Trops vs Women in Video Games - Women as Background Decoration: Part 2 - General

[QUOTE=LurkyLurker;45800497]Maybe that's because gamers [I]do[/I] tend to be violent, sexist bigots? After all, this is a medium whose fans tend to resort to death threats, doxxing, swatting, etc over what most sane people would see as minor offenses at best.[/QUOTE] Please cite sources that imply that such people are the majority.

[QUOTE=LurkyLurker;45800497]Maybe that's because gamers [I]do[/I] tend to be violent, sexist bigots? After all, this is a medium whose fans tend to resort to death threats, doxxing, swatting, etc over what most sane people would see as minor offenses at best.[/QUOTE] I've been playing games since 4 and I've literally never done anything like that. Way to strawman.

[QUOTE=LurkyLurker;45800497]Maybe that's because gamers [I]do[/I] tend to be violent, sexist bigots? After all, this is a medium whose fans tend to resort to death threats, doxxing, swatting, etc over what most sane people would see as minor offenses at best.[/QUOTE] Dedicate poe, or the type of person legally required to wear a bite mask: you decide.

[QUOTE=FunkyDarkKnight;45798025]Point still stands for other series though; I mean you are rescuing guys, but even then you're only ever saving them from other guys rather than female assailants.[/QUOTE] That's just it though, you [I]can't[/I] rescue a guy from a female assailant in those sorts of games because then they'd jump on it being further violence against women, how DARE they make the woman the villain, etc. Hell, it'd probably end up being worse than just beating the hookers because then it would be "men drove her to violence, she was probably raped by a man, they're making women out to be horrible villains" or if it's a high fantasy/sci-fi game where it was some all-powerful woman you were trying to take down, it'd be that plus "you go girl, girl power, stop those men from trying to remove you from power", ad infinitum. Point is, no matter how you spin the situation, you could have a woman literally being Hitler and gassing millions of people but if a male stops her, it's sexism against women. You're never going to win against a radical feminist because they're always right and will yell over the top of you and get violent with you if you disagree.

[QUOTE=Coffee;45801124]Anita's eyebrows still look awful has nobody had the guts to tell her how bad they look?[/QUOTE] because that would be sexist, you fucking pig

It's hilarious seeing people complaining about GTA. I mean, did they forget about characters like Carl's sister in GTA SA, the one who pretty much runs your empire and is never put in a situation of distress? Or Mallorie and Kate from GTA IV, with the former also never getting put on that kind of situation and being the brains behind Roman's cab business and the latter being someone you have to date and find out more from before she becomes your girlfriend? Or what about Elizabeta Torres, the drug dealer who you work for? Isn't there a mission in GTA V where you have to go find your daughter to stop her from being sexualized in front of everyone?

[QUOTE=LurkyLurker;45800497]Maybe that's because gamers [I]do[/I] tend to be violent, sexist bigots? After all, this is a medium whose fans tend to resort to death threats, doxxing, swatting, etc over what most sane people would see as minor offenses at best.[/QUOTE] Get a load of this guy

[QUOTE=Shugo;45799755]I finally realized just how bad this has all gotten when this girl I met had a weird reaction to me casually mentioning a video game in conversation. She said "Oh, you're a gamer...". I was weirded out, but I didn't say anything at the time. Later down the line, after we'd been friends for a while, she confessed that my 'gamer status' gave her the preconception that I was potentially a violent, sexist bigot.[/QUOTE] "A few weeks ago I was at a party and mentioned to a girl I had just met that I made video games, to which she responded “oh I don’t like video games.” I probed further and it turned out she had played and loved Flower, but she didn’t think of it as a game because to her video games were this monolithic culture of shooters, violence, and men. Because she latched onto the most alienating element of video game culture she completely missed the incredibly expressive, artistic, and beautiful parts of that culture." - [URL="http://www.galactic-cafe.com/2013/06/a-few-words-on-the-seduction-community-and-my-participation-in-it/"]Davey Wreden[/URL] [editline]26th August 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Doom64hunter;45799413]Sarkeesian is one of those extremists that will not stop complaining until women are portrayed as divine untouchable gods in all future video games. And even then she'll probably have more to complain about.[/QUOTE] You're acting as though feminists want every female character in video games to be strong, complex, and independent, and never to be sexualized. What they actually want is a variety of female characters in games of all personalities, body types, roles, etc. so that women aren't portrayed almost exclusively as subordinate sex objects. Feminists aren't advocating for the total elimination of sexy ladies in games. I think they'd prefer if there were more dimensions to female characters though! They don't want to remove skimpy, overtly sexual armor for females from games; they want male and female characters to have the same degree of variance with regards to how sexually or asexually they are depicted.[B] In essence, they want male and female characters to have roughly the same potential level of depth, variety, and sexuality in gaming[/B] — and currently, they don't.

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45803206]"A few weeks ago I was at a party and mentioned to a girl I had just met that I made video games, to which she responded “oh I don’t like video games.” I probed further and it turned out she had played and loved Flower, but she didn’t think of it as a game because to her video games were this monolithic culture of shooters, violence, and men. Because she latched onto the most alienating element of video game culture she completely missed the incredibly expressive, artistic, and beautiful parts of that culture." - [URL="http://www.galactic-cafe.com/2013/06/a-few-words-on-the-seduction-community-and-my-participation-in-it/"]Davey Wreden[/URL] [editline]26th August 2014[/editline] [/QUOTE] What relevance does that quote have to do with this topic? Some guy who was part of the "seduction" community had a similar experience? It'd be nice if you explained. Also, the reason that Shugo and Davey had those experiences comes from people like Ms. Sarkeesian. As an example, we here at Facepunch know that a lot of criticism aimed towards her was based on several factors, some of them already explained in this very thread. The idea that she would use stolen footage, allegedly not even playing the some 200 games she bought, accusations towards research, extreme delays, etc. While I can understand that someone would think that these arguments are just kneejerks taken at face value to try to devalue her work and character, you couldn't possibly think that everyone who is sceptic actually hate her. Sadly the internet at large only knows about the 10% or so of sceptics that decided to only say shit like "go back to the kitchen" "you look like shit", because thats what media outlets and Sarkeesian herself decided to bring up in the spotlight. Recent events have PROVED that even the forums you want to hate actually don't have a knee-jerk hateboner for women in the gaming industry, they're just extremely scrutinising and maybe a bit too harsh when they find something erronous. The idea of the average gamer portrayed as a misogynistic, violent swine is a viewpoint that Sarkeesian and her likes have propagated and perpetuated. You couldn't possibly pin this on "gamers" as a whole, it's a very small, very vocal minority. This portrayal needs to stop. At large, the gaming community does NOT oppose women or feminist ideals. Not even /v/ (as people like to think) are against women in the industry. The issue lies in that people who don't instantly agree with what these high-profile people say will be chastised and shamed for their decision. There's even a lot of infighting, I couldn't take Sarkeesian seriously before but I definitely can't now after she told FTYC to not accept money from 4chan. What a fucking hypocrite.

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45803206]You're acting as though feminists want every female character in video games to be strong, complex, and independent, and never to be sexualized. What they actually want is a variety of female characters in games of all personalities, body types, roles, etc. so that women aren't portrayed almost exclusively as subordinate sex objects. Feminists aren't advocating for the total elimination of sexy ladies in games. I think they'd prefer if there were more dimensions to female characters though! They don't want to remove skimpy, overtly sexual armor for females from games; they want male and female characters to have the same degree of variance with regards to how sexually or asexually they are depicted.[B] In essence, they want male and female characters to have roughly the same potential level of depth, variety, and sexuality in gaming[/B] — and currently, they don't.[/QUOTE] Most characters in video games have no depth, regardless of gender.

[QUOTE=Coffee;45801124]Anita's eyebrows still look awful has nobody had the guts to tell her how bad they look?[/QUOTE] She still has those earrings. What if she snags them on a tree branch or doorhandle oh no there goes her ear I'm going to be sick

I can only watch a few minutes of these before I get so angry it makes me unproductive for the rest of the day

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45803206].[B] In essence, they want male and female characters to have roughly the same potential level of depth, variety, and sexuality in gaming[/B] — and currently, they don't.[/QUOTE] Well considering how the AAA industry is dominated by generic dudebro protagonists with hardly have any real development we should probably think of having better developed characters overall. At this point I don't see why we need to be giving female characters special attention. When I try to think up well developed characters the ratio between male and female is pretty equal.

[QUOTE=milkandcooki;45800230]that wasn't her point with that all lol adding a bow, lipstick, high heels, and a beauty mark on a non-human or an inanimate object is dumb, because.... why? it's lazy character design. why don't the guys have tank tops, short cut brown hair, and basketball shorts if the woman-thing is somehow acceptable?[/QUOTE] Ohh, man. Look, I don't really want to spoil this for you, but should you eventually quit being an internet slacktivist and move to what some people affectionately call "the real world", you'll find that women are far more concerned with how they look than men. Women wearing makeup, high heels, and eye catching accessories such as handbags and jewelry are not things videogames invented. Women themselves put an effort into looking different. In this case it's simple. Art imitates life.

[QUOTE=HoodedSniper;45797344]People should go back to I think her last or 2nd last video in tropes vs gaming and remember that she brought up Ms.Pacman and Pacman having Pacman Jr out of wedlock when trying to make a point. She also likened Ms.Pacman and Pacman to Adam and Eve from religion. Also you shouldnt have cartoon aligators that all look the same and put a bow or eyelashes on it so you know its a female. Or anything that would make you assume its female. If you still think someone like that is worth listening to, then I dont know what to say.[/QUOTE] I stopped validating her opinions as anything worth taken seriously when she talked about Bayonetta and listed her only pro as her being a single mother. Who gives a flying fuck about that? It's a video game ffs. [editline]26th August 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=megafat;45800091]It doesn't help that people have figured out that she's using footage that other people have recorded.[/QUOTE] So what was the donated money for anyway? "help, I'm a strong independent woman in a horrible world made for men, gib me money so I can show you why WITHIN VIDEO GAMES" ?

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45803206]"A few weeks ago I was at a party and mentioned to a girl I had just met that I made video games, to which she responded “oh I don’t like video games.” I probed further and it turned out she had played and loved Flower, but she didn’t think of it as a game because to her video games were this monolithic culture of shooters, violence, and men. Because she latched onto the most alienating element of video game culture she completely missed the incredibly expressive, artistic, and beautiful parts of that culture." - [URL="http://www.galactic-cafe.com/2013/06/a-few-words-on-the-seduction-community-and-my-participation-in-it/"]Davey Wreden[/URL] [editline]26th August 2014[/editline] You're acting as though feminists want every female character in video games to be strong, complex, and independent, and never to be sexualized. What they actually want is a variety of female characters in games of all personalities, body types, roles, etc. so that women aren't portrayed almost exclusively as subordinate sex objects. Feminists aren't advocating for the total elimination of sexy ladies in games. I think they'd prefer if there were more dimensions to female characters though! They don't want to remove skimpy, overtly sexual armor for females from games; they want male and female characters to have the same degree of variance with regards to how sexually or asexually they are depicted.[B] In essence, they want male and female characters to have roughly the same potential level of depth, variety, and sexuality in gaming[/B] — and currently, they don't.[/QUOTE] Max I want you to take a step back and realize you are trying to defend a person who actively scammed people out of 160,000 dollars to make a half-assed series on a subject she CLEARLY doesn't understand whatsoever.

[QUOTE=Vasey105;45800530]I'm so glad nobody takes these people seriously in real life.[/QUOTE] I am sorry to inform you about this [url]http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/TheKodu/the-sarkeesian-the-dice-and-the-mirror--235992.phtml[/url]

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45803206]"A few weeks ago I was at a party and mentioned to a girl I had just met that I made video games, to which she responded “oh I don’t like video games.” I probed further and it turned out she had played and loved Flower, but she didn’t think of it as a game because to her video games were this monolithic culture of shooters, violence, and men. Because she latched onto the most alienating element of video game culture she completely missed the incredibly expressive, artistic, and beautiful parts of that culture." - [URL="http://www.galactic-cafe.com/2013/06/a-few-words-on-the-seduction-community-and-my-participation-in-it/"]Davey Wreden[/URL][/quote] I'm not sure what your point is here. You rated disagree on my post and then posted someone else's similar experience? Yeah, a lot of people who aren't gamers have misconceptions about what gamers are actually like. And those misconceptions are fueled by media that perpetuates negative images of gaming, like those who decry violence and those who call sexism. Not that doing either of those things is [I]bad[/I] on its own, but major influential people like Anita give skewed, one-sided presentations that make gaming seem like a terrible thing and by extension makes gamers look like terrible people. [quote]You're acting as though feminists want every female character in video games to be strong, complex, and independent, and never to be sexualized. What they actually want is a variety of female characters in games of all personalities, body types, roles, etc. so that women aren't portrayed almost exclusively as subordinate sex objects. Feminists aren't advocating for the total elimination of sexy ladies in games. I think they'd prefer if there were more dimensions to female characters though! They don't want to remove skimpy, overtly sexual armor for females from games; they want male and female characters to have the same degree of variance with regards to how sexually or asexually they are depicted.[B] In essence, they want male and female characters to have roughly the same potential level of depth, variety, and sexuality in gaming[/B] — and currently, they don't.[/QUOTE] You're missing the point. Nobody's arguing against women getting more diverse roles. In Anita's particular case, the examples and evidence she pulls up to show how bad the current situation is are largely flawed and she ignores a lot of context and other content in these games in favor of making scenes, situations, and games as a whole out to be as awful as possible. She reaches way too far for evidence and then presents it in a one-sided way. Adding to that, she shuts off comments and ratings on every video. There's no room for argument, there's no open dialog or discussion. It's just her and her views and we're supposed to accept it. Any other YouTuber doing that would be seen as a joke, but instead this is the famous Anita Sarkeesian, the most feministest feminist there ever was, so her words are fact. As a feminist myself, I also want male and female characters to have roughly the same potential level of depth, variety, and sexuality in gaming. But just because Anita also calls herself a feminist doesn't mean I have to agree with her flawed, one-sided arguments.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;45804739]Max I want you to take a step back and realize you are trying to defend a person who actively scammed people out of 160,000 dollars to make a half-assed series on a subject she CLEARLY doesn't understand whatsoever.[/QUOTE] she never scammed anybody they gave her money for her videos and she gave them videos, they got what they paid for even with money it doesn't affect how good your videos look, she just doesn't have the skill or know-how to use it but it doesn't mean she scammed them, they paid her and got something they [i]themselves[/i] overhyped i don't like her videos as much as the next guy but come on, stop trying to just pick things out to hate, find [I]a real[/I] reason

[QUOTE=Fire Kracker;45805954]she never scammed anybody they gave her money for her videos and she gave them videos, they got what they paid for even with money it doesn't affect how good your videos look, she just doesn't have the skill or know-how to use it but it doesn't mean she scammed them, they paid her and got something they [i]themselves[/i] overhyped i don't like her videos as much as the next guy but come on, stop trying to just pick things out to hate, find [I]a real[/I] reason[/QUOTE] Yeah, what a lot of people making that argument forget is that the original Kickstarter never asked for anywhere near the amount of money she actually got. It was something more like $6k, IIRC? It really wasn't much at all, but people hyped it up and gave her tons of money. It's got nothing to do with Anita.

[quote]I stopped validating her opinions as anything worth taken seriously when she talked about Bayonetta and listed her only pro as her being a single mother.[/quote] Wait wait what? Bayonetta isn't a mother at all. WTF?

You only need one reason to dislike most of sarkesians work. It's lazy. She's lazy. Conclusions are always drawn from her personal opinions.

[QUOTE=Fire Kracker;45805954]she never scammed anybody they gave her money for her videos and she gave them videos, they got what they paid for even with money it doesn't affect how good your videos look, she just doesn't have the skill or know-how to use it but it doesn't mean she scammed them, they paid her and got something they [i]themselves[/i] overhyped i don't like her videos as much as the next guy but come on, stop trying to just pick things out to hate, find [I]a real[/I] reason[/QUOTE] The thing is that with a budget like that, one might expect to get a well-researched study. Instead she just read TV Tropes and gives us thirty minutes of pure, unadulterated conjecture.

[QUOTE=Fire Kracker;45805954]she never scammed anybody they gave her money for her videos and she gave them videos, they got what they paid for even with money it doesn't affect how good your videos look, she just doesn't have the skill or know-how to use it but it doesn't mean she scammed them, they paid her and got something they [i]themselves[/i] overhyped i don't like her videos as much as the next guy but come on, stop trying to just pick things out to hate, find [I]a real[/I] reason[/QUOTE] She asked for money to make a series of videos on a subject matter she's never dealt with before and is clearly lacking experience with. She stole footage from other people because she couldn't actually record the footage herself. It took her two years to put up less than half of the content she promised - with a budget ten times superior to her original goal. It's a typical kickstarter scam. It's the same as these people who promise a revolutionary game and ask for a couple hundred thousand, and then release nothing but a couple videos of pre-alpha footage in the span of two years that serve no other purpose but show that they both have no idea what they're doing (either because of sheer incompetence or because the task they gave themselves goes way past their own ability) and that most of the money went into their own pocket, not into the game. You don't necessarily have to literally run off with the money to make a scam. Lying on your abilities, your knowledge, your qualifications and your actual interest in the subject matter while asking for money based on these aspects is already a scam.

[QUOTE=Helix Snake;45805990]Wait wait what? Bayonetta isn't a mother at all. WTF?[/QUOTE] [video=youtube;XbihPTgAql4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbihPTgAql4[/video] Brilliant analysis, really.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;45806037]She asked for money to make a series of videos on a subject matter she's never dealt with before and is clearly lacking experience with. She stole footage from other people because she couldn't actually record the footage herself. It took her two years to put up less than half of the content she promised - with a budget ten times superior to her original goal. It's a typical kickstarter scam. It's the same as these people who promise a revolutionary game and ask for a couple hundred thousand, and then release nothing but a couple videos of pre-alpha footage in the span of two years that serve no other purpose but show that they both have no idea what they're doing (either because of sheer incompetence or because the task they gave themselves goes way past their own ability) and that most of the money went into their own pocket, not into the game. You don't necessarily have to literally run off with the money to make a scam. Lying on your abilities, your knowledge, your qualifications and your actual interest in the subject matter while asking for money based on these aspects is already a scam.[/QUOTE] Alright, I agree with that. The way you originally put it came off as her purposefully raising $160,000 as her goal when that wasn't the case. But I do agree that the series should've been improved in some way with that $160,000, either through production speed or research quality.

I don't even see how she'd need 6,000 dollars to make a bunch of videos on youtube, especially with the super-low production value that they currently have, let alone 160,000. She either stuffed most of that money in her pocket, or she's insanely bad at managing funds.

So is her boyfriend really a con-artist or not?

Probably my favorite "Internet Feminist" is Lindsey Ellis (AKA Nostalgia Chick). Unfortunately she's not that well known or popular and hasn't been uploading much content, possibly because she has the skills to work at actual well paying, stable non-internet jobs. She's really intelligent, remarkably funny (in an actual smart way), and the way she approaches feminist topics is realistic and not inflammatory. However, since the internet thrives off of hatred, there's really no chance of someone like her becoming the face of internet feminism instead of Anita. I'd really like to see Lindsey to take a shot at talking about feminism in video games, just to see what she comes up with.

[QUOTE=Rocâ„¢;45806098][video=youtube;XbihPTgAql4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbihPTgAql4[/video] Brilliant analysis, really.[/QUOTE] "by asking people to actively participate in doing misogyny" what