Support NeoGAF

[Lancehead]

What are you arguing for? Relevance or someone who adds value? You have way too many strawmen here. No one is questioning the worth of producers or other people who work tirelessly on these games. The subject matter at hand is a voice actress.

At what point did voice acting become as beneficial or even necessary to putting a game together ala a bolter who puts a car together to get shipped to consumers? No one is asking about the producer or bolter.

Poor choice of simile.

I just played Mario Galaxy 2 for the nth time. The lack of voice acting did not hold the game back whatsoever. It was neither relevant or necessary.

Not every game is devoid of voice work. Voice acting becomes necessary when the game produced requires it.

And good job with your stealth edit.

No he isn't. He is easily replaced by another worker or a machine without changing the end product...

Yes, but a worker who blots is still relevant, whether it's person x or person y.

That's a different thread. They're talking about people that move the industry forward. The guy putting bolts on a car is essential, but replaceable. Hell, he's actually replaceable by a machine now. The person designing the car isn't.

They're talking about peoples' relevance based on whether or not they move the industry forward.

And yes, a machine could that. But you still need someone/something fulfilling that function. Felicia Day fulfils a function (or two) to an extent for whatever reasons.

 

[Sean]

I don't have too.

The relevant names are ones that everyone knows. Miyamoto, Kaz Hirai, Reggie Fils Aime, David Jaffe etc. etc. etc.

Just hang out around E3 and listen to the names that get dropped everywhere. Those are the people that are relevant to the gaming industry.

This seems like such a ridiculous comparison to me. Anyone who hasn't created a video game or isn't a major executive at Sony/Nintendo is irrelevant? You're pitting Felicia Day up against the CEO of Sony and someone like Miyamoto (the most respected man in gaming) rather than the actual subset of the industry she participates in. I don't think it's a fair comparison at all, but at least you actually listed names unlike most people in this thread.

That's the whole point, there doesn't need to be any "gaming personalities".

By "gaming personalities" I was referring to anyone in this industry that isn't necessarily involved in the games development process. This would include gaming journalists and bloggers (IGN/Gamespot/Giant Bomb/Kotaku/etc), TV hosts like Geoff Keighley, X-Play/G4 people, Veronica Belmont when she was doing Quore, community manager types like Major Nelson and FourZeroTwo, Michael Pachter, Tycho and Gabe from Penny Arcade, all the gaming podcasters, entertainers like The Angry Video Game Nerd, Mega64, Freddie Wong, etc.

People that are known in the game industry but aren't actually programming/designing video games. Felicia Day falls into this particular group.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I honestly had no clue who she was until I read this topic so even if she may have been in Fallout or other things related to gaming, she sure hasn't done jack shit to wind up on my radar.

I didn't realize that the criteria for "contributing to the video game industry" involves showing up on RoboGeorgeForeman's radar.

News flash, things happen every day that you probably aren't aware of. It makes them no less important, because (new flash again) you're not the center of the universe.

 

[WanderingWind]

It's really hard to see the hatred toward her as anything than hating a woman for being a woman in a male-dominated culture. And I'm usually rolling my eyes at that sort of thing.

She's an actress in some shitty show and does some voice acting. That qualifies as doing something for the industry. That's just factual. Whether or not it's positive, or a big enough impact to recognize is up for debate. What's not up for debate is that calling her a "glorified booth babe" is entirely, wholly sexist. She's an actress. Just call her an actress and call her show(s?) crap if you dislike the product she's made.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

That's the whole point, there doesn't need to be any "gaming personalities". That is the whole reason people dislike Day, because she tries so hard to be part of this "gaming culture" which doesn't need to exist at all. It's an industry and a hobby, not a culture.

There are people who make the games, people who sell the games, and people who inform consumers about the games. Those are the only "personalities" needed in the industry, those are the only people pertinent to this hobby. Felicia Day is not a developer or a designer, she does not own a company or a store, and she does not get early access to games or give informed insight into the quality of the games, so to most people who enjoy gaming as a hobby or are interested in it as an industry, instead of wanting to be part of the "culture" and have the "nerd image", she is completely and utterly irrelevant.

Have you seen her show? It's about "MMORPG-gamer culture," and there is most certainly an MMORPG-gamer culture out there.

 

[23:6 KJV]

Yeah, there is NO WAY she is popular for ANY REASON other than her looks. I mean, seriously dude, she is a WOMAN am I right? Haha, women, right dude? Dude.

Saying a woman is untalented isn't automatically sexist just because you want it to be man.

He's clearly not trying to be offensive to all women, so why do you have to engage in smug dickishness as a response? Delusions of humor over here..

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Saying a woman is untalented isn't automatically sexist just because you want it to be man.

He's clearly not trying to be offensive to all women, so why do you have to engage in smug dickishness as a response? Delusions of humor over here..

Did you even read the post he quoted? I hate to generalize, but what is with the juniors in this thread?

For your reference:

Pretty obvious why she's popular (hurr cute gamer gurlssss), but i'll say she's popular among casuals only and besides Spike's VGA's I haven't seen her anywhere. He was instigating her, I don't think it was needed.

"Context"--look it up.

 

[23:6 KJV]

Did you even read the post he quoted? I hate to generalize, but what is with the juniors in this thread?

For your reference:



"Context"--look it up.

So he's saying she's untalented and is therefore coasting because she found a niche where her appearance is appreciated?

Shock horror! How dare he say that!

Look, how is that a new concept, and why do you feel the need to call sexism here? Many people in all industries offer basically nothing in terms of talent, and yet coast based on personal appearance. It's the Ray William Johnson effect, man. Talk about a talentless dude doing well on the internet.

Fuck me, would you call sexism if he said Kim Kardashian was generally talentless?

You're being smug jerks, and your delusions of worldliness and greater moral profundity are unbecoming and incredibly grating.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

So he's saying she's untalented and is therefore coasting because she found a niche where her appearance is appreciated?

Shock horror! How dare he say that!

Look, how is that a new concept, and why do you feel the need to call sexism here? Many people in all industries offer basically nothing in terms of talent, and yet coast based on personal appearance. It's the Ray William Johnson effect, man. Talk about a talentless dude doing well on the internet.

Fuck me, would you call sexism if he said Kim Kardashian was generally talentless?

Where in that original post is "talent" (or lack thereof) mentioned at all? All that I see in the originally quoted post is the guy saying she is only popular because of her looks.

From where are you getting all of this talent stuff? How about we talk about what people actually said (wrote) rather than your personal interpretation that includes added nuance.

 

[23:6 KJV]

Where in that original post is "talent" (or lack thereof) mentioned at all? All that I see in the originally quoted post is the guy saying she is only popular because of her looks.

From where are you getting all of this talent stuff?

Um. By putting two and two together?

If someone posits a claim that an actor is only popular because of their looks, then implicit in that claim is that they're not a very good actor...

How is that a less reasonable bit of logic than immediately jumping to the conclusion that he is implying that no woman anywhere can be talented and that women are inferior? And attacking a poster over it?

 

[pigeon]

That's the whole point, there doesn't need to be any "gaming personalities". That is the whole reason people dislike Day, because she tries so hard to be part of this "gaming culture" which doesn't need to exist at all. It's an industry and a hobby, not a culture.

You don't think maybe she just likes video games? It's not like money was pouring out of the sky for her when she was making the first season of The Guild. This is the aspect of the conversation that strikes me as a little sexist -- there's a consistent narrative that she is faking her interest in geek stuff for popularity, which plays into some popular stereotypes about "geek girls." Seems like an unfair assumption when she's pursued it even when she had no expectation of success.

 

[Matt_C]

The real question is that who would take his place? I could use the work. The moral of the story is that netizens forget that entetainers by trade are netizens too and do not broadcast/type online under a profesional capacity drunk without supervision.

 

[Lancehead]

I never said every game was. Again, strawman. Stay on topic.

When the game produced wants it. No game requires voice acting. Otherwise gaming wouldn't be here today to begin with. If no one pieces together a car, then a car can't get shipped. If voice acting isn't present in a game, you can still ship a game out to consumers.

Your question was: "At what point did voice acting become as beneficial or even necessary to putting a game together ala a bolter who puts a car together to get shipped to consumers?" I answered your question. Choice-quoting doesn't make my point a strawman.

You can ship a game without many other things besides voice acting. This is not about whether a game remains functional without this or that. It's about if a certain product is desired, what's necessary to achieve it. If voice work is part of the product design, then voice actors are necessary to accomplish that design, thus they become relevant to that product.

Then, in your case, the question is not whether or not the voice actor is needed but, rather, is Felicia Day needed? You're still going away from the argument by throwing a more broad blanket into the conversation. That's a strawman. You keep using inappropriate similes to back your stance which is where you're confusing people. The argument is whether Felicia Day, the subject of the original tweet in question, has added any benefit to the industry! Not to a role, a game...the industry. You're saying, seemingly, that she is but you're doing a poor job of explaining your stance. In the grand scheme of things or even as a simile, a bolter and actress provide different functions and different relevance to their respective intended ends. You also continue to refuse to counter any of the points I made regarding any relevance/benefits.

Uhh... I didn't raise any questions. You dismissed the relevance of voice actors to the industry, and I said they're relevant because they have their own roles in putting games out.

 

[RealDeadOne]

You don't think maybe she just likes video games? It's not like money was pouring out of the sky for her when she was making the first season of The Guild. This is the aspect of the conversation that strikes me as a little sexist -- there's a consistent narrative that she is faking her interest in geek stuff for popularity, which plays into some popular stereotypes about "geek girls." Seems like an unfair assumption when she's pursued it even when she had no expectation of success.

I don't think she's "faking", I think she's more interested in the image of being a nerd/geek than the actual things themselves. This isn't just limited to Felicia Day, this is extremely prevalent everywhere now. Day just happens to also be famous.

I don't hate her and she's not anywhere near the likes of Olivia Munn, I've never seen the Guild either. I think she's pretty soulless and mindlessly follows the "nerd" trend, but her enthusiasm for that trend is at least genuine. But still she has no real relevance to the gaming industry except that she has an interest in it. There's no reason for any gaming enthusiast to know her because she's not involved with any step of the game-consuming process whatsoever. She's tangentially related to gaming.

An argument could be made that she's a detriment, but I won't make it since I don't think that personally.

 

[Boss Man]

Sounds like another socially awkward and immature man child to me. Plenty of those in gaming journalism to go around.

GAF has gotten to a point where I can usually just read the OP, and then read the first post and be good.

 

[ccbfan]

I had no idea who Felicia Day was until she ruined an episode of Supernatural after Gaf hyped her up like she's the next Jodie Foster.

She's just acted like the typical stereotypical "Geekz Girl" during the entire episode. It was so forced and so bad. Now I know why she was so bad in the episode. Apparently she some kind of video game celeb and she had to do her best to keep her illusion. Now I understand.

 

[Iresecia]

I'm surprised this is still going on lol. I know of Felicia Day from The Guild and she's blown up quite a bit since then. I can't say she hasn't made any contributions to gaming but I can't say their substantial ones. She's a gamer just like all of us though. She's apparently a huge fan of Guild Wars 2.

Minor side rant here but honestly it's kind of aggravating when you're a female gamer cause people do have a tendency to treat you differently. It annoys me quite a bit when I'd rather be seen as an equal and not girl gamer. I used to be proud of my girl gamer status but now I just try to blend in. I think that might be a bit harder to do when you're Felicia Day or any of the other female gamers who are popular. Minus iJustine though... I'd like to know why she's relevant.

 

[Cursed Frogurt]

I had no idea who Felicia Day was until she ruined an episode of Supernatural after Gaf hyped her up like she's the next Jodie Foster.

She's just acted like the typical stereotypical "Geekz Girl" during the entire episode. It was so forced and so bad. Now I know why she was so bad in the episode. Apparently she some kind of video game celeb and she had to do her best to keep her illusion. Now I understand.

There's no denying why she's famous(cute gaming geek girl), and likewise there's no denying why she gets roles over better actresses when she herself is pretty obviously a terrible actress - she brings with her a large, well-established audience. That means a lot when you want people to view your product. If being a bad actor/actress was a crime, the already full jails would be overflowing. As a Supernatural fan, I wasn't surprised how bad she was in the episode, because I'd seen The Guild.

 

[Lancehead]

So you're saying Felicia day, the subject of topic, is necessary to the industry's needs? Remember, question is does she add benefit to industry. The original question, again for the third fucking time, is whether or not Day has provided benefit to the gaming industry not whether or not she is necessary to achieve a desired product.

At this point, it is apparent to me that you are purposely straying from topic on hand for one purpose or another be it trolling or whatever. At the very least, you've made some mind bogglingly incohesive blanket statements and used poor similes to support how Felicia benefits the gaming industry. That's the initial twee in question. You haven't answered it yet.

It's not hard to understand what you said and what I said. You questioned her relevance because you think she doesn't move the industry forward. I said she doesn't need to move the industry forward to be relevant.

Of course, it's quite difficult to discuss anything when you've retroactively edited your initial comment where you made that claim, to reflect the question you've since been asking.

I don't hate her and she's not anywhere near the likes of Olivia Munn, I've never seen the Guild either. I think she's pretty soulless and mindlessly follows the "nerd" trend, but her enthusiasm for that trend is at least genuine. But still she has no real relevance to the gaming industry except that she has an interest in it. There's no reason for any gaming enthusiast to know her because she's not involved with any step of the game-consuming process whatsoever. She's tangentially related to gaming.

Okay.

 

[lazybones18]

Thank God Eureka is close to ending, cause Felicia's presence is killing the show

 

[HyperCubed4]

Not very often. The only one that immediately comes to mind is the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I have not seen it, but I thought it sounded pretty controversial and shocking that they went there. I don't recall thinking "oh, that old story".

Aside from that, and I know there are at least a couple others whose names escape me, I wouldn't call it a tired or overused story element. And in the case of gaming, it most certainly isn't.

Just wanted to touch upon this, if I may.

It was a controversial scene (not the longest rape scene in a movie, but still fairly graphic), but it does get mentioned and referenced a few times throughout the trilogy. It wasn't just some throwaway thing, like "oh,

Spoiler

Lisbeth

gets raped, then

Spoiler

she

gets revenge and all is well."

There was more to it than that. It wasn't exactly the easiest scene to watch, though. Just wanted to comment on that. Carry on.

 

[PhoenixDark]

Boils down to double standards and jealousy rooted in gender. The general issue here always involves men believing all women don't have to work as hard as men to advance in the gaming industry, or just about any industry tbh (especially media). Gaming forums tend to react quite negatively to just about every female personality who enters their lair. Hell, just look at the shit Aisha Tyler faced at E3.

Women in games are meant only to either be sexual objects or precious, "realistic" characters the male player must feel obligated to save or protect, thus providing some faux emotional connection to appease the need to validate gaming as art. Likewise women in the game industry are also either dismissed outright as attractive airheads who know nothing about gamez or seen as some type of infiltrator/threat who continually has to prove her loyalty.

Notice, the debate with females in the gaming industry rarely focuses on facts or substance. There's constantly an undercurrent of sex and gender. Him calling her a "glorified booth babe" tells you everything you need to know. Her contributions to gaming media can't possibly be legit or relevant, she must be an outsider who is not just deserving of typical internet attacks, but typical internet attacks aimed at sexualizing her.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

Boils down to double standards and jealousy rooted in gender. The general issue here always involves men believing all women don't have to work as hard as men to advance in the gaming industry, or just about any industry tbh (especially media). Gaming forums tend to react quite negatively to just about every female personality who enters their lair. Hell, just look at the shit Aisha Tyler faced at E3.

Women in games are meant only to either be sexual objects or precious, "realistic" characters the male player must feel obligated to save or protect, thus providing some faux emotional connection to appease the need to validate gaming as art. Likewise women in the game industry are also either dismissed outright as attractive airheads who know nothing about gamez or seen as some type of infiltrator/threat who continually has to prove her loyalty.

Notice, the debate with females in the gaming industry rarely focuses on facts or substance. There's constantly an undercurrent of sex and gender. Him calling her a "glorified booth babe" tells you everything you need to know. Her contributions to gaming media can't possibly be legit or relevant, she must be an outsider who is not just deserving of typical internet attacks, but typical internet attacks aimed at sexualizing her.

While I agree with what you're saying I do disagree with one thing.

Hell, just look at the shit Aisha Tyler faced at E3.

She got shit because she sucked at doing her job. People have given many an E3 conference host shit for sucking. Her jokes weren't funny. She was kind of awkward. People also gave the guy doing stuff from backstage shit too for also not being funny and sucking. So that's not a good example. I do agree with what you're trying to say though. Just that that choice was not a good choice to illustrate your point.

 

[StingX2]

With his original point I agree, why does Felicia Day matter. The Guild? Is that...it?

 

[voodoopanda]

The question of whether or not someone "matters" seems super weird to me in this context. From what I know, Felicia Day is an actress and writer who has been in a bunch of things nerdy subculture is into, like voice acting video games or Buffy or Eureka or Dr. Horrible or The Guild. She occasionally shows up at gaming events and conventions and stuff like that. I guess she's popular on Twitter. It would make sense that she has fans because a lot of the stuff she's in is relatively popular. None of that seems crazy? Is she doing anything where calling her out on how much she "matters" about a thing is warranted? Is she somehow influencing game devs? I guess if that was true, then she would "matter." I just don't get why/how this is an issue at all?

 

[WanderingWind]

The question of whether or not someone "matters" seems super weird to me in this context. From what I know, Felicia Day is an actress and writer who has been in a bunch of things nerdy subculture is into, like voice acting video games or Buffy or Eureka or Dr. Horrible or The Guild. She occasionally shows up at gaming events and conventions and stuff like that. I guess she's popular on Twitter. It would make sense that she has fans because a lot of the stuff she's in is relatively popular. None of that seems crazy? Is she doing anything where calling her out on how much she "matters" about a thing is warranted? Is she somehow influencing game devs? I guess if that was true, then she would "matter." I just don't get why/how this is an issue at all?

Because woman.

 

[Ghost Dad the Whip]

guys, you don't have to have an opinion on everything!

 

[PhoenixDark]

While I agree with what you're saying I do disagree with one thing.

She got shit because she sucked at doing her job. People have given many an E3 conference host shit for sucking. Her jokes weren't funny. She was kind of awkward. People also gave the guy doing stuff from backstage shit too for also not being funny and sucking. So that's not a good example. I do agree with what you're trying to say though. Just that that choice was not a good choice to illustrate your point.

But how come the majority of criticisms she received made reference to her gender, questioned whether she was a true gamer, wondered why she was hired, etc? The point is that these things become giant exercises in resentment and cross lines that would not be crossed if the person in question was male.

 

[NichM]

With his original point I agree, why does Felicia Day matter. The Guild? Is that...it?

The thing is, the original point was completely contextless. It wasn't as if there'd been a spate of articles or stories recently lauding Felicia Day's invaluable contributions to the industry. She's an actress with a certain amount of geek cachet, but she's never pretended to be more, and as far as I could tell, neither has anybody else. The guy's attack on her came totally out of the blue and accused her of not living up to a status that seems to have existed mostly in his own mind.

 

[Neuromancer]

The question of whether or not someone "matters" seems super weird to me in this context. From what I know, Felicia Day is an actress and writer who has been in a bunch of things nerdy subculture is into, like voice acting video games or Buffy or Eureka or Dr. Horrible or The Guild. She occasionally shows up at gaming events and conventions and stuff like that. I guess she's popular on Twitter. It would make sense that she has fans because a lot of the stuff she's in is relatively popular. None of that seems crazy? Is she doing anything where calling her out on how much she "matters" about a thing is warranted? Is she somehow influencing game devs? I guess if that was true, then she would "matter." I just don't get why/how this is an issue at all?

Some men feel threatened by successful women.

 

[faceless007]

The question of whether or not someone "matters" seems super weird to me in this context. From what I know, Felicia Day is an actress and writer who has been in a bunch of things nerdy subculture is into, like voice acting video games or Buffy or Eureka or Dr. Horrible or The Guild. She occasionally shows up at gaming events and conventions and stuff like that. I guess she's popular on Twitter. It would make sense that she has fans because a lot of the stuff she's in is relatively popular. None of that seems crazy? Is she doing anything where calling her out on how much she "matters" about a thing is warranted? Is she somehow influencing game devs? I guess if that was true, then she would "matter." I just don't get why/how this is an issue at all?

Yeah, this whole thread is just so bizarre, not so much for the discussion as for the meta-discussion. There are lot of people who are super invested and obviously very defensive and feel very strongly about the proposition that Felicia Day does not matter to the industry and this is a very important fact that must be made absolutely clear.

I mean, if you don't care about her, you don't care. Fine, no one asked you to. But the way people have to argue this proposition makes it seem like the mere thought of being asked to care or recognize her accomplishments is incredibly threatening to some people. On a forum where there is a substantial number of members who could actually tell you who Nolan North or Jerry Holkins or Ben Yahtzee or Jim Sterling is, none of whom have any visibility whatsoever (as far as I know) outside their particular field, and it's just treated as normal that people invested in this community would know who such relatively minor figures are, it seems bizarre to see such defensive posturing over not caring about this particular one.

And it's really not hard to think the primary motivation for it is just that some guys feel threatened or suspect they're being exploited anytime they see a woman gain some visibility.

 

[Raptomex]

I had no idea who these people were until this thread.

 

[Eidan]

I don't think she's "faking", I think she's more interested in the image of being a nerd/geek than the actual things themselves. This isn't just limited to Felicia Day, this is extremely prevalent everywhere now. Day just happens to also be famous.

Then you do essentially think she's faking it.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

But how come the majority of criticisms she received made reference to her gender, questioned whether she was a true gamer, wondered why she was hired, etc? The point is that these things become giant exercises in resentment and cross lines that would not be crossed if the person in question was male.

Well some of her jokes referred to gender. I believe one line was something like having a female boner or something. Other then that I never saw anyone shitting on her for her gender. Just mainly her bad jokes. Hell if anyone got shit on more it was her backstage counterpart who everyone hated with a passion because of how annoyingly bad he was. So questioning if she's a real gamer was a valid question. Hell most question a lot of these presenter's love of gaming that all of them seem to have. How many times do we see one of these conference presenters or award show presenters not have a clue about games yet sprout off how hardcore they are and how much of a gamer they are? We see it all the time from men and women alike.We've also all called them out too. It was no different for her in that regard.

 

[Mudkips]

He has a point with Felicia Day. She's an okay actress I guess from the brief stints I've seen her in, but she's definitely playing up the fact that she's a gamer and always involved in the Whedon-universe to get work/be noticed. Still, very rude to just open with an attack question on her twitter.

Should've just talked behind her back like normal people.

She is absolutely not an okay actress. She's terrible. Just like Will Wheaton. There's a reason they both need to play up "nerd credentials" - they're talentless and would be be instantly forgotten and unemployed if they didn't.

 

[cartman414]

For a "fake gamer", she's dropped a few old-school cRPGs like Ultima 7 and Planescape: Torment.