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Bloomberg Op-Ed: "Video Game Industry Struggles to Shake Sexist Attitudes" (Ties in "sexism" with harassment at companies like Activision)

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CGiRanger

Banned
Surprisingly not by Jason Schrier, but another moron: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...e-sexist-attitudes?srnd=premium&sref=cSRHqDay
Archive in case paywalled: https://archive.fo/e1tGm
The video-game business has a long and troubled history of sexism and gender stereotypes. A round of scandals at multiple gaming companies offered a sad reminder that the industry has a lot more to do to fix its culture and, eventually, repair its reputation.

But the situation isn’t hopeless. As a hit release from Sony shows, there is a big market for games that portray women as smart and resourceful actors rather than as pawns, victims and objects of male desire.
Tries to tie in harassment scandals due to "sexism" from female character "objectification":
Despite an outcry at the time, the industry continued to struggle with hostile attitudes toward women. After Microsoft Corp. hosted a party five years ago with scantily clad female dancers on platforms, head of Xbox Phil Spencer was forced to apologize. More recently, League of Legends maker Riot Games Inc. has been sued for gender discrimination, while Ubisoft Entertainment and Activision Blizzard Inc. have let go several executives amid allegations of widespread sexual harassment.
After a few paragraphs of literally pimping Aloy from Horizon Dawn as if she was the first example of a non "objectified" female character, he complains about other games and being "embarrassed to play them" due to the "depictions" (seriously? How can you call current Lara Croft designs "objectified" and/or "skimpy"???):
Characters like Aloy remain too rare among mainstream games. As a video-game enthusiast, I find it uncomfortable playing leading titles like Tomb Raider, Genshin Impact or Bayonetta, all of which feature female characters in skimpy outfits. But for now, gamers are stuck either watching sexist depictions of women or avoiding many of the gaming world’s top franchises. Of course, plenty of best-selling videogames don't rely on cringe-inducing portrayals, but familiar gender tropes of the damsel in distress and the use of overly sexualized characters turn up far too often.
Ends on a note of how current female characters depictions are outrageous, and again ties that into the industry harassment issues:
The treatment of women in video games, both behind the scenes and as characters within them, is nothing short of scandalous. Hopefully the latest round of outrages, as well as the example of Sony’s Horizon title, will spur publishers to change their culture. It’s well past time that they did.

Again his examples of "Objectified" female characters are utterly ridiculous. Tomb Raider currently features a Lara who's the most modest she's ever been. Bayonetta's outfits are purposefully designed in a way to be empowering (and overall don't show off much skin which is of course the worst to these people). Genshin Impact of all things is a Gacha game that wants to make money, so of course it has to have attractive characters to market and sell them (and that's why MiHoYo is doing the "it prints money!" thing now), but guess what, they do the same thing to the males too, especially the current Banner:
Genshin-Impact-2.3-Leaks-Itto-Gorou-Kit-Leaked-Skills-Materials-Talents.jpg

I'm gonna guess this guy isn't to "embarrassed" by these though.
 
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Fake

Member
Characters like Aloy remain too rare among mainstream games.
Here
As a video-game enthusiast, I find it uncomfortable playing leading titles like Tomb Raider, Genshin Impact or Bayonetta, all of which feature female characters in skimpy outfits.
We
But for now, gamers are stuck either watching sexist depictions of women or avoiding many of the gaming world’s top franchises.
Go
Of course, plenty of best-selling videogames don't rely on cringe-inducing portrayals, but familiar gender tropes of the damsel in distress and the use of overly sexualized characters turn up far too often.
Again
 
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Fbh

Member
The entire article reads like it was written by someone who doesn't play games and is basing his entire opinion of them on 5 minutes of research and some ad he saw in the 90's

Tomb Raider?
image.png

image.png


These are the outfits that are too sexy for him to handle and make it impossible to play the game in front of his family?
Dude is acting like it's next to impossible to find games with women that aren't in bikini Armor when we just had The Game Awards a couple of weeks ago with big trailers for stuff like Hellblade 2, Forspoken and A Plague Tale
 
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CGiRanger

Banned
The entire article reads like it was written by someone who doesn't play games and is basing his entire opinion of them on 5 minutes of research and some ad he saw in the 90's

Tomb Raider?
image.png

image.png


These are the outfits that are too sexy for him to handle and make it impossible to play the game in front of his family?
Dude is acting like it's next to impossible to find games with women that aren't in bikini Armor when we just had The Game Awards a couple of weeks ago with big trailers for stuff like Hellblade 2, Forspoken and A Plague Tale
Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall absolutely any game that showed a female character at The Game Awards (and that was the majority I feel) that was dressed in anything "revealing" or "objectifying". If anything games, especially in the West, are going completely in the opposite direction to an extreme. Though that's why the author throwing in Lara Croft is basically click-bait, since the other examples are Eastern character designs.
 

Fbh

Member
Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall absolutely any game that showed a female character at The Game Awards (and that was the majority I feel) that was dressed in anything "revealing" or "objectifying". If anything games, especially in the West, are going completely in the opposite direction to an extreme. Though that's why the author throwing in Lara Croft is basically click-bait, since the other examples are Eastern character designs.

Which is why lines like:

Characters like Aloy remain too rare among mainstream games (...) But for now, gamers are stuck either watching sexist depictions of women or avoiding many of the gaming world’s top franchises.

Make no fucking sense and sound like they were written by someone who doesn't play or like games and spent a whole 5 minutes doing "research" which consisted of googling "sexist videogames".


Even the women in God of fucking War now look like this:
god-of-war-ragnarok-render-freya.jpg


And this dude is acting as if Aloy was some "one in a million" non sexualized game character.
 
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Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
Why do you guys give this crap more traffic? Just because there's a thread on the other forum, it doesn't need to pollute this one. Bloomberg's "gaming" coverage is a farce, and this specific writer is one of the worst examples and has been for quite a while. His main field is tech (in which he isn't very good) and knows *nothing* of the gaming industry.

Even if the discussion had any merit, the nature of this stuff is as clear as the sun. This is a complex topic with a ton of different points of view, and he writes a whopping 694 words on it. I write more on Microsoft Flight Simulator add-ons every day. 😂 This isn't an article written out of the genuine desire to discuss a possibly relevant topic. It's throwaway fluff to display some virtue and fill up a holiday slot because mainstream writers like this have no idea how to find actual news when things are slower.

Seriously, a guide on how to unlock a weapon in Battlefield likely has more depth than this, and likely more utility.
 
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zeorhymer

Member
The same people who whine and cry about objectification are the same people who want to get crushed by Lady D. Click bait article and been bouncing around the usual news outlets.
 

Saber

Gold Member
This smells like an article made from a Resetera member.

This reminds me of they calling devs racist for creating orcs based on black people.
Like...wtf, the very act of saying that orcs are nothing but black people is 100% racist. Because you're telling we are just mad at everything, are nothing but brutes and dumbs.

Having hate of different types of women in games already shows signs of preconception. Women in pretty and skimpy clothes exist in real life.
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
"Gaming" "journalism", where people who don't play games try to farm clicks by baiting people with artificially controversial gaming topics.

As a wise man once said, the fake news media is the enemy of the gamers, or something 🤭
And beg for vegetable/coma modes in games they can’t git gud at.

While throwing disabled people under the bus as their bigoted shield reasoning, meanwhile there are peeps with no arms Platting souls games with their mouths and toes.

WITH THEIR TOES!
 
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yurinka

Member
I think both players and devs must start ignoring these 'journalists' and the rest of the puritanist woke gang and we shouldn't give them publicity and view with threads like this one. Shitty clickbaity articles (or similar tweets) like this one should be totally ignored to become totally irrelevant. If something, they should be directly countered with polite messages explaining directly to them (without spreading the articles) why they are wrong with facts.

There is nothing wrong and sexist in pretty, beautiful, sexy, attractive characters, male or female. There is nothing wrong with revealing clothes or nudity. There is nothing wrong with sex. And there is nothing wrong with artists and players liking attractive, beautiful and sexy characters. It's normal for people to be appealed by beaty and sexyness, what is wrong is to get triggered by it. They should stop getting that woke propaganda and check out their mental health instead if they think that the appearance of a cartoon character is affecting their sef steem or something like that.

And artists should be allowed to do whatever they want instead of being pressured to make female characters unattractive and androginous just to appeal a tiny portion of the people who are these noisy folks of the woke cult.
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
Like the person above me mentioned.

Developers/Studios need to just ignore these types of articles. If there's some shit going on in the office, take it to HR and raise a fuss. I'm not saying people should deal with terrible conditions at work, they shouldn't, but to act like it's an industry wide thing is ridiculous.

Woke culture is the absolute worst.
 
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