Tropes vs. Women Author Driven From Home

[Sulaco]

No need to take you seriously when you seem to believe that a dick is required to create or play games.

Oh goodness, where to start...

I understand that you are seemingly being attacked from all sides and your arguments consistently challenged, so a healthy dose of victimhood and defensiveness is not terribly surprising, but if you're going to make simply asinine, unsupported statements like that, you're going to lose any and all credibility that you have.

My original post, that you were likely too busy feeling the victim to rationally comprehend, was merely pointing out the obviousness of this issue.

"Sexism" in gaming, or what is perceived as sexism and male-dominated narratives with typically male interests being portrayed, exist for the precise reason those reverse narratives are portrayed in Harlequin romance novels: The vast majority of the audience for those books is female, the authors are largely female, they are trying to appeal to their core audience, and there is still the age-old and true adage that for EITHER gender, sex sells.

It's simple business, there's no grand conspiracy. There are obviously sophomoric examples that take it too far, as with any medium, but that is hardly surprising or representative in the slightest.

 

[thedosbox]

"Sexism" in gaming, or what is perceived as sexism and male-dominated narratives with typically male interests being portrayed, exist for the precise reason those reverse narratives are portrayed in Harlequin romance novels: The vast majority of the audience for those books is female, the authors are largely female, they are trying to appeal to their core audience, and there is still the age-old and true adage that for EITHER gender, sex sells.

It's simple business, there's no grand conspiracy. There are obviously sophomoric examples that take it too far, as with any medium, but that is hardly surprising or representative in the slightest.

This might have been true ten years ago, but not today. 48% of people who play games are female, and sales of "core" games are shrinking. Trying to expand the market for games is one way to ensure publishers survive.

Now, someone will point out that women currently play mostly casual games, but then ignore the possibility of expanding the market for "core" games. The reality is that development costs are going up, and sales aren't keeping pace. Continuing down the same path is going to do more to kill "core" games than making them more inclusive.

You have a one sided claim that they actually did something that constituted harassment, and assuming they were harassing, you're saying there is a systemic problem because the gamer equivalent of the Wetboro Baptist Church is making a bunch of noise.

Nope, I provided evidence that "people calling her names on the internet" extended to the real world. There are also (unverified) claims that one such person was arrested for refusing to leave. If you want to extrapolate that to a wider problem that's your choice.

Yes they have.

Again, we're talking about Sarkeesian. No doubt the people who want her to shut up have worked up some conspiracy theory jpeg's with loads of red boxes and arrows everywhere. But actual evidence? Citation please.

 

[davie jambo]

So what if she got called names ? It's just from nutcases. Phone the police about these people and get them charged not post about it on the internet

 

[thedosbox]

So what if she got called names ? It's just from nutcases. Phone the police about these people and get them charged not post about it on the internet

It sometimes helps to read the thread:

 

[davie jambo]

Well good , now stop posting about it and let the police do their job

 

[SharpHawk]

Why do you bother replying to someone who's clearly nuts? Complete waste of your time.

 

[nehalem256]

I watched the first thunderf00t video posted on this thread. It was about 10 minutes long, approximately 6 of those minutes were spent repeating the same point two or three times, included some inexplicable quoted comments (inexplicable without context), and somehow he managed to miss her probable point/opinion about the Watch Dogs scene that the traffiking content was an excuse to show a bit of nudity.

I also found the "disabling YT comments" bit amusing, as if YT comment threads are typical sources of intelligent discourse on any topic.

If the context for the scenes from the Hitman game he included are as he described then I would agree that he has a point there and perhaps she is either intentionally misrepresenting them or her opinion is the result of a biassed prejudicial perspective (ie. whenever she sees female nudity (or degrees of) in games it 'sets her off'), etc. However, she's posted many videos on the topic of sexism in gaming, she's bound to have posted something incorrect in one of them, just like any one of us will very likely have posted something incorrect on the Internet at some point; it's how she would react to someone pointing this out in a non-douchy fashion that's important after she's made a mistake.

So feminists think female nudity = sexism?

Aren't these the same people who arrange naked(or near naked) slut walks that are suppose to be about empowering women?:hmm:

 

[BoberFett]

StarDock Dev: http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/457741/GamerGatethe_free_ride_is_over

Social Justice Warriors are scumbags. This is well known. And these are the people thedosbox is defending.

 

[jruchko]

So feminists think female nudity = sexism?

Aren't these the same people who arrange naked(or near naked) slut walks that are suppose to be about empowering women?:hmm:

There are sex-positive and sex-negative femenists. They really don't like each other that much, and it is the sex-negative femenists that are the radicals.

It is the sex-negative side that is always crying about patriarchy, rape culture, all men are rapists, sexual images are bad, etc. They are the feminists who say they are for equality, but once you bring up issues for men like child custody and divorce, they flip shit and scream my-soggy-knee. They can also be called by another name, which is victim-femenists, because they are always playing the victim card.

The vast majority of sex-positive femenists I have seen/talked to have no problem admitting that men and women have equality problems in different areas. They also regularly get attacked by the crazies on the sex-negative side. You can pretty much just drop the "sex" from sex-positive and just call them positive femenists, because they try to come up with solutions to problems. They don't want to bring down the people with the advantages, they want to bring the disadvantaged up.

 

[master_shake_]

"you're either a feminist or a bigot there is nothing in between" -Gloria Allred.

now that's some straight up bs.

 

[jruchko]

"you're either a feminist or a bigot there is nothing in between" -Gloria Allred.

now that's some straight up bs.

If you go by the dictionary definition that statement is pretty much true. Right now though you have sex-negative (radical) feminists who have their own definition which is nothing like the dictionary definition. They will often switch between the 2 definitions depending on what they are trying to do, or who they are attacking.

 

[Sulaco]

This might have been true ten years ago, but not today. 48% of people who play games are female, and sales of "core" games are shrinking. Trying to expand the market for games is one way to ensure publishers survive.

Now, someone will point out that women currently play mostly casual games, but then ignore the possibility of expanding the market for "core" games. The reality is that development costs are going up, and sales aren't keeping pace. Continuing down the same path is going to do more to kill "core" games than making them more inclusive.

Those statistics are quite misleading since they apply to all games, mobile Candy Crush types and like you already stated, much more casual games. Games that are simply gender-neutral or have little to no plot or character development.

The statistics of the male dominated industry are still overwhelmingly true in the genres where the "male narrative" exists, which was the point.

In other words, young males still vastly outnumber females in genres where a cohesive narrative and character/plot exposition takes place; such as action adventure games, First Person Shooters, RPGs (though I'd wager the gap is narrower here), and similar spin-offs.

So yes, while "gaming" as a whole is much more diverse than it ever has been, there is far more to it than that. These individual genres still have very unique markets and customer targets, and most developers are going to continue to target their core audience within those respective genres.
If you're making the next Call of Duty, the statistics on the number of teenage females playing Cut the Rope or Farmville is likely not going to have an effect on the way you try and appeal to your core audience.
"Broadening the audience" is risky, and trying to attract a new demographic is extremely tricky, especially for an industry that continuously tries to piggy-back success off of similar genre ideas.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Those statistics are quite misleading since they apply to all games, mobile Candy Crush types and like you already stated, much more casual games. Games that are simply gender-neutral or have little to no plot or character development.

It's just economics 101, where there's a demand there's a supply.

Men spend more money for the big budget AAA games with much more depth and complexity where as women tend to prefer more time wasting flash games, the distribution of gamers across the different kind of games is not equal even when the total number of male vs female gamers is close.

So it's no wonder these games are tailored for men, developers are here to make money and target a specfic audience and give them what they want. Women need to stop whining about what developers are doing and vote with their wallets, that's why Anita and what she's doing is such a massive waste of time, because no amount of whining like moron is going to make game developers develop something that pleases less of their target audience, that's just stupid and make you less competitive as a business.

 

[Jodell88]

Are video game sexist?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MxqSwzFy5w&feature=youtu.be&a

This lady actually gets it.

 

[0roo0roo]

It's shitty when they're reused over and over. And that's his point, lazy writing ends up with the same shit being used again and again. Just like the bumbling husband on TV, it's old.



Right, because there's a real shortage of heterosexual "relationships" in those games.

The difference being that Thompson viewed games as evil, and wanted them blocked from even being sold. Sarkeesian is arguing about how women in games are represented, and wants to see that improved.

Certain types of stories are told for a reason, mythology tends to tell certain types of stories people find interesting. Stories that go no where aren't interesting to anyone, and even the more unique story types are just not compatible with games. Its not lazy, somethings just don't work, the story of your life is interesting to you, but it can't be translated into a game anyone would buy or play. So heroic quests tend to be told, simple stories of over coming adversity.....

Which is actually explained quite well by the redlettermedia folks in the epic phantom menace/prequel reviews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI

Feminist Frequency Debunked
dangerousanalysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwFx-tz9TY&list=UUWeZblpq1zeVigPZUOBwMcw

On why protagonists tend to be male.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UjP82NY_sU

And no, Anita is no different from Jack Thompson, he thought games were violence simulators which would make boys into violent monsters. Anita thinks they are misogyny simulators which will create misogynists. They both insult everyones intelligence and their work is based entirely on bullshit. Only difference is when Jack said he had a death threat, no one cared because he was a man. The only real sexism that isn't being addressed these days is benevolent sexism where women are still being treated by a different standard. Anita wouldn't have been given any attention at all if she had been the "wrong" gender for the white knights to come out in force to defend their poor damsel.


On playground fights and #gamergate
bar bar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5QNMnvEtfo

 

[mikeymikec]

Feminist Frequency Debunked
dangerousanalysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwFx-tz9TY&list=UUWeZblpq1zeVigPZUOBwMcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5QNMnvEtfo

5 minutes in, this one is certainly more interesting than thunderf00t's compendium of rants IMO. One thing I think should be pointed out though is that AFAIK Anita Sarkeesian hasn't claimed to be an academic-quality source of information; perhaps she should aspire to that (especially given the Kickstarter, it's kind of like "going pro"), but just because someone out there put her on that pedestal, it doesn't make it right to say that's what she should live up to purely because of that. It's like saying that someone believes Anita is a god so therefore she should be a god.

I agree that it's a bit odd/wrong that Anita Sarkeesian doesn't publicly cite her sources, but one thing I think should be pointed out is that "well-researched" could validly be referring to the amount of games that she has cited as falling foul of, in for example the 'body in the refrigerator' trope.

The next example he gives 'Dragon Island', I think both he and she had interesting points, though without citation it is just her opinion as to why it was rewritten. He appears to blow her argument out of the water in The 'King Kong' example, but the 'damsel in distress' one I think they both have valid points and really he just possibly makes a correction in semantics. Her point is objectification in the 'damsel in distress' trope, his counter-point is that in many old stories the damsel has an ordeal to go through and is portrayed heroically as a result, hence not an object, however, that doesn't happen in a heck of a lot of games including the 'damsel in distress' trope, hence IMO both points are valid.

The next point he makes about numbers of games including 'damsels in distress' is disingenuous; she says there are hundreds and points out 260 which IMO is a fair bit of research for what should be an non-debatable point, he effectively is asking her to cite every single game out of "tens of thousands of games", and since he elected himself the job of "debunking" her point, perhaps he should have countered the point effectively instead of not citing any sources for his claim that the rest therefore must be OK. Must one analyse every drop of water in every ocean in order to claim that the oceans have water in them. Her point was that it's a common trope.

The next point about the hero myth I find a bit puzzling. She's talking about the myth in the context of video games IMO, he's not. If he is intentionally ignoring that then he erected a straw man and attacked it, but I think they're just talking at cross-purposes.

Next point 'citation needed' regarding the effect of all of the following on society is a fair point but extremely difficult to prove. IMO she's just giving her opinion. So change the wording and present it as an opinion.

He then appears to go into full-on attack mode with regard to her saying things like "large percentage", and "rampant", then shows a few graphs (probably) depicting increasing acceptance of women as valuable members of society as some sort of counterpoint. If she had used wording to suggest that sexism in society was worsening or something far more dramatic then I would have agreed with his points on the matter, but as they are his points here are completely invalid, as there can be a large percentage of idiots in a society where the idiotic viewpoint is steadily decreasing.

The odd thing is, considering that he attempts to "debunk" what he claims is supposed to be an "academic quality" source of information, then cites only two sources in total when simultaneously claiming that she doesn't cite her sources enough. Pot, kettle.

 

[cubby1223]

No different from many of the comments in this thread then? I may not agree with her, but she's certainly got the right to express her opinion without being harassed out of her home.

Except when one's opinion is that you are a bad person, and the best reasoning behind the opinion is that a group of like-minded peers agree with it, and the mode of expressing that opinion is by continuously lecturing the world on how bad of a person you are... gonna piss off a few people. And that is the proof that the opinion is true, because people are pissed off.

 

[CPA]

Social Justice Warriors are scumbags. This is well known. And these are the people thedosbox is defending.

Thank you for clarifying what SJW means. I read that article and throughout it, I was like "who or what is SJW?"

 

[mikeymikec]

Except when one's opinion is that you are a bad person, and the best reasoning behind the opinion is that a group of like-minded peers agree with it, and the mode of expressing that opinion is by continuously lecturing the world on how bad of a person you are... gonna piss off a few people. And that is the proof that the opinion is true, because people are pissed off.

When did she call someone a bad person?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

When did she call someone a bad person?

She hasn't to my knowledge, but what she concludes which is that gamers are essentially harmful to women for simply playing games they like and that the more they think they're not harming women the more likely they are... it's hard not to infer from that the position the gamers are bad people, that we have something to account for.

Of course none of this is backed by scientific peer reviewed evidence, she's not an intellectually honest person, a real study towards the issues would have look at tropes of PEOPLE not just women, looked at the relative frequency of negative tropes among men and women in gaming, and done a statistical analysis of how many games fit which tropes. Then after that she would need some evidence these tropes do harm to people, preferably cite some peer reviewed published science on the matter.

I agree with cubby1223 on this, it's merely her opinion and if that was simply it then that'd be fine, but we're talking about a person who lectures all around the country, who's work is used as educational material and force fed to students without it being fact checked or found to be sound. It's being parroted by the media and she's being given awards which legitimize her work in the eyes of many, everyone is whipped into a furor over this and we still havn't seen a single shred of evidence that tropes in games lead to real world harm, she's just asserting it.

I could say her stupid hooped earrings are doing harm to people by reflecting and intensifying the background microwave radiation and giving people cancer, but people would demand evidence of that, where as she gets to mouth off constantly all around the world and no one is demanding any evidence of what she claims.

 

[mikeymikec]

She hasn't to my knowledge, but what she concludes which is that gamers are essentially harmful to women.

I'm not sure she's ever concluded that either (unless you like a bit of reducio ad absurdum). AFAIK, she says that the games industry shouldn't consistently fall back on tired sexist stereotypes because a) that lacks creativity and b) she thinks that will have a knock-on effect on society.

Of course none of this is backed by scientific peer reviewed evidence,

Agreed (insofar as lacking evidence, I don't know about "no evidence" because I haven't kept up with all of her stuff).

a real study towards the issues would have look at tropes of PEOPLE not just women

What you would expect the focus of a study to be if someone is passionate about a particular topic? In this case, feminism. That point aside, a study needs focus, otherwise it becomes increasingly difficult to arrive at useful conclusions. Scientific studies tend to be extremely focused for this reason, to determine the truth on a particular point, rather than trying to answer the question to Life, The Universe and Everything.

Then after that she would need some evidence these tropes do harm to people,

Think about what would constitute valid evidence before saying that's what she should do; it's extremely difficult to pick out a large enough sample of people and definitely say "this factor in their lives drove them to do xyz" in the context of the topic she presented.

I could say her stupid hooped earrings are doing harm to people by reflecting and intensifying the background microwave radiation and giving people cancer, but people would demand evidence of that, where as she gets to mouth off constantly all around the world and no one is demanding any evidence of what she claims.

And so you think that people would be justified in sending you death threats? Please also note that you agreed with someone who said that she called a load of people bad, then you agreed that she didn't actually say that, yet apparently you believe she still deserves what she got.

So you disagree with her, you have every right to. Why don't you demand that she supplies evidence of what she claims? That's what you think should be happening, so why don't you do that? Just don't be a dick about it (like say thunderf00t) if you want her to take you seriously.

 

[futurefields]

This might have been true ten years ago, but not today. 48% of people who play games are female, and sales of "core" games are shrinking. Trying to expand the market for games is one way to ensure publishers survive.

sure, if you count games like candy crush etc...

that's why sales of core games are shrinking

women are ruining the market with their poor taste :awe: *ba-dum crash*

 

[futurefields]

i love sexualized voilence in games

screw people who try to take that away from me!

 

[Aristotelian]

She hasn't to my knowledge, but what she concludes which is that gamers are essentially harmful to women for simply playing games they like and that the more they think they're not harming women the more likely they are... it's hard not to infer from that the position the gamers are bad people, that we have something to account for.

Of course none of this is backed by scientific peer reviewed evidence, she's not an intellectually honest person, a real study towards the issues would have look at tropes of PEOPLE not just women, looked at the relative frequency of negative tropes among men and women in gaming, and done a statistical analysis of how many games fit which tropes. Then after that she would need some evidence these tropes do harm to people, preferably cite some peer reviewed published science on the matter.

I agree with cubby1223 on this, it's merely her opinion and if that was simply it then that'd be fine, but we're talking about a person who lectures all around the country, who's work is used as educational material and force fed to students without it being fact checked or found to be sound. It's being parroted by the media and she's being given awards which legitimize her work in the eyes of many, everyone is whipped into a furor over this and we still havn't seen a single shred of evidence that tropes in games lead to real world harm, she's just asserting it.

I could say her stupid hooped earrings are doing harm to people by reflecting and intensifying the background microwave radiation and giving people cancer, but people would demand evidence of that, where as she gets to mouth off constantly all around the world and no one is demanding any evidence of what she claims.

Just wanted to jump in at this point and agree with the argumentation you put forward here.

I play quite a few video games - my wife finds video games, in general, a pointless waste of time. When she sews, I'll use my gaming laptop and play near her so we can chit chat. Sometimes she comes to sit beside me to see what the fuss is about, but she doesn't get into the plot. I really tried to get her into Mass Effect, Bioshock Infinity, and others. With Bioshock, she just sees it as a shooter on rails, with no real immersion factor. I asked her how she felt about me playing the hero, rescuing a confused girl (I suppose this is a general form of trope - man saves woman), which she laughed at.

We had a discussion about why she is not bothered by this instance/trope, and basically she argued that there is a trope pluralism. Males are represented as hapless, socially inept fools, in many popular television programs - you find the overbearing mother thing (Tony Soprano's mother), the super determined woman (DA2 meredith), the various male characters (GTA V).

What we concluded is basically, over a wide enough media exposure, you're exposed to everything. So what is the trope, then? Where is the transgender representation? Why is the black guy the sidekick in Arrow? Why are many 'smart' men on television represented as effeminate? Why are women being represented as having a higher EQ and IQ compared to men?

I think that there's a philosophical component to these questions - and this component is largely existential. When my wife designs a bag and sews it, she sews it deliberately targeting the person that she wants to sell the bag to. I read a study about university enrollment in the United Kingdom at one point, and I believe it tried to explain the gender disparity in first year enrollments (female enrollments rising higher than male), and this was coupled with some research correlating enrollment with hobbies, and many teenage males were shown to have played 10000 hours of games by the time they were 18, whereas teenage females were shown to have done far different activities - like reading etc.

 

[futurefields]

Yeah it can be hard to get immersed in a game when you are trying to intellectualize about the plot while playing it sitting on a couch next to somebody sewing a bag.

Especially games like Bioshock and Mass Effect. I couldn't imagine playing those games any other way than in a room by myself preferably with some good headphones on.