NoblesseOblige
Banned
I don't know, probably those commenting in this thread? Like you.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The Chinese Room accuses CD Projekt Red of making sexist games
- Thread starter PodcastFips
- Start date
- Status
I don't know, probably those commenting in this thread? Like you.
swearing-circle
Member
There's nothing wrong with liking Quiet. I personally like her character arc but I don't blame anyone at all for seeing her as an objectified woman because she is. Her justification for dressing how she was is stupid but that's not the issue.
The issue is the shower scene and the horribly awkward helicopter animations.
Cabbagehead
Member
Not having the freedom to portray that and not to portray that in any context is censorship.
That would mean some of the greatest works of art and art in general only boils down to sexism because they "parade around half naked woman or naked woman" in you're words.
That's you're argument.
Adults understand context and not just see the perceived issues to fit their agenda.
Messofanego
Banned
This historical argument "that's the way it was" is a lazy argument that doesn't take account of the fact that the games aren't documentaries about the period but are actually fantasy games with the period as a backdrop. Or the games would have no women in leading roles and they'd just be slaves or prostitutes or housewives, which is not how the Witcher games are. The game would have you raping slaves and other kinds of grisly stuff if it was historically accurate. Dragon Age uses the same period as a backdrop but is more positive in its portrayals. Fantasy is often about imagining societies in different and sometimes better ways than our own, it's something to aspire to. That's why the trans characters in Dragon Age and Baldur's Gate aren't treated like garbage, because a fantasy world doesn't have to be that.
Just wait til Lime, Link to the Snitch, and Morrigan Stark show up.
Then it'll be a party!
The image in the OP is an actor for a woman who has a fake body or something. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's a porn star. The idea is, in CYP2077, everyone will look like that. Shallowness is one of the game's themes.
The game is set in medieval Europe which was essentially all white so that is pretty normal. There could have been more foreigners from faraway lands in the main game but I think they fixed that in the DLC. I really don't think it's a big deal in this case, tbh.
Fuck Renaissance painters I guess ?
ClosingADoor
Member
We are talking about the teaser from over 3 years ago right? The one from January 2013? Time passed, maybe they'll do it different now, I don't know. Still don't see anything wrong with it.
I'm not portraying anyone as idiots. I'm just saying I don't think the teaser was made in order to stir up controversy about sexism online in order to get more exposure or sales. It's just an attractive women in a teaser trailer, something that is being done in all industries ever and not for the controversy.
I'd say look at the product, place your issues with it in the context of the world the game is trying to portray and see if they still apply.
I'm not saying there isn't sexism in the games industry or videogames (there clearly is and there is also progress made with it), but in these particular issues I don't see it and think the complaints are overblown.
If you think there are issues, you can lay them out and discuss them of course. Doesn't mean the developer has to listen, but maybe they will, I don't know. What you don't do is make Twitter posts like The Chinese Room has done in this case with a quick complaint and no substance, which doesn't add anything to the conversation.
I haven't played much Witcher.
But my old girlfriend who LOVES the games - possibly her favorites of all times, 2 and 3 at least - has definitely mentioned some criticisms along those lines. Lots of dudes yelling about raping this and whore that. Geralt not being sexualized nearly as much as, uhh, Ciri? The silver-haired girl. And the other women.
Like, not enough to turn her off the game, but enough to critique to me.
The series clearly hearkens to the 80s hardcore earthy violent sexist style of fantasy from the 70s and 80s. That's their choice, but it's certainly something people are free to criticize.
But my old girlfriend who LOVES the games - possibly her favorites of all times, 2 and 3 at least - has definitely mentioned some criticisms along those lines. Lots of dudes yelling about raping this and whore that. Geralt not being sexualized nearly as much as, uhh, Ciri? The silver-haired girl. And the other women.
Like, not enough to turn her off the game, but enough to critique to me.
The series clearly hearkens to the 80s hardcore earthy violent sexist style of fantasy from the 70s and 80s. That's their choice, but it's certainly something people are free to criticize.
Cabbagehead
Member
That's what he or she is basically saying.
Fuck the concepts of honoring the woman form or the human body regardless of gender or context.
Audioboxer
Member
In my opinion more so Kojima also coming out with the once you find out why explanation. He deserved criticism for that.
He should have either just stayed quiet (punnn) or been honest and just admitted yeah I wanted to create a sexually infused character. Honesty is key with creative freedom. You will get torn to shreds if you yourself try to perform mental gymnastics to appease criticism from certain crowds.
As I've said many times in this thread I will defend creative freedom in adult based content to be sexy, sexual or engage in sexual acts. As an individual though I do not like deceit or a lack of honesty about said creative freedom. Kojima displayed that, made none the clearer with fully body clothing skins for Quiet. His artistic vision about skin breathing was compromised, even if the character did actually breathe through her skin.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
Can we please remember that there are other significant females in the games story than the sorceresses?
for people championing womens rights and representation, there seems a bit of forgetfulness regarding the women who dont get their tits out.
shortsFortallPeople
Banned
They wouldn't be wrong if they were specifically talking about the Witcher 1.
Real talk, aside from the actual argument/discussion taking place between people, I don't see why anyone would WANT to argue/discuss this with you.
Literally all your posts do is meant to stir shit. I don't care if you believe you are on the right side of this and you believe you are just in doing so. Who the fuck would want to engage with this, and what do you hope to accomplish by constantly just strawmanning every argument you ever see?
If the goal of these discussions is to convince people that sexism is a real problem and that CD Project is one of the contributors, what does belittling every opinion and throwing out strawman quotes hope to accomplish in doing this?
I don't mean "Can you playthrough and not sleep with people", I mean "how many (significant, established) female characters are there who you can't sleep with?"
My only frame of reference is Witcher 1 (where basically every female character with any characterisation - and a few who didn't really have much - could be slept with), so I'm curious how much that changed in the more recent titles.
While I agree that fantasy doesn't need to include these themes, dismissing them as sexist when they do simply because they didn't need to include them is equally as lazy.
Stories and fiction Chan be influenced in an infinite amount of ways. Just imagining a mid evil theme with magic existing is enough for a setting.
Claiming that' it's Lazy and that a theme shouldn't include these themes is ridiculous. Hell to kill s mocking bird was banned over themes that authorities felt shouldn't be included!
You're really embarrassing yourself with your straw man arguments. Mocking isn't exactly helping your own perceived higher moral position.
Not sure of the exact number, but it was less than in stardew valley, wjere you could fuck 1/3 of the general populace + cows sheep and chickens...or at least that's what the sprite looked like he was doing when he milked from behind.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
I don't think you have the slightest idea what 'honoring the woman form' means.
Cabbagehead
Member
Its strawmaning at its worse and a non conversation starter.
"Man shouldn't comment on woman issues, because man are the problem" like wtf is that mindset then nothing will get done about it. If the talking point has some real ammo.
swearing-circle
Member
I agree. Kojima should have owned up to it and there would have been far less backlash from the gaming community imo.
Just like everyone else.
Cabbagehead
Member
Context is everything, i was making a connection between his or her strawman and the great works of art of the past century.
Ignoring context is the downfall of all conversations.
I'm surprised his threadshitting has gone unchecked for so long.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
I reread your post and edited.
As far as im concerned, if a character has a questline dedicated to them or at least they star in, then they are significant.
Like, we can do this all day if you want;
There are people who have looked at the product, analyzed it in context of the game AND in the greater context of creating art and marketing it and have STILL found that there are issues with it.
They have then written articles and forum posts criticizing those aspects with arguments they felt are valid.
Other people have read those things, or come up with opinions on their own that mirror those arguments in part or in whole and have expressed the gist of it twitter or forum posts.
You think that those opinions that piggy back on the well written articles are unnecessary, but they are like casting a vote in an election; the grander voice speaks for you in this context and you state that you agree with it. Others consolidate around those ideas. Others consolidate around the opposition.
Every war needs its foot soldiers.
You think that these opinions are overreactions. They do not.
It's only normal if you completely ignore, you know, history.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/15/missing-the-target/
Complicated
Banned
There are a couple women who geralt has preexisting relationships. Maybe there's more than that that I never saw, but nothing about it was like the card collecting in witcher 1.
nkarafo
Member
So wait... if i want to depict a cruel world similar to that of Game of Thrones, were everyone is sexist, homophobic, racist, murderer, etc, that means my game is sexist, homophobic and racist? Am i a murderer too?
Should we all make politically correct Nickelodeon cartoons and sitcoms then?
Gotcha.
Should we all make politically correct Nickelodeon cartoons and sitcoms then?
Gotcha.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
It might come across as shitposting, but yes there is a history of that poster just entering threads to just play devils advocate and thats putting it nicely.
The reductive sarcasm isnt needed either.
I agree that from a history perspective it's inaccurate. But the game itself is a product of a culture that is not really exposed to other races.
Ok? I never said otherwise.
Cabbagehead
Member
Then what's the middle ground? is their a middle ground? or are all sexually representations of man or woman overtly bad. An that's it?
yep.
i think quiet is a fucking badass character who inexplicably has some really fucking bullshit crap attached.
that helicoptor shit is so bad honestly.
GoldenCrow
Member
I also found The Witcher 1, 2 and 3 to be quite sexist games. I enjoyed them all very much but that doesn't change the fact that they are sexist. The world depicted is patriarchal thus sexism within the game world is to be expected but it is the fact that there are very few to no women who don't fit the standard gender tropes and thus what makes the game itself and not the world feel sexist. Every woman is either a potential fuck buddy, flirtatious, a prostitute, manipulative, a bitch, or somebody that needs to be protected with most women being scantly clad it all comes across as very shallow and one sided.
I remember reading something about the reason they didn't model a dick for Geralt was because nobody wanted to do it and they didn't want to force anybody. Come on grow up it is only a penis. That sort of thinking comes across quite a lot throughout the game, looking immature in what is generally a mature game, especially when it comes to sex within the game.
I remember reading something about the reason they didn't model a dick for Geralt was because nobody wanted to do it and they didn't want to force anybody. Come on grow up it is only a penis. That sort of thinking comes across quite a lot throughout the game, looking immature in what is generally a mature game, especially when it comes to sex within the game.
ClosingADoor
Member
Then we will disagree on that, nothing wrong there. I just think it is a bit lazy and stupid from a developer to complain about another developer in this way, through their official Twitter account, about an image that was not even put there by CDProjekt and is taken at least a little out of context - and to me doesn't show sexism.
Like I said, there are issues with sexism in gaming. I just don't see them in the latest output by CDProjekt and as such will not judge them on it for now. Maybe when Cyberpunk is released those issues will be there, but we don't know for now.
Fair enough!
Wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, just thought it was worth mentioning that a representation of a homogenous culture isn't inherintly bad, I meant no offence, my apologies.
Audioboxer
Member
Well it does, as that world is. That's the reality of the GoT world. If that offends you then you can ignore GoT and enjoy something else. The writing shouldn't be compromised or censored from the writers vision because it's harsh, cruel, violent or abusive.
However that criticism shouldn't extend to the creative directors or those consuming the entertainment with buzzwords and attacks on their personality. That is where the argument gets heated as you start pointing fingers at real world people and making them feel ashamed or lesser of a human for simply being an actor, model, writer or consumer enjoying the content.
Since the cyborg character depicted by the actress is recruited and shown in a battle ready armor by the end of the trailer, I don't see any intention of sexism in here.
The shocking effect because of her clothes is that no matter what she'd be doing a few minutes before the trailer, she very quickly switched to murder mode with her hidden blades, as if she malfunctioned. Feels like danger can come out of nowhere in this world.
In any way, there's no need for one tweet to slightly ruin the reputation of either TCR or CDPR. Even if there are be poor choices here and there, their games are far from being projects that disregard decency when it comes to these themes.
The shocking effect because of her clothes is that no matter what she'd be doing a few minutes before the trailer, she very quickly switched to murder mode with her hidden blades, as if she malfunctioned. Feels like danger can come out of nowhere in this world.
In any way, there's no need for one tweet to slightly ruin the reputation of either TCR or CDPR. Even if there are be poor choices here and there, their games are far from being projects that disregard decency when it comes to these themes.
When Keira takes her bath, she's "sexily" washing her legs, lifting them in an awkward, almost burlesque pose and Geralt is blatantly creeping on her.
When Geralt takes his bath, his legs are comically splayed on the tub and the context of the scene is a goofy gag about a monster bug biting him on the balls.
There's a very clear difference in the way the game presents the two genders. In some sex scenes Geralt might as well be replaced by an eroge shadow person because the camera lingers on the female characters so much, you could miss Geralt's cameo if you blinked.
Cabbagehead
Member
Cheat Code
Member
No wonder Sony couldn't be fucked with them. Starting shit with other studios is a crap way of building a positive reputation.
There's always a middle ground. It's just that everyone draws the line in different places and that's what everyone argues about.
But he was saying that we shouldn't argue about it because he draws the line in a different place and that's the line that other people shouldn't draw in a tertiary different place.
I feel like I'm trying to describe why people argue about things and why it's necessary.
There are many different opinions out there and someone thinks your opinion is just as invalid as you think there's is.
And see I'm down with playing Devil's Advocate, it's a very enlightening experience and helps push out weak arguments people have and really get them to dig to their core beliefs to try and argue a topic.
But doing so by making up strawman quotes showing the other side in the worst possible light, so you can engage them and feel like you're the victor is sad. It's not doing a fucking thing to convince anyone in this thread anything. All it's doing is stroking their own ego.
swearing-circle
Member
Aye, absolutely. I remember when I first got her bond to max and how uncomfortable I felt with her sticking her ass in my face.
- Status