterday a gay man was sodomized with a bottle by Neo-Nazis in Russia.

Not to mention I care about the isms in gaming simply because I am a gamer and a writer who cares about the quality of games.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

If we're being honest, that one about Street Fighter is the first one in a while that I've seen, but still I can't help but roll my eyes and wonder why we have to go over every bit of art with the lens of isms instead of just enjoying it for what it is. Esp. since I'm fairly certain that most people who bring up the isms don't even truly understand what they mean.

 

[Islandbuffilo]

I think its because were in a generation were the people who want everything to be a "deep", "moving", "thought provoking", "artistic" statement of some sort, rather than just pure entertainment, something to make you seem high horse. This has happen with music, writing, and movies (although it waxes and wanes.) So its only logical it happens with games, or at least is attempted, I'm sure it will die down in about 7 years. We're also at a point were people feel they NEED to be represented in many, not all, but many games just for the sake of them existing, regardless if it was planned out by the makers or not, this is fine when it comes to games were the player IS a character ( shepard, the chosen undead, the dovahkiin, the arisen, etc) and is not playing an established character (Kratos, Sora, Katt, lighting etc)and we have this please all of the people all of the time to a T mentality as well.

 

[CloudAtlas]

If we're being honest, that one about Street Fighter is the first one in a while that I've seen, but still I can't help but roll my eyes and wonder why we have to go over every bit of art with the lens of isms instead of just enjoying it for what it is.

Well now that only works for you as long as your enjoyment is not diminished precisely by the presence of certain "-isms", doesn't it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

If we're being honest, that one about Street Fighter is the first one in a while that I've seen, but still I can't help but roll my eyes and wonder why we have to go over every bit of art with the lens of isms instead of just enjoying it for what it is.

Well now that only works for you as long as your enjoyment is not diminished precisely by the presence of certain "-isms", doesn't it.

Well if you go looking for isms you're certain to find them, whether they were intentional or not.

 

[CloudAtlas]

I think its because were in a generation were the people who want everything to be a "deep", "moving", "thought provoking", "artistic" statement of some sort, rather than just pure entertainment, something to make you seem high horse. This has happen with music, writing, and movies (although it waxes and wanes.) So its only logical it happens with games, or at least is attempted, I'm sure it will die down in about 7 years.

Did it ever occur to you that some people genuinely enjoy stories that have a bit more depth than your typical Michael Bay movie or Call of Duty game, and don't just say so because they want to appear smart?

 

[CloudAtlas]

If we're being honest, that one about Street Fighter is the first one in a while that I've seen, but still I can't help but roll my eyes and wonder why we have to go over every bit of art with the lens of isms instead of just enjoying it for what it is.

Well now that only works for you as long as your enjoyment is not diminished precisely by the presence of certain "-isms", doesn't it.

Well if you go looking for isms you're certain to find them, whether they were intentional or not.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Intentions don't matter all that much.

 

[Islandbuffilo]

I think its because were in a generation were the people who want everything to be a "deep", "moving", "thought provoking", "artistic" statement of some sort, rather than just pure entertainment, something to make you seem high horse. This has happen with music, writing, and movies (although it waxes and wanes.) So its only logical it happens with games, or at least is attempted, I'm sure it will die down in about 7 years.

Did it ever occur to you that some people genuinely enjoy stories that have a bit more depth than your typical Michael Bay movie or Call of Duty game, and don't just say so because they want to appear smart?

I'm sure people do, doesn't mean the other group still exist, the term vocal minority exist for a reason.