• 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.

Anita Sarkeesian: "No more excuses for the lack of women at E3".

Tbf the argument she presents, at least from what I remember, is something along the lines of games perpetuating it's toxic culture which I personally believe has some basis in truth (take a look at any multiplayer/MMO community as an example). I detest Anita as much as anyone but there's no denying the "response" (death and rape threats, etc) she's received is inexcusable not to mention made it more difficult for any forum of legitimate discussion or criticism.

That said I hate this emphasis on "muh representation" that's become so prevalent in recent years in regards to basically all creative fields.

She's twisting at windmills because the toxic elements of gaming culture have nothing to do with games like Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Rumble Roses or other fanservice heavy games.

Do you think the Call of Duty audience plays games like that? In fact online gaming could basically be considered it's own separate hobby and culture from the rest of gaming, we don't deserve to be stereotyped by that one element.

If there had never been a sexy female character you would still have toxic gamers in today's world, all she's done in her crusade against fanservice is make gaming worse.
 

Riven326

Banned
Remember kids, it's simply flat out wrong for men to enjoy the sight of attractive women.

If you find a woman sexually attractive, that of course can only mean you hate women and see them as below you, certainly there's not a single man alive that enjoys beautiful women and isn't also a raging misogynist?
What about women who find other women sexually attractive? Don't they want to bring back booth babes, too?
 

RedVIper

Banned
Evidently women like that don't exist according to SJWs.

And wearing revealing costumes in public is only ever demeaning, which is why so many female cosplayers wear revealing costumes in public of their own accord and without pay.

That's just internalized misogyny, or something.
 

Honey Bunny

Member
everyone seemed to be going out of their way to put women in their e3 shows. dont know what she's talkinga bout. going by the MS video half the people creating the next xbox are women.
 

ROMhack

Member
It's weird isn't it when an 88 year old Japanese man who was alive during WWII doesn't have the same opinions on contemporary social issues as 22 year old college graduates.

It's just fucking weird.

Edit: In fairness most posters are saying it's a reach.
 
Last edited:

Zaffo

Member
:messenger_grinning_sweat: :messenger_grinning_sweat: :messenger_grinning_sweat:


How does that forum even have a user base?
Do people, after being banned for calling out virtue signaling moron, come back and try to fit in the cool club?
 

Whitesnake

Banned
It's weird isn't it when an 88 year old Japanese man who was alive during WWII doesn't have the same opinions on contemporary social issues as 22 year old college graduates.

It's just fucking weird.

Edit: In fairness most posters are saying it's a reach.

And each and every one of those posters are getting banned lmao
 
What about women who find other women sexually attractive? Don't they want to bring back booth babes, too?

My wife is certainly very annoyed by the broad push to remove any attractive woman from the public eye. Sexy, busty women kicking arse is pretty much her favourite character archetype.

How does that forum even have a user base?
Do people, after being banned for calling out virtue signaling moron, come back and try to fit in the cool club?

Hello!

Got banned there for suggesting jokes that reference old memes aren't hate crimes, after a warning for arguing that large breasts are not sexist and infact something a lot of real women possess.

On the plus side it meant I had to reevaluate my beliefs and political opinions, which made me realise how bloody mental the far left has become. Then last week I remembered this place existed, checked to see if I had an account still, stayed because of the apparent greater respect for free speech!
 
Last edited:
Diversity matters. But diversity matters in a context. Regardless of what market segment you are talking about, demographic preferences are skewed in many different directions for a multitude of reasons.


What is disappointing about a lot of US liberals infantile understanding of equality is that it's not a math equation that needs to be exactly divided. Diversity and representation can exist on its own without sizing it up against something else (and ignoring all the triggers for why that is). This year we saw a lot of shooter games make a return (military, dystopian, zombie, scifi) . Particularly Ubisoft had lots of shooters that evoked a very male-dominated fantasy. It's a very targeted demographic who are into guns, military, strategy and who also love those types of movies and tv shows. We did see a fair bit of good representation in this category for women. Wolfenstein Youngblood was probably one of the better games in this category. There is Cyberpunk, Watch Dogs, Borderlands, Control, Outriders, Gears 5, Division 2, Bleeding Edge and others where the mains are female or you can play as female.

I think that there is a lot of breath here for women who are into shooters. There might be more male-dominated shooters, but it's not like there is not a really good selection of female-led games. And that's important. The conversation needs to continue to be on making better characters and telling better stories. If we turn it into quotas we lose sight of the major problems here.

Hollywood moved behind female action heroines, and it didn't work - A lot of big Hollywood blockbusters with female action leds tanked. Not because they were females, but because the movies and the characters sucked. People will watch whatever as long as its good. I don't believe women who would not be compelled to play Gears of War- a dudebro circle jerk game of massive proportions, just because there is a female lead in the new one. There might be some, but I don't think this ever was or ever will be the demographic segment they are going for. And there are cultural norms and preferences here for roided up military patriotism action set pieces that go way beyond just representation. A lot of women don't find Gears compelling, and no amount of representation or diversity is going to change that.

That might not be the case for Wolfenstein Youngblood. A game that has a much more compelling story and characters. This game has a much better chance in my mind, of reeling in women because of the entertainment value, witty writing, and creative alternative-fiction. The game looks like a blast regardless if you are a fan of shooters.

So diversity matters. But in context. And it needs to be held up against many other factors.

Like I have criticized hollywood for since the early 2000s, is that female action heroines are often designed by men and written for men. I want to see more women design games. There are many TV shows and movies that target female audiences. What does that look in the gaming space? We don't know. We don't know what the equivilant of that would be, where 80% of the demographic are women. Would it even be a shooter? There is a lot of growth and opportunity, but I don't think it comes from stuffing in females into male dominated fantasys anymore than males demanding that male diginified characters are put into stupid romcoms.




Keeping the discussion narrowed. Too long to discuss cross-appeal, wider demographics etc. Obviously, that is a big topic- but for another day.
 

McCheese

Member
Hello!

Got banned there for suggesting jokes that reference old memes aren't hate crimes, after a warning for arguing that large breasts are not sexist and infact something a lot of real women possess.

Well, that site is just a afront to stop the crazy ones reaching from here, you passed the test Charlie ;)
 
Last edited:

Bullet Club

Member

Anita watching E3:

kBbgt2n.gif
 

Shmunter

Member
Heard somewhere that the Gears devs are signed up to some women in games initiative. Explains the strange out of place tone the new one has.

Seriously, the most macho IP in gaming history to be associated with such a thing.

ezgif.com-gif-maker-211-600x338.gif
 

Varteras

Gold Member
I love the point of killing of well paid jobs for women (booth babes) who worked really hard on their fitness regimen.
"Their is no possible way i'm going to allow men to have more of a good time then me. Get rid of those woman. "

"Women shouldn't be told what to wear or shamed for what they choose! Also, scantily clad women promote rape culture and are objects to the patriarchy!"
 

thelastword

Banned
I love the point of killing of well paid jobs for women (booth babes) who worked really hard on their fitness regimen.
"Their is no possible way i'm going to allow men to have more of a good time then me. Get rid of those woman. "
Unless, she's talking about more women representation in games....or more women game-developer leads on-stage talking about their projects....Which I find, there was quite a bit of at this E3, and even in the past tbh....
 

MagnesG

Banned
Heard somewhere that the Gears devs are signed up to some women in games initiative. Explains the strange out of place tone the new one has.

Seriously, the most macho IP in gaming history to be associated with such a thing.

ezgif.com-gif-maker-211-600x338.gif
I've lost hope for the new Gears at this point.
 


Maybe the constant blanket accusations of misogyny towards developers and publishers in order to drum up fake moral outrage isn't the best way to get funding. Anita is one of the most toxic elements in the gaming industry, does she really expect to be paid by the very same people that she keeps attacking?

Her tired criticism has run its course and she has clearly nothing more to bring to the table. Just let her slip into irrelevancy.
 

Look at the numbers here. This article completely ignores the data -

The amount of games where you can play as only male has also gone down. And then the author handwaves the fact that a whopping 68% of all games allow you to choose your gender, and that is not fair because "you dont know how good the representation is". You don't know how good the representation is in the female-protagonist games either... The argument makes no sense. That is the real story. That is amazing. Close to 2/3 of video games at E3 allows you to be female, either by choice or predetermined. Thats way up from 2015 even, while games where you can only play male as dropped more than 10%. Male-only games have dropped from 32% to 21% in less than 5 years. That is an incredible shift, and somehow the author looks at that, pisses all over that observation and conjours some vague hot take bullshit out of his/her ass.


Just because you have a choice does not mean, that playing as a female in a game is a lesser experience. That is moronic. Other peoples references doesn't need to defer from your own. Game developers are empowering players through the interactivity of the medium to choose. This is what video games are all about. And for the author of this article to act like that a linear binary approach is somehow better or more valid that the customization aspects that progress has allowed, strikes me as petty and moronic. On one hand, people like the author are asking for inclusive incorporation of features that represents minorities, but on the other, the language and arguments suggested here, claims that an experience with the choice of gender is somehow questionable or even lesser.

'Yeah, being able to choose your gender could be something else than playing as a pre-determined character and gender. But thats a big maybe and that has many other factors. A well-realized game will make it compelling regardless, and there are many approaches to how to allow male/female characters choices in games. Assassins Creed Oddysee tells a parallel story where roles of the male and female are flipped, other games like Mass Effect allows the player to choose their gender from the beginning.

This author is a hypocrite, talking about diversity and choice, and at the same being hostile towards peoples preferences. And this is not even mentioning or getting into that many women like playing as male characters, just like many guys like playing as females. So this stand is utterly incomprehensible. Look at those stats. Anita and her study have completely misframed the information. The real story is that 68% of the games have a massive amount of player choice and expression compared to ever before.

AND, what is even more hypocritical about this, is that use this logic the author is using, you could argue that making games with inclusive choices could "water down the game". Okay- so don't make anything that gives minorities a form of expression. It is inferior to just have a generic one-pathed expression. Absolutely incomprehensible to take a stance, that you wanna talk about inclusion, but then you are using actual fucking talking points and dog whistles to keeps people from expressing yourself.



Journalists, in general, have a poor understanding of infographics and data visualization. Half of Americans read graphs on a fourth-grade level, so I am not surprised about this. Is this really just incompetence and poorly thought out hot takes from these Wired and Forbes clickbait shit writers, or is there malicious intent here? Fucking unbelievable.
 
Last edited:
Do you mean a misandrist male power fantasy.
I wish I were. Sadly you're using logic instead of hatred.

The arguement has gone for years that stereotypically thin, busty and good looking women are an oppressive and offensively unrealistic male fantasy, while stereotypically buff, muscular and handsome men aren't attractive to anyone, and are infact just something else only straight men enjoy as they can fantasize about being them.

It's all bollocks of course, because as this and all evidence ever shows that the bleeding obvious is true and that yeah, big muscles and good looks are what get most women going.

So yeah, by far left extremist logic, misogynistic.

Maybe the constant blanket accusations of misogyny towards developers and publishers in order to drum up fake moral outrage isn't the best way to get funding. Anita is one of the most toxic elements in the gaming industry, does she really expect to be paid by the very same people that she keeps attacking?

Her tired criticism has run its course and she has clearly nothing more to bring to the table. Just let her slip into irrelevancy.
She need to complain to stay relevance.

Seriously, it's her job to find something to be upset about and then collecting Paetron money.

She's become pretty much a self parody with no audience beyond the other extremists she repeats the same tired arguements to over and over no matter what reality is, and gets used by almost entirely male run multimedia companies for clickbait.

It'd be sad if said media weren't also using her to push hatred, harmful ideology and censorship.
 
It's all about that proper representation of women in the games industry...

OjNKt4f.png


As long as its bikini clad booth babes, i'm all for it.

Are booth babes still a thing at E3? I remember in the early years of E3, when just about every major publishers would hire women for their E3 booths. Personally, I was always OK with this, within reason. The majority of those booth babes were happy to get a gig as big as E3, and were all paid well.
 

Varteras

Gold Member
It's all about that proper representation of women in the games industry...

OjNKt4f.png




Are booth babes still a thing at E3? I remember in the early years of E3, when just about every major publishers would hire women for their E3 booths. Personally, I was always OK with this, within reason. The majority of those booth babes were happy to get a gig as big as E3, and were all paid well.

Anita's brand of feminism did away with that. Which means it contributed to a loss in female jobs. Which probably helped contribute to the wage gap. Which I'm sure feminists like her ironically complain about.
 
Anita's brand of feminism did away with that. Which means it contributed to a loss in female jobs. Which probably helped contribute to the wage gap. Which I'm sure feminists like her ironically complain about.


Imagine all the women that were reduced to being full time strippers or move to live streaming just to make ends meet. I oddly know a few women like that, myself.

145232543_7a51ffd81f_b.jpg


8c89a590f56e16a9248502.jpg


Why do SJW's have to be so hard on attractive women?
 

Varteras

Gold Member
Imagine all the women that were reduced to being full time strippers or move to live streaming just to make ends meet. I oddly know a few women like that, myself.

145232543_7a51ffd81f_b.jpg


8c89a590f56e16a9248502.jpg


Why do SJW's have to be so hard on attractive women?

Clearly it's because of their own complexes. Either they grew up believing they weren't attractive or something happened to them that scarred them. Your pictures were a perfect illustration of the cognitive dissonance people like them have. Their caricatures depict three thin and traditionally attractive women. When illustrated through a more realistic lens, not so much. So when it comes to anything that is a celebration of attractive women, to me, it's clearly a lash out that they're not typically considered a part of that. I mean I get it. It's difficult to face the reality that you're not that great looking by most standards and it must be especially hard for women since men are very visual creatures. But their temper tantrums are not helping anyone.
 
Clearly it's because of their own complexes. Either they grew up believing they weren't attractive or something happened to them that scarred them. Your pictures were a perfect illustration of the cognitive dissonance people like them have. Their caricatures depict three thin and traditionally attractive women. When illustrated through a more realistic lens, not so much. So when it comes to anything that is a celebration of attractive women, to me, it's clearly a lash out that they're not typically considered a part of that. I mean I get it. It's difficult to face the reality that you're not that great looking by most standards and it must be especially hard for women since men are very visual creatures. But their temper tantrums are not helping anyone.

The ironic thing is, as visual as men are, we have much, MUCH lower standards than women.

When men and women rate images of each without context, women's looks come out as a typical bell line, most average, about half again as above or below average, a d half again beautiful or ugly.

Women put most mens looks as below average to ugly, with fewer 'average' looking men than men think there are above average women, and barely any rated as handsome.

It's why dating apps like Tinder and the rest end up with 80% of the women going after the same 20% of the most handsome, muscular, well dressed and rich appearing guys.

Males might care about looks first and foremost, but they're also far less fussy and more realistic about actual real life dating options.
 
Last edited:

Varteras

Gold Member
The ironic thing is, as visual as men are, we have much, MUCH lower standards than women.

When men and women rate images of each without context, women's looks come out as a typical bell line, most average, about half again as above or below average, a d half again beautiful or ugly.

Women put most mens looks as below average to ugly, with fewer 'average' looking men than men think there are above average women, and barely any rated as handsome.

It's why dating apps like Tinder and the rest end up with 80% of the women going after the same 20% of the most handsome, muscular, well dressed and rich appearing guys.

Males might care about looks first and foremost, but they're also far less fussy and more realistic about actual real life dating options.

True. I think it's the fact that only certain types of women are celebrated in the manner to which people like Anita complain about. Men may have overall lower standards compared to what people like Anita would have you believe, but that doesn't change the fact that there are women who would clearly be in the upper levels of attractiveness that are focused on in most areas of society. I know plenty of girls at my work place who I would have no problem taking to bed, having a kid with, or marrying but they're not "booth babe material".
 
Top Bottom