Women and Minorities in Geek Culture - Penny Arcade are at it again

[karaddin]

Ok apologies for how horrible this OP is going to be, I should have split this topic off from the main feminism thread before the discussion really took off. There has once again been discussion in part prompted by the Tropes vs Women in Video Games video by Anita Sarkeesian, and I've just dumped it all in here via multiquote - I've got another bit to add after the wall of quotes. I'm not sure if mods can just move all those posts across here, if so that would be much cleaner.

Another one more suited to the dead "Women and minorities in Geek culture" series, this piece discusses Facebooks changed policy regarding hate speech based on gender combined with how the youtube "Report offensive content" mechanism was used to briefly get the second

video taken down.

Finally more from Anita Sarkeesian who just seems to attract geek hate, twitter responses to her expressing disappointment that none of the games showcased at E3 feature a female protagonist.

Think we can leave that in here or need to start a new version of that thread?

I swore I made a new thread for this? [Apparently not. Argh.]

It's up to you - I think there's enough divergence in these topics to warrant two threads?

If you make a new thread let me know, I'll go through these links and post a reply there.

Otherwise I'll post my thoughts in this thread.

I think there is enough divergence to justify a separate thread, but I don't have the motivation to start it :P Happy for you to though! Rather than spending another 90minutes crafting an OP like my last couple of threads, I figure next time the urge strikes me I should spend the time doing a second draft of an article I'm thinking about trying to get published here instead. Although I was pondering doing a thread on the growing disconnect between (primarily) conservatives and reality/scientific findings.

Not surprised about that one tbh, gamers are a bastion of sexism, racism and homophobia, mostly because it gets normalised. I think TP has posted some really good stuff on this before, and Anita Sarkeesian is almost single handedly taking on this solid bastion of what not as a sort of figure head, so yes she is going to get a lot of hate.

I wonder if the people amassing all the hate against her have actually watched her stuff, cos she is very level headed and hardly a raging radical sort of agitator.

Considering that showing an ankle was considered sexual during the Victorian era, I'd say this is definitely something to keep in mind.

This

is my favourite response to Anita Sarkeesian's video's. My biggest problem with her series is she has gone into it with a set conclusion and has gone through the games that she has looking for examples to prove her point and then ignored the wider context of the characters that fit the characteristics she dislikes, instead of researching the games and drawing conclusions from them.

Sexism exists in the video gaming industry, there's no denying that. One of the major problems however is marketing. Men and women tend to drift to certain types of games (or this one) that's not to say that either gender wont play other genres its just certain genres are dominated more by one sex then the other. So if a company is going to release a game in an action rpg or a strategy game they are best off appealing to the larger player base of those games aka young males and this can lead up to and above sexualisation of characters of either genders or box covers that will draw a male to it but may put off a female gamer.

The only fair and equal way I see to solve this is try and encourage the opposite gender into the more dominated genres without barging in and demanding that aspects that the other gender enjoys be toned down or removed altogether because you don't approve of it as it just leads to alienation and stupid backlashes by internet going morons whenever they hear a whiff of changes afoot in video games even when they are fair and equal.

Thus ends my rambling post and I just hope it made sense!

But what happens when some of the things that the larger player base likes are the same things driving the rest of the players away?

Oh really? What does she ignore?

Right, and perhaps that's because those games are blatantly marked towards one gender while demeaning another? Or because of societal issues with gender portrayal of which video games are a part?

I mean, the portrayal of women in video gamse and how they are used is part of a wider cultural movement that is really problamatic for how it defines women and their roles. Even your response here plays into it.

Right, so the problem is she might possibly be asking something you like to change. Like, you even acknowledge that as the problem at the end of that paragraph but seem to miss that you are doing the exact same thing.

This isn't a compelling argument.

Catering for the larger player base in order to yield maximum profit.

Yes, I know that's what happens now*. I was asking that question in direct response to Daeric's "fair and equal" solution suggestion.

* Women and girls tend to be underestimated as a percentage of the base, though. I'm also not sure that companies wouldn't turn down an easy road to find a third way - one that would draw in all genders/ages, even if it's losing some of the current players, if it means they end up with a larger playerbase overall.

If a path of least resistance is offered, and it happens to align with certain ideas of social justice, I think companies would be willing to alter some practices. Or does the argument here state that the pursuit of some 'fair and equal' solution is necessarily a better business strategy?

Either that or develop games for the markets they do now, and additional games (in the same genre) to the markets they miss. If they are afraid to lose by making their current games enjoyable to people who don't like the imagery and stories they can always treat those as an other market.

Companies by their nature will look at their bottom line.

So part of the strategy for any movement, revolutionary or reactionary is to make that which is unpalatable to them unpalatable to others.

I applaud Sarkeesian and other feminist gamers for putting forth a cogent - and to me convincing - argument, it's part of why I don't plan to buy many of the mainstream titles. Not to mention as a straight male I find much of the sex appeal kind of sad and/or illogical.

You are wrong on several accounts here.

The first bolded part, she does not go in with a set conclusion, she goes in with a theory and she examines games from a feministic point of view. At which point you need to be both blind, deaf and probably dead to miss that a majority of games use sexist tropes, disempower female characters and objectify women. Maybe not all of these, but very, very rarely none of these.

She is also not looking for examples to prove her point as I stated above as there are, as far as I know, almost no games where one of the above three statements isn't completely true. As for "going looking for games" this is a picture of her and her games, she is a self confessed "gamer chic" so she has played a wide variety of games. I am a gamer and I haven't even played half the games she has. Complaining that she's choosing games to "fit her view" is therefor wrong both in that she has a huge sample size and also because she, like me, would love to find games that aren't sexist, but unfortunately they are so few as to be nearly non existant.

As for your last point, I think I have proved that mostly wrong already in the paragraph above (she has done a lot of research and you need to look very, very hard to find games that *aren't* sexist), but something you wrote interests me a lot. What "wider context" does she need to look in? A wider context that can justify sexist tropes, objectifying of women and the constant disempowering of women does interest me a lot. Which context is that you ave found that she, and I, have missed?

Ah yes, the old "female gamers like the Sims and Disney Princess Games". As it happens, and which Anita points out, 45% of gamers are women. If women in general aren't playing FPS games, then perhaps the developers should ask themselves why that is. Are women genetially pre-disposed to play pretty disney princess and "washing the dishes" games or is there perhaps something else at play?

Also, the video response is totally ignorant. "It's her personal opinion" WTF? "People who receive help from men aren't victim"? This woman is extremely ignorant. Also her explanations of the princess Peach and princess Zelda are ridiculous. She tries so hard to claim "nobody thinks worse of her for what she is". And everything is "just your opinion" since "nobody else agrees with it".

IMHO, the whole thing is ignorant, idiotic and beneath contempt. It's basically "If I repeat to myself a hundred times that I am not a victim of anything and nothing is wrong, it becomes the truth". Not so.

Let me get this straight. You are arguing that male players enjoy games that are sexist, that objectify women and that disempower women? If these component are taken away, male players will enjoy their games less?

What I'd like to know is how the developers and the technical leads and the writers justify to their bosses that the keep on alienating a huge segment

of potential customers who have money to spend. Perhaps if they listened more to Anita Sarkeesian she could advise them on how to solve this problem. 45% of all gamers are women, which is a lot of potential customers and also a lot of money.

The latter I think isn't even particularly bad as it has shown the world what a bunch of inbred mouthbreathing idiots supposedly speak for the gaming community and they have thoroughly embarrassed themselves by showing that they are not even nearly literate and can't actually argue their point against Anita Sarkeesian's finds. It also has brought to light the massive bastion of sexism that gaming has been allowed to be, and maybe it will even bring about a change in perception, since frankly I hope almost universally, the game developers are embarrassed to be seen as backwards and sexist.

What fascinates me in these discussions tends to be strategy games, especially the more niché/hardcore ones. (the kind where Paradox is on the soft end)

Those seems to be extremely male-dominated, yet there doesen't seem to be the kind of sexist marketing that tends to be prevalent in more mainstream games (probably because A) They don't do much marketing and B) there aren't really any characters other than bundles of stats) yet they're still extremely male-dominated. And I honestly don't know why that is.

You may not like the stereotype that each gender has types of game that they deviate to, doesn't mean that its not true or that women can enjoy playing as you put it FPS its just out of those type of games men are a majority, which I would hazard a guess is due to the competitive nature of shooters or rts etc and while recent studies have shown that competitiveness isn't tied to to any one gender males are more likey to adhere to that trait or take the option of competeting.

(had to remove links to other studies in the 2nd quoted text as it wasn't liking them, they are however in the study that I linked just as a fyi)

I really don't get how the sexualisation of both genders in video games (Or are we really believing that the big muscular chiseled male is the norm) automatically leads to the disempowerment of women or that its going to lead to that character being objectified. Whats missing is what background and defining traits that character has, and not jumping straight to the conclusion that the character is a 2d model for the other gender to gawp at.

The rest is just marketing, the thing that just doesn't care at all gender issues. You appeal to the core base of that game type as the cost of games just doesn't make riskier idea feasible and if that core base happens to be more male oriented then you go for the traits that appeal to them.

Until we see the gender ratios in type of games start to equalise, you have all the justification in the world to develop and write for the section of the gaming industry that you work in as capitalism and marketing just doesn't care.

Edit: Quick edit to say thats probably enough, I'll happily read the replies and counter arguments that will result from this post and take on board what is being said but I get the feeling that in the end we wont agree on somethings despite how back and forth we might go and it'd be better to acknowledge each others stand point and stop before frustation sets in.

It's not the norm, but neither is that particular character design a female sexual fantasy. It's - generally speaking - a male power fantasy. Male characters are also less likely objects to be won (or protected or carried).

study: http://link.springer...1199-007-9250-0

opinion: http://www.forbes.co...in-video-games/ (Note that he states that male character aren't / can't be sexualised in video games, and that's why it's not okay for women to complain about female sexualisation. He sees the dichotomy, but assumes things will never change and don't need to ever change.)

mostly opinion, but with some other links thrown in: http://www.doctorner...e-part-2/all/1/

We can disagree on conclusions and possible paths forward, and even end goals, but we can't disagree on starting facts. If someone comes in saying women aren't gamers (like women aren't nerds), they're immediately arguing from different ground. If someone comes in arguing that neither male characters nor female characters are realistic, therefore it all balances, out, they're ignoring the disparate spread, type, and effect.

[karaddin]

They're a majority because it's socially acceptable for males (not just men.) If a person is a juvenile then they may attempt social pressure on others to conform.

Haha competitveness differs between people and context, the trait itself doesn't exist as an abstraction it always has a context and it's not something someone chooses to do or not do.

There are also differing types of competitiveness with oneself to be the best one can also be found across all humans this I term positive competitiveness, but also as creatures focused on what others do, undermining the competition, negative competitiveness. In the book Dune the Harkonnens are examples of negative competitiveness as creatures their intent is to debase all life, an example of positive competitiveness is the test by the Bene Gesserrit on Paul Atreides as to whether the boy is human: will he pull his hand from a box he believes is disintegrating his hand.... and be poisoned and die if he does so, or can he endure any amount of pain to save himself from certain death? Paul's is a extreme example of positive freedom overcoming oneself which a Harkonnen creature could never do always relying on bringing down others to make themselves feel better rather than raising themselves up.

Not every straight male gamer needs his games to double as masturbatory aids, or has to have a helpless female to rescue in a fictional world.

Personally, I'd like to see a lot of the juvenile adolescent pandering taken out of games. I consider it an embarrassment to be honest.

The exaggeration of characters tends to go in the same direction of 'male fantasy' rather than being symmetrical. Which is the point many people have tried to make.

The issue of the ways games are presented touch upon intersectionality, although there is probably also a marketing term for the same phenomenon.

Some modes of gameplay, some types of game, probably do skew to a population that is predominantly male or female. So already a bias before marketing or art gets involved is quite possible. But what those aspects can do is making people feel welcome, even if they don't belong to the majority, or feel unwelcome because they are already a minority and are even more marginalized.

So 'just marketing' can easily make people who are interested in a game feel so uncomfortable that they stay away. Or perhaps so comfortable that they will try the game. The point people like Sarkeesian are trying to make is that the standard language in games* is prone to make (especially) women feel uncomfortable. And that perhaps it is a stupid idea to do that, because it is limiting your market perhaps more than expanding it.

*not limited to games of course

It could be that the people that think in a way that makes these types of games attractive are more commonly men. It might have to do something with how easy it is to relate to the stats you are pushing around are, crusader kings apparently has relatively more female players than hearts of iron for example (from here).

Partly it could be due to the fact the best way to learn these games is by the help of others. And it takes some effort to keep the interaction space open and friendly to everyone. And while Paradox for example try, at times I really doubt their forum can be considered a safe and welcoming space.

This view stems from the assumption that the underlying reason women generally prefer other games than FPS games is that women, by their (our) nature, is less competitive and that this is somehow inborn, genetic, natural. If this position is taken, then yes, obviously FPS games will forever cater to men and men only as the main group.

However, there are several problems with this view point. For one, there are few proofs that women are genetically/naturally/born in such a fashion as to make us disinclined to competitiveness to such a degree that we cannot enjoy FPS games (single player or online).

Further, as a woman who used to play FPS games, I can testify that I gained access to people who had these games and could recommend me FPS games by having a boyfriend who was a gamer, and through him other male friends who were also gamers. I can also mention that even if I was encouraged to try out FPS gamers, nobody ever even considered that I might be a good enough player to be accepted into one of their clans (Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, etc). That was a male only club and I was viewd as a novelty.

I had female friends who showed interest in FPS games, but as they had even less contact with a social context in which FPS games were a. common b. accepted and c. part of a social network, they had even less inclination to spend lots of time and effort on learning it.

What we did was play other games instead (remember: this was in the late 90s/early 00s), normally console games or that we simply gathered around one computer and made a communal effort at FPS.

So I'd state that from my point of view as a female gamers, and as someone who has spent time around a. other female gamers b. women who could have become serious gamers or c. women who were gamers but for various reasons didn't play much, lack of competitiveness has very little to do with women which games women prefer, and far more to do with what is socially accepted, what you get recommended through you circle of friends and also if you get included in a social context.

As Eefa said, the male characters are normally male power fantasies while the women are often portrayed in a sexualised fashion or as damsels in distress/disempowered.

Hence I restate my question from above: is sexualising women, objectifying women and disempowering women something male gamers, as a group, crave to enjoy their games? Why are these things needed for male gamers to enjoy a game?

With the games written the way they are, that is unlikely. Especially with online games where you encounter massive amounts of sexism, racism and homophobia and the game companies themselves can't be bothered to do anything about it. Why would women enter environments that are, by their very nature, pretty hostile? Until game developers and game companies start developing games that can cater to both women and men, or at least consider why women actively avoid certain games, they won't get the money from gaming women either.

Games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age for instance have huge amounts of female players. Going by their forums, I'd say 50% are female. The same is true of Fantasy readers: survey after survey show that women make up half or over half of the readership. Instead of ignoring women and pigeonholing women as "SIM players" or "Hello Kitty adventureland" players, developers can try and actually create RPGs, FPS games etc. that don't just cater to men, but to women too, and maybe then they'll find that women can play FPS or RPGs just as happily as men can.

Lastly, as a female gamer, I cannot emphasize enough that as a woman playing games online and single player, you hide it from your non-gaming friends and you hide it from other people online. It's not accepted in RL and online you run the very real risk of getting harassed.

EDIT: While out cycling with my daughter, it struck me that every single female gamer I know and know of got into gaming due to either boyfriends, male siblings or husbands. So social context and peer groups matter *a lot*.

BIOTRUTHS

This. Any time you find yourself saying "[men/women] are hardwired to [anything]" seriously consider if this is actually known to be hardwiring. It probably isn't.

Even if it is, which is falsely claimed some absurd amount of time, it doesn't matter. Unless you're going to argue that men are also incapable of getting over their hardwiring (since this rarely seems to be used to excuse other genders' behaviours), something being 'hardwired' doesn't mean it's inevitable.

I think the Mass Effect series is an excellent example of Sarkeesian's point actually. Though you can play both genders, and that both play more or less the same (with the female choice having far superior voice acting), you still have the Asari and the agressive focus on the pixels of Miranda's ass.

Mentioned often as an example of a game that appeals to both genders, it's still quite active in its objectification of women.

Yep, hence my point that it is virtually impossible to find a game that doesn't to some degree make use of sexist tropes. :)

However, the Bioware games are often head and shoulders above the rest anyway and even if they do still make use of sexist tropes to a degree, they are still proof that women can definitely get into pretty complicated and demanding games and aren't forever doomed to occupying the "SIMs only" corner of game developers' minds.

:agree: 100%

No, looking at the top sellers for last year, or even all time I'd say they don't. Personally I don't see the problem being as vast as some would claim, but it does exist. Even then, it's a matter of how narrow an individual makes the guideposts for meeting the criteria of a game sexualising women, objectifying women, and disempowering women. Tomb Raider stands out to me because aside from Lara Croft's physical appearance she's a competent female lead who is very much empowered. Of course the sexuality of her design is pretty blunt and clearly geared towards young males. My question would be, what would she need to look like in order to pass the test? Or does Tomb Raider have other problems that evade my male sensibilities on this issue?

There's another problem which vexes me. If these aspects in videogames are a component to turning women away from certain titles, then why was Twilight so popular with women? The entire series is based around a disempowered female who always in need of rescue, whose sexuality was a driving force for couple unrealistic portrayals of the ideal man. 50 Shades of Grey (which started as Twilight fan fiction coincidentally), heads into similar territory. Both written by women, for women. The popularity of either one on its face would tell a video game developer that a game for women should include more disempowerment, sexuality, and objectification than one for men.

That's obviously not true, and not how it should be interpreted but I'm seeing a real contradiction. I'd like to hear a woman's take.

The 'but men are hardwired that way' excuse is actually used to control women and justify horrible behaviour by men (eg rape and sexual harassment). We should not accept it there, and we should not accept it in any other context. We are so much more complicated than that.

I think Bioware has to some extent gotten around this by pandering in a similar way to girls. So rather than actually not objectify women they throw in a couple of shirtless angsty men to distract people, while not actually changing anything. (It's still fun though)

EDIT: Speaking of which, damsel in distress, I do remember both Baldur's Gate II and SWTOR has "rescue the love interest" subplots that simply slots in the approporiate character, regardless of gender.

Yeah, I always liked that about Baldur's Gate II

I like the Oatmeal's take on Twilight and why it's popular.

[karaddin]

Ok so Penny Arcade have managed to put their foot in it again, and once again Gabe on twitter has made the whole matter a lot worse. To summarise there was a panel posted for PAX Australia titled "Why so serious? Has the Industry forgotten that games are supposed to be fun?", the description included statements essentially saying the feminist complaints about gender depictions in games are taking the fun out of gaming, "Any titillation gets called out as sexist or misogynistic" and extended this to the complaints about race depictions as well with "involve any antagonist race other than Anglo-Saxons and you're a racist". After the initial outcry on the internet these aspects of the description were removed, and we are merely left with an inane complaint about how criticising reviewers as being shills for the video game industry is somehow beyond the pale, and some other stuff along those lines.

Then Gabe waded onto twitter and makes a bunch of transphobic remarks broadly along the lines of "women have vaginas" which oddly enough is pretty offensive to me, and this kind of gender essentialism falls down under scrutiny. If the vagina makes the woman does that mean you don't accept a pre-operative trans woman, but you do a post op? Probably not from the average transphobe, so if not then are you really saying the uterus makes the woman? Well what about a woman who has had a hysterectamy? Does she stop being a woman? Of course not. In the end he played the same card that homophobes have been playing for years. The martyr "I'm just speaking my beliefs are you are calling me a bigot. Your calling out my bigotry is more offensive to me, than my beliefs denying your entire identity is to you.

I've not seen if any more has come out of this in the last couple of days, but this PA one manages to hit females, racial minorities and trans* people in one foul swoop.

[karaddin]

Aaaaaand apologies for the quad post, the 3rd one is really part of my OP to the thread, now I wanted to reply to an interesting point from Galactus -

What fascinates me in these discussions tends to be strategy games, especially the more niché/hardcore ones. (the kind where Paradox is on the soft end)

Those seems to be extremely male-dominated, yet there doesen't seem to be the kind of sexist marketing that tends to be prevalent in more mainstream games (probably because A) They don't do much marketing and B) there aren't really any characters other than bundles of stats) yet they're still extremely male-dominated. And I honestly don't know why that is.

I do kind of find this interesting as well and I haven't seen any real investigation into it. The only thing I have seen/have the impression of would be the old "women aren't competitive" thing which we've already had discussed and I don't have anything to add. I am interested however in what if anything we can take away from the first female to crack the top pro international level in Starcraft/Starcraft 2 being Scarlett, a transgendered woman. She didn't get into Starcraft until post transition, however I am curious as to whether the socialisation she underwent living as a boy at an earlier age contributed to her getting interested and going into it. I do know her brother got her playing SC as he thought he would beat her at it, and she proved really good. I haven't been following the scene since the end of last year, so I'm not sure how she's gone since then though or if any other female players have broken into the top tier.

[Shryke]

Re: The Penny-Arcade thing

You seem to have missed the part where someone close to him talked to him and explained the issue, he realised he was in the wrong and apologized and then even donated like $20k to a charity to help make amends:

I’ve spent the last few days trying to apologize to people I hurt. I’ve been doing it via email and I’ve given out my phone number a lot. I realize I was wrong and I’m genuinely sorry. I also realize I can’t possibly apologize on the phone to each and every person I hurt. I’m going to keep trying, but I’ve also decided to personally make a donation to the Trevor Project of $20,000.00. I also plan to keep interacting with people on a personal level and I understand that will be an ongoing process. In the meantime I’m hoping this donation will do some real good for a group that desperately needs it.

-Gabe

http://www.penny-arc...ne-step-further

The original panel was dumb as fuck MRA bullshit, but Mike's comments seem a mix of pure ignorance (he didn't even seem to get the whole problem) and his standard inability to not engage with internet trollery. (ie - he was getting some really nasty insults and death threats and such over his initial comment). He basically should not be allowed on Twitter. Or, really, Twitter should not exist since it's a font of awful and the worst way to communicate possible.

[The Great Walrus]

I just hate it when responsible,mature male gamers are lumped in with idiotic and misogynistic people who haven't learned to speak to or about women like civilized human beings.

[Sci-2]

Most of PA's ignorance speaks for itself as crass and pathetic evasion, so let me just focus on the smallest point:

Why is "titillation" a necessary part of a game? Honestly this is the stuff that annoys me - exposed midriffs and cleavage in armor.

I can see how sex scenes might work in a narrative, and if there is enough fun for everyone and is presented well I think it could be artistic and contribute to the narrative.

But the way it's done now, in a way that seems to pander to the 13 year old boy inside the man, just embarrasses me.

eta: Just saw Shryke's post. Good of the dude to apologize.

[Minaku]

I honestly think that Gabe did not realize what he was saying (sub in male and female and there is much less of a problem) and he's tried to make amends. I can get behind that. What's really awful about the situation is that people are continuing to dogpile on him. I think it's pretty clear from his history that he is not a racist, a bigot, or inclined to hatred of any specific subset of people, so why can't others be reasonable and give him a break? He was schooled. He apologized. He even donated money to help the cause. He knows better now.

[Shryke]

I honestly think that Gabe did not realize what he was saying (sub in male and female and there is much less of a problem) and he's tried to make amends. I can get behind that. What's really awful about the situation is that people are continuing to dogpile on him. I think it's pretty clear from his history that he is not a racist, a bigot, or inclined to hatred of any specific subset of people, so why can't others be reasonable and give him a break? He was schooled. He apologized. He even donated money to help the cause. He knows better now.

It's the internet. Idiotic behaviour abounds on all sides.

[karaddin]

Re: The Penny-Arcade thing

You seem to have missed the part where someone close to him talked to him and explained the issue, he realised he was in the wrong and apologized and then even donated like $20k to a charity to help make amends:

http://www.penny-arc...ne-step-further

The original panel was dumb as fuck MRA bullshit, but Mike's comments seem a mix of pure ignorance (he didn't even seem to get the whole problem) and his standard inability to not engage with internet trollery. (ie - he was getting some really nasty insults and death threats and such over his initial comment). He basically should not be allowed on Twitter. Or, really, Twitter should not exist since it's a font of awful and the worst way to communicate possible.

Yeah I said I hadn't seen what happened subsequently, so thanks for the update. Good to see it got through to him.

ETA: Mina - I hadn't seen the outcome to it, and I still think the whole incident bears discussion in the thread and I didn't mean to dogpile on him. Basically I agree with Shryke that he seems inclined to say dumb shit from ignorance on twitter and he really shouldn't be allowed on it. That said, I stand by my statement that his "calling me out for my statement [even when made in ignorance] hurts me more than my bigoted/ignorant [ignorant in this case] comment hurts the minority group" is the same shit that bigots have been pulling for years, and was in fact in fine display in one of the daily show segments last week.

[Minaku]

I didn't feel at all that he was upset about being called out, but that he was upset that he was getting ridiculous responses like death threats. I'm sure people insult him all the time or whine at him and he's used to it. Hell, in Strip Search there's a Twitter challenge that's basically geared towards a situation like this. Hilariously, Mike failed his own challenge.

Twitter is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you get the entire trans community up in arms (rightly so) because of an ignorant statement. On the other hand, you can get Internet blowhards permanently banned from your game expo in a spectacular public display.

[Shryke]

I didn't feel at all that he was upset about being called out, but that he was upset that he was getting ridiculous responses like death threats.

And I think, despite the ignorance of his original statements, he's justified in that. Some of the responses were completely out of line. And frankly, don't do any good for any one.

[Sci-2]

I don't think it marks PA as being run by bigots, but I think the attempt to dismiss criticism of gaming with hyperbolic statements about how only white villains are allowed is still problematic.

To me it shows someone who has not genuinely engaged with the criticism leveled against gaming.

[karaddin]

Not going to argue with that, failing to keep the discourse civil tends to hurt your movement rather than help it. You always want to try be the reasonable adult in the room.

[Darth Visenya]

Most of PA's ignorance speaks for itself as crass and pathetic evasion, so let me just focus on the smallest point:

Why is "titillation" a necessary part of a game? Honestly this is the stuff that annoys me - exposed midriffs and cleavage in armor.

I can see how sex scenes might work in a narrative, and if there is enough fun for everyone and is presented well I think it could be artistic and contribute to the narrative.

But the way it's done now, in a way that seems to pander to the 13 year old boy inside the man, just embarrasses me.

eta: Just saw Shryke's post. Good of the dude to apologize.

I don't really see a problem with characters in games being aesthetically pleasing to the player, it's when, like you say they make romance and innuendos pander to mens inner teenager that I roll my eyes a bit.

[Lyanna Stark]

I don't think it marks PA as being run by bigots, but I think the attempt to dismiss criticism of gaming with hyperbolic statements about how only white villains are allowed is still problematic.

To me it shows someone who has not genuinely engaged with the criticism leveled against gaming.

One reason why that is is probably because games and gamers are still often viewed as people who should "get a life" or "get a proper hobby" , ie the geek stamp, which makes criticism levelled waved away as a default state.

[Sci-2]

I don't really see a problem with characters in games being aesthetically pleasing to the player, it's when, like you say they make romance and innuendos pander to mens inner teenager that I roll my eyes a bit.

Oh, I think it's almost inevitable that characters in most games will be aesthetically pleasing, at least on the box art. Where I would start is with the nonsensical armor choices for female PCs, as that just breaks the suspension of disbelief.

From there, try to expand the numbers and types of NPCs and PCs available. I should be able to play a lithe black yaoi male or bulked up warrior Asian female.

[karaddin]

Oh, I think it's almost inevitable that characters in most games will be aesthetically pleasing, at least on the box art. Where I would start is with the nonsensical armor choices for female PCs, as that just breaks the suspension of disbelief.

From there, try to expand the numbers and types of NPCs and PCs available. I should be able to play a lithe black yaoi male or bulked up warrior Asian female.

And this is one area that Mass Effect at least was good - FemSheps armour was still armour. Yeah it has a bit of a boob bulge and stuff, but it's not really sexualised, just giving a vague feminine shape. It looks like armour.

ETA: Oh! I forgot to mention earlier, the game I mentioned in the last iteration of this thread - Remember Me - is out now. It's the one that was told it needed to flip it's protagonist to male if it wasn't to be successful and said back "fuck no, we are doing this with a female protagonise, you shouldn't need to do that shit". I've bought it since I wanted to support that attitude, even though I don't know it's really my style of game. Haven't had much time though so haven't played it yet.

[Darth Visenya]

Oh, I think it's almost inevitable that characters in most games will be aesthetically pleasing, at least on the box art. Where I would start is with the nonsensical armor choices for female PCs, as that just breaks the suspension of disbelief.

From there, try to expand the numbers and types of NPCs and PCs available. I should be able to play a lithe black yaoi male or bulked up warrior Asian female.

I agree with you, although I don't play that many games with armour, Skyrim in its standard form I didn't think was too bad, some of the mods are stupid armour wise though, I don't really see the obsession with pixelated boobs if I'm honest.

Isabella in Dragon Age 2 was a bit of an eye rolling character for me too.

[Lian]

The only fair and equal way I see to solve this is try and encourage the opposite gender into the more dominated genres without barging in and demanding that aspects that the other gender enjoys be toned down or removed altogether because you don't approve of it as it just leads to alienation and stupid backlashes by internet going morons whenever they hear a whiff of changes afoot in video games even when they are fair and equal.

The solution is not to try to gently sneak in the changes from the back door because 1) backlash is inevitable 2) the changes won't happen if maintaining the status quo more or less is the objective 3) the real problem isn't that the "opposite gender" is barging in and taking over the gaming community, it's that girls who play online get treated like this.

RMP = Random Male Player

Transcript:

Me: Shit.

RMP1: Oh fuck.

RMP2: You’re just a dude pretending to be a chick, because girls don’t exist on the internet- you know that, right?

Me: …Oh, are you talking to me?

RMP2: Huh? Yeah.

Me: That’s like, a really funny joke. I hear that all the time.

RMP2: I, I really- like, I wasn’t trying to be funny. Really, I mean… Girls are only bitches on the internet ’cause every dude’s a dick to them.

Me: …Wow.