Oemenia said:

Great, lets pick on gamers who aren't marginalised enough.

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Mael said:

If we add the context of when this was created and the reason it was created, it's clear that the 2nd picture is about arm candy while the dude play his GBA.
Again for that reading to get through you need the context of general advertisement circa 200X.

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krazen said:

Ill be running around with 44DDD breasts as R. Mika in Street Fighter in a thong so small its absorbed by her ass. See how easy that was?

To point out, "WHAT? ITS ONLY ONE GAME THATS SO FUCKED UP DAWG, SO NOT A PROBLEM" doesnt negate the bigger issue.

Ashley Judd is speaking in hyperbole but it doesn't negate the fact its a problem. You guys are like, "OMG, that speech about climate change had a grammar error, plus the earth only went up 3 degrees not 4, CLIMATE CHANGE TOTALLY FAKE, lol"

Also the fact its gotten better as far as alternate choices, more non sexualized models in games, and there are some valid non-mysogynstic arguably pro woman choices (Gravity Rush) doesnt negate we are still fucking up.

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Metal B said:

Since we don't have the context of the ad, we can only judge its design. And in comparison to all other pictures and with an open mind, this ad actually doesn't have an overall negative presentation.

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Metal B said:

So anything created at this time is negative by default? That is a really bad mind set to have and devalues the work of all the people, who actually tried to make something positive. This is like viewing Fight Club as a extreme pro-masculinely movie, just because it was made in the 90s.

Since we don't have the context of the ad, we can only judge its design. And in comparison to all other pictures and with an open mind, this ad actually doesn't have an overall negative presentation.

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ViolentP said:

Perhaps that they haven't seen it would make it a good opportunity to explain the situation and in turn getting one other person to understand the issues instead of sitting on your high horse and attacking them for not knowing what may be obvious to you.

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CrustyBritches said:

My only goal is to share. I'm simply explaining that I perceive them as what they can do, rather than what they look like. In my game perception, I see abilities and coolness/attitude, not gender. You could sprite swap Peach and Mario and I would not identify them based on appearance. I would say that is not Peach, because she can hover. At some tertiary level I realize Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man represent different genders, but it is my consciousness being chased by the ghosts, so it has no effect on my experience. Chess is a even better example.

I see where you're coming from. I just wanted to share that for a good deal of people, even males, gender of an avatar is irrelevant. Lara, Chun li, and Bayonetta are badasses because of their attitudes and abilities which are best expressed through gameplay, so it's different than film that relies heavily on narrative and suspension of disbelief. I realize this experience might be different for somebody heavily invested in narrative and world construct. There is nothing wrong with wanting more fem heroes, less romantic npcs, and more Riptors. I can get behind all that.

I think the best way to effect change is to continue to make articulate and respectable arguments of the benefits of more diversity for gamers, like you did here. Thanks for the dialogue.

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Saucycarpdog said:

You're talking to a medium filled with people whose emotional stability is dependent on which console is doing better.

There's a shit load of internalization going on in gaming.

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Nepenthe said:

If people are interested in learning more about different viewpoints and don't want attitude, perhaps don't resort to such swift condemnations of those viewpoints as unfit for consideration.

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Oemenia said:

Great, lets pick on gamers who aren't marginalised enough.

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fvng said:

Murdering women and having sexy busty depictions....,

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ViolentP said:

It's funny that on these boards, my experiences with these discussions have an ongoing pattern of those who are passionate about equal rights being very aggressive against those with questions. It's an unfortunate reality as you would think the person that didn't understand the issues would be the very person you would want to educate. Anyone who fights for inequality doesn't deserve the time of any discussion as they are adamantly fighting for what is wrong. But even myself, who is all for equality, have been called a homophobe and a misogynist simply because I shared my experiences with no claim of being right and wrong and with a complete openness to learning the other sides trials. But all it took was me not seeing the other side to the level they did on my own to be labeled a bad person.

There is something inherently wrong with a discussion when both sides don't have equal opportunity to share their thoughts because ultimately, that's where the answer will lie.

This isn't in any way about you or anyone in particular, it's just disappointing that sometimes the opportunity given by having a place to discuss these issues is squandered by ignorance on both sides. Makes me feel like sometimes we don't deserve to have things better.

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ViolentP said:

It's funny that on these boards, my experiences with these discussions have an ongoing pattern of those who are passionate about equal rights being very aggressive against those with questions. It's an unfortunate reality as you would think the person that didn't understand the issues would be the very person you would want to educate.

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SolicitorPirate said:

I would like to say I'm surprised that this thread is filled with people intent on over analysing a single sentence as opposed to having the goddamned sense to reflect and self critique for once in their lives, but hey, we were the community that allowed a hate group to terrorise women for a fucking year.

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Nepenthe said:

I take no offense, and I understand what you mean. I think the aggressiveness comes from the fact that a lot of questions about the same subjects over and over, particularly in threads that have already extensively covered the answers, can come across as being disingenuously asked or implicating an ulterior motive on part of the minority group(s) being discussed. There is an inherent element of defensiveness on part of minorities in terms of educating people on issues of inequality because there has historically been an overwhelming expectation that minorities are supposed to be infinitely charitable even in the face of dehumanization, that we're always supposed to take bigotry and casual ignorance as a teachable moment and just never get fed up with the insurmountable wave of people who just don't "get it," because to just throw our hands up would in turn be a moral condemnation.

For example, there was a noted rush in the media to get the victims of the Charleston Church massacre to offer forgiveness to Dylann Roof and hold them up as an example of black excellence, mostly to stand in contrast to political unrest and protests being conducted by BLM. It in turn comes across as a backlash against acknowledging the racial problems of this country, as if people were pulling their shirt collars while saying "So yeah, uh, there was a white supremacist attack on your people at a historical black church...that brings up bad memories, but we're cool right?!".

And just like the white people who were wringing their hands about how on-the-nose the attack was in terms of historical context, who were scared about what a lack of forgiveness would have said about the nation's character, so too do the deflections away from Judd's overarching point into the irrelevant minutiae of her characterization of the industry in order to discredit her, and the attempts by men in this thread to paint themselves as "marginalized gamers-" the real victims- come across as doth protesting too much, an unnecessary, almost infantile reaction to having to acknowledge a problem and reconcile that with what that may or may not say about the moral character of anyone who plays games that can be criticized as sexist.

This gets tiring as hell. No one wants to explain what should be self-evident and be the bigger person all the time, especially to people who enter a conversation with pistols drawn and without any marked demonstration that they've researched the basics of the issue beforehand. People, particularly straight male gamers, need to understand that communication is a two-way street and patience is a finite resource. Minorities are not saints and should not be expected to be. So if people desire for minorities and their allies to be less abrasive to people in majority groups who don't have firsthand experience of what it's like to be a woman or black or gay or whatever else, there needs to be an earnest attempt on part of majority groups to pick up the slack on their own and ask questions that aren't demonstrable of a lack of prior engagement and thus are borderline insulting.

"Where is this misogyny in the gaming community?!!" and any of its variants are, honestly, stupid-ass questions whose answers can be gleaned from just cursory reading about the subject through a Google search or an appropriate NeoGAF thread, and its sincerity doesn't improve when it's coupled with ostracizing othering shit like "This is why outsiders shouldn't talk about games!" However, CrustyBritches' question of "What kinds of solutions do you have for improving representation of women?" is a GREAT question because it recognizes the problem and shows an earnest interest in hearing ideas from the horse's mouth. This is a real conversation to be had. I can work with this. I can educate someone who is curious. I can't educate someone who denies the problem and is overtly hostile on top of it.

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Weltall Zero said:

There are several reasons for this.

1) A very high percentage of those who purport to have questions actually have already taken a side. This is not immediately apparent, and it's not until they have been engaged and their questions answered (something that a) derails the discussion being had, and b) takes time and energy, more on this later) that their questions become more slanted and reveal them for what they are.

2) When well-intentioned people actually take the time to inform yet another supposed newbie or to dispel the usual myths, thinking they may be at least informing someone, only to have them spit back at them and realizing they've been talking to someone that simply wanted them to talk themselves into something they could disagree with (often simply by way of a strawman), they get burned. They are less likely to engage and answer the questions of a purported "person with questions" the next time.

3) Repeat this cycle literally hundreds of times (each time a thread like this pops out, multiplied by each "curious" person that pops in each), and each time you engage with someone, you have a high chance of getting burned, making you less likely to engage the next.

4) None of these people get anything out of this. Nobody is getting paid nor compensated for their time and energy (huge amounts of it, if we were to address everyone), and we don't even get thanked most of the time. We don't owe anyone to inform them, we are not salespeople for societal awareness. If somebody is truly invested in understanding what life is like for other people outside their gender/race/sexual orientation, and what challenges they face, the Internet is full of resources to get informed without burdening others with their education. If one can't get bothered to do that, it's very unlikely they can get bothered to change their minds anyway, because that takes much more effort. In fact, if you don't show the empathy to realize someone else might not be interested, that's already a sign you might not have the empathy needed to give a shit about minorities or sexism in the first place.

I linked to it above, but it bears repeating: this article should address your observations in full.

Edit: And also Nepenthe's excellent post above mine, which I hadn't seen.

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perfectchaos007 said:

Damn that sounds harsh. I haven't been following gamergate but what are some examples of games that do this? Mostly RPG anime games?

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Hades Hotgun said:

The Tomb Raider reboot is pretty infamous for the many creepy, moaning, death scenes of Lara Croft.

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Nepenthe said:

I take no offense, and I understand what you mean. I think the aggressiveness comes from the fact that a lot of questions about the same subjects over and over, particularly in threads that have already extensively covered the answers, can come across as being disingenuously asked or implicating an ulterior motive on part of the minority group(s) being discussed. There is an inherent element of defensiveness on part of minorities in terms of educating people on issues of inequality because there has historically been an overwhelming expectation that minorities are supposed to be infinitely charitable even in the face of dehumanization, that we're always supposed to take bigotry and casual ignorance as a teachable moment and just never get fed up with the insurmountable wave of people who just don't "get it," because to just throw our hands up would in turn be a moral condemnation.

For example, there was a noted rush in the media to get the victims of the Charleston Church massacre to offer forgiveness to Dylann Roof and hold them up as an example of black excellence, mostly to stand in contrast to political unrest and protests being conducted by BLM. It in turn comes across as a backlash against acknowledging the racial problems of this country, as if people were pulling their shirt collars while saying "So yeah, uh, there was a white supremacist attack on your people at a historical black church...that brings up bad memories, but we're cool right?!".

And just like the white people who were wringing their hands about how on-the-nose the attack was in terms of historical context, who were scared about what a lack of forgiveness would have said about the nation's character, so too do the deflections away from Judd's overarching point into the irrelevant minutiae of her characterization of the industry in order to discredit her, and the attempts by men in this thread to paint themselves as "marginalized gamers-" the real victims- come across as doth protesting too much, an unnecessary, almost infantile reaction to having to acknowledge a problem and reconcile that with what that may or may not say about the moral character of anyone who plays games that can be criticized as sexist.

This gets tiring as hell. No one wants to explain what should be self-evident and be the bigger person all the time, especially to people who enter a conversation with pistols drawn and without any marked demonstration that they've researched the basics of the issue beforehand. People, particularly straight male gamers, need to understand that communication is a two-way street and patience is a finite resource. Minorities are not saints and should not be expected to be. So if people desire for minorities and their allies to be less abrasive to people in majority groups who don't have firsthand experience of what it's like to be a woman or black or gay or whatever else, there needs to be an earnest attempt on part of majority groups to pick up the slack on their own and ask questions that aren't demonstrable of a lack of prior engagement and thus are borderline insulting.

"Where is this misogyny in the gaming community?!!" and any of its variants are, honestly, stupid-ass questions whose answers can be gleaned from just cursory reading about the subject through a Google search or an appropriate NeoGAF thread, and its sincerity doesn't improve when it's coupled with ostracizing othering shit like "This is why outsiders shouldn't talk about games!" However, CrustyBritches' question of "What kinds of solutions do you have for improving representation of women?" is a GREAT question because it recognizes the problem and shows an earnest interest in hearing ideas from the horse's mouth. This is a real conversation to be had. I can work with this. I can educate someone who is curious. I can't educate someone who denies the problem and is overtly hostile on top of it.

Click to expand...

Weltall Zero said:

There are several reasons for this.

1) A very high percentage of those who purport to have questions actually have already taken a side. This is not immediately apparent, and it's not until they have been engaged and their questions answered (something that a) derails the discussion being had, and b) takes time and energy, more on this later) that their questions become more slanted and reveal them for what they are.

2) When well-intentioned people actually take the time to inform yet another supposed newbie or to dispel the usual myths, thinking they may be at least informing someone, only to have them spit back at them and realizing they've been talking to someone that simply wanted them to talk themselves into something they could disagree with (often simply by way of a strawman), they get burned. They are less likely to engage and answer the questions of a purported "person with questions" the next time.

3) Repeat this cycle literally hundreds of times (each time a thread like this pops out, multiplied by each "curious" person that pops in each), and each time you engage with someone, you have a high chance of getting burned, making you less likely to engage the next.

4) None of these people get anything out of this. Nobody is getting paid nor compensated for their time and energy (huge amounts of it, if we were to address everyone), and we don't even get thanked most of the time. We don't owe anyone to inform them, we are not salespeople for societal awareness. If somebody is truly invested in understanding what life is like for other people outside their gender/race/sexual orientation, and what challenges they face, the Internet is full of resources to get informed without burdening others with their education. If one can't get bothered to do that, it's very unlikely they can get bothered to change their minds anyway, because that takes much more effort. In fact, if you don't show the empathy to realize someone else might not be interested, that's already a sign you might not have the empathy needed to give a shit about minorities or sexism in the first place.

I linked to it above, but it bears repeating: this article should address your observations in full.

Edit: And also Nepenthe's excellent post above mine, which I hadn't seen.

Click to expand...

moltonasty said:

Gamers were a mistake, they're nothing but trash.

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Alex_Mexico said:

Oh my.

You have no idea how deep the rabbit hole is, do you?

And no. It's not just jrpgs. Not even close.

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Cloukyo said:

majority of games dont even have people on people violence if were going by all genres. not all games are shooters. here in the uk fifa games sell the most, gta was popular but that came out how many years ago?

this year the biggest games were lpoking forward to are horizon, nier, last of us, gravity rush, persona... all which feature female protags, none of which even have human on human violence

not all games even bother having a narrative.


please tell me what jrpgs focus on maiming women. im fairly sure almost all of them have girls in the main party
and most enemies you attack just monsters of some sort.

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Crossing Eden said:

I think this is what the kids refer to as "hitting the nail on the head." Seriously it gets tiring having to basically reiterate feminism 101 when people are "just asking questions."

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Figboy79 said:

I just wanted to quote these because, god damn do they hit the nail on the head. I have nothing further to add to these comments, or my own earlier in the thread.

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retreating from rather than engaging with answers to questions they post

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Cloukyo said:

majority of games dont even have people on people violence if were going by all genres. not all games are shooters. here in the uk fifa games sell the most, gta was popular but that came out how many years ago?

this year the biggest games were lpoking forward to are horizon, nier, last of us, gravity rush, persona... all which feature female protags, none of which even have human on human violence

not all games even bother having a narrative.


please tell me what jrpgs focus on maiming women. im fairly sure almost all of them have girls in the main party
and most enemies you attack just monsters of some sort.

Click to expand...

Cloukyo said:

majority of games dont even have people on people violence if were going by all genres. not all games are shooters. here in the uk fifa games sell the most, gta was popular but that came out how many years ago?

this year the biggest games were lpoking forward to are horizon, nier, last of us, gravity rush, persona... all which feature female protags, none of which even have human on human violence

not all games even bother having a narrative.


please tell me what jrpgs focus on maiming women. im fairly sure almost all of them have girls in the main party
and most enemies you attack just monsters of some sort.

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Oemenia said:

Great, lets pick on gamers who aren't marginalised enough.

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Adam_Vania said:

men have exploited women for hundreds, thousands of years. women were not granted the legal right to own property until the mid-19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_Women's_Property_Acts_in_the_United_States

Sarkeesian is a woman and she talks about women's representation. how is that exploitative? is she exploiting herself? is there a rule where anyone can exploit females in video games except actual females?

is she exploiting videogames? aren't there millions of people making videos about videogames, a lot of them full of incoherent yelling? there are celebrity game bloggers that don't even bother playing new games because their dream was to not have to play any games they didn't want to? and yet they will go on to complain for hours about something they will never even play - and make a living doing this! people throw thousands of dollars at idiots who don't even have an educated opinion to offer, and we have people still complaining this lady is exploiting video games.

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