Anita Sarkeesian bullshitting about how it feels to be a gamergate target - General

wait, why and what makes one sexists if they play the role of gender dominated by that gender in the quantity of different products? Is the definition of sexism properly being used or is it describing something that's fluid and within those terms not substantial?

[QUOTE=wauterboi;46965020]If we're going to be talking about games, we need to stick to games that attempt to have a plot as opposed to Mario, which plagued that "Top 25" anyway.[/QUOTE] Well, my reply was to your interesting question regarding why most videogames fall into various tropes regarding storytelling, to which I proposed that the reason for this is not really a question about developers being sexist in any meaningful way, but rather as a consequence of the medium "video games" having to focus on gameplay first, story and visuals second, since the gameplay is what actually makes something a "game". But, fair enough, lets discuss games which do require a plot in order for the gameplay to properly function, since, again, that is what games are about at the end of the day. The Mass Effect games, for instance, heavily rely on their plot, not just to intrigue players, but to make one of their core mechanics actually make sense to the player in a meaningful way, which in this case would be the morality system which lets the player totally customize their characters peronality and affect the way the story is being told. I doubt that anyone here would argue that Mass Effect story is sexist, racist or otherwise needlessly offensive or "simple", even if the third game kinda dropped the ball on the whole player influence thing. The point I'm trying to make here is that, since the Mass Effect series relies heavily on the plot for mechanical reasons, the developers obviously spent a lot of time crafting a narrative that would allow this player-impacting-the-plot mechanic to work the best... which means, that they needed a great story. Games like, say, Serious Sam or Bayonetta don't need a good story since their mechanics rely on blowing shit up in the most entertaining way. Most games aren't supposed to be judged on their story, but rather on their gameplay. Not that critisizing the plot isin't allowed, or that games can't tell compelling stories (see "Brothers: A tale of two sons"), but to blame a game for focusing more on the mechanics rather than their plot is, to me, like complaning about a book using to many words and not enough pictures to tell a story.

Yeah, I totally get you. I was just trying to say that we should stick to another list because that list was mostly Mario, which doesn't help the discussion. I think it would be easier if we knew what games Anita Sarkeesian had a problem with, but that would require me to watch her videos.

[QUOTE=Muggi;46965127] The Mass Effect games, for instance, heavily rely on their plot, not just to intrigue players, but to make one of their core mechanics actually make sense to the player in a meaningful way, which in this case would be the morality system which lets the player totally customize their characters peronality and affect the way the story is being told. I doubt that anyone here would argue that Mass Effect story is sexist, racist or otherwise needlessly offensive or "simple", even if the third game kinda dropped the ball on the whole player influence thing.[/QUOTE] While we're on the subject of Mass Effect I should point that Commander Shepard was originally female right from the start of development. It was only later when character customization was introduced that male shepard was even considered an option

I will say this though: I like Alyx' character in Half-Life 2. She can be considered over-sexualized, but I also think she's strong and reliable. Mossman being an antagonist is pretty cool too. Their personalities are fairly believable - at least enough for the story. Despite Left 4 Dead only having one woman for each game, their characters' importance are on the same level as the other characters. I haven't played Tomb Raider yet, but I will get through the first one soon enough. I don't know what to expect with Tomb Raider.

[QUOTE=wauterboi;46965178]Yeah, I totally get you. I was just trying to say that we should stick to another list because that list was mostly Mario, which doesn't help the discussion. I think it would be easier if we knew what games Anita Sarkeesian had a problem with, but that would require me to watch her videos.[/QUOTE] To give you a rough idea of what kinda critic Anita is, she proposed the ludicious idea that the Hitman games encourages violence against women by rewarding the player for killing innocent women, which is just an absurd claim which anyone that has even the smallest understanding of those games would find idiotic. Just because the game allows a player to kill civillians, doesn't mean it encourages it, and in fact the Hitman games actively discourages the player from going on a murderous rampage by increasing the odds of the player getting discovered when they do kill a lot of people and deducting points from their overall score. After all, you are a proffesional assasin, you are supposed to be as efficient as possible, not as brutal as possible.

That's great stuff. Despite the fact that you can kill men, it's sexist because the possibility of killing women is there. How can she not view herself as sexist for wanting different treatment in a fictional universe?

[QUOTE=wauterboi;46965192]I will say this though: I like Alyx' character in Half-Life 2. She can be considered over-sexualized, but I also think she's strong and reliable. Mossman being an antagonist is pretty cool too. Their personalities are fairly believable - at least enough for the story. Despite Left 4 Dead only having one woman for each game, their characters' importance are on the same level as the other characters. I haven't played Tomb Raider yet, but I will get through the first one soon enough. I don't know what to expect with Tomb Raider.[/QUOTE] Mossman is a cool character, not just because she is female, but because she is a relatable antagonist that betrays the resistance for reasons that we can understand. She is simply human, and that is so awesome. [editline]19th January 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=wauterboi;46965220]That's great stuff. Despite the fact that you can kill men, it's sexist because the possibility of killing women is there. How can she not view herself as sexist for wanting different treatment in a fictional universe?[/QUOTE] It completely baffles me. She made a kickstarter for what seemed like an interesting look at gender roles in games, and in turn received a shit ton of dough for what she claimed was supposed to be a budget to buy games so that she could fairly asses them. I mean, that's all good so far. But then, not only did she miss the release date of the video series by [I]years[/I], she also "burrowed" gameplay videos from other people, suggesting she hasn't actually played any of the games she critisizes (in fact, she admited at one point to never having played video games), but she also makes ridiculous statements like the one I talked about above which, at best, makes her look like an hypocritical idiot who has no idea what she is talking about, and at worst, completly misrepresents games as terrible mysoginist simulators to people outside the hobby. It should come as no surprise that the Hitman video was the last video I've watched from Anita since I simply can't take her criticisms seriously when she can't be bothered to do any research at all... not to mention her absoulte refussal to listen to any criticism or feedback, labelling all critics as mysoginist and what not.

It's instances like this where I back away, because I'm not powerless. Views are a very powerful tool, and I place a great value on it much like the person who wants them.

[QUOTE=Blooper Reel;46965179]While we're on the subject of Mass Effect I should point that Commander Shepard was originally female right from the start of development. It was only later when character customization was introduced that male shepard was even considered an option[/QUOTE] Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the topic about that news piece someone pointed out, and indeed the programmer/animation designer (?) didn't say that they designed Shepard to be a woman, but he just re-used an animation from Jade Empire which was originally of woman running. Lest the fact that the evidence is anecdotal, nowhere did he state that Shepard was first [i]designed to be a woman[/i]

[QUOTE=Dark RaveN;46965647]Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the topic about that news piece someone pointed out, and indeed the programmer/animation designer (?) didn't say that they designed Shepard to be a woman, but he just re-used an animation from Jade Empire which was originally of woman running. Lest the fact that the evidence is anecdotal, nowhere did he state that Shepard was first [i]designed to be a woman[/i][/QUOTE] Whoops, I can't read then. Sorry

[QUOTE=Ithon;46965118]wait, why and what makes one sexists if they play the role of gender dominated by that gender in the quantity of different products? Is the definition of sexism properly being used or is it describing something that's fluid and within those terms not substantial?[/QUOTE] People use sexism as a buzzword to describe anything related to gender issues they don't like, even when it has nothing to do with sexism at all.

[QUOTE=Blooper Reel;46965179]While we're on the subject of Mass Effect I should point that Commander Shepard was originally female right from the start of development. It was only later when character customization was introduced that male shepard was even considered an option[/QUOTE] I'm sorry but this is a load of shit. Shepard was always going to be customisable as either gender. The only reason femshep existed first was because the test animations were taken straight from Jade Empire, and the animator probably just took the first animation files he came across. Something along the lines of "female_anim" or something,

Brianna Wu looks like a fucking goblin. [img]http://i.imgur.com/QkU8948.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Falstad007;46967305]Brianna Wu looks like a fucking goblin. [img]http://i.imgur.com/QkU8948.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] How does making fun of what a person looks like contribute in any practical way to any of this

[QUOTE=LegndNikko;46967927]How does making fun of what a person looks like contribute in any practical way to any of this[/QUOTE] It doesn't but it was entertaining.

[QUOTE=LegndNikko;46967927]How does making fun of what a person looks like contribute in any practical way to any of this[/QUOTE] It was an attempt at humor, something which is probably foreign to AGG.

[QUOTE=RichyZ;46968157]lets ignore the tons of aggers being people who make comedic content, i.e. comedic webcomics and animations[/QUOTE] Sounds like a plan

Who is Briana Wu

[QUOTE=Clovernoodle;46968567]Who is Briana Wu[/QUOTE] Literally who #2. She makes iphone games, had her parents give her a bunch of grants and she made a memegenerator template from a picture of an autistic kid which got hijacked by gg so she said they were harassing her. That's pretty much all there is to her. Apart from her ED page.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46964701]I don't disagree that we should try to fix on these subjects and topics, but Anitas point isn't that ALL video games are sexist, it's that they never accurately represent women, however, if you take all her critiques into account, you can see literally no female character satisfies her unless they align with "sex negative" feminism.[/QUOTE] Well there is also the problem with her specific critiques where she doesn't properly understand the context of most games, probably because she never actually played them. [QUOTE=itisjuly;46967961]It doesn't but it was entertaining.[/QUOTE] "Why don't people take us seriously :("

[QUOTE=Raidyr;46968899] "Why don't people take us seriously :("[/QUOTE] God forbid someone tell a joke The logic that one person not being mature and mocking something must mean he represents a large variety people is ridiculous, and I'm not going to ask him to stop for the sake of making something look good. I really hate it when people cherrypick one person's attitude towards the situation and claim this is why no one takes them seriously. [QUOTE=RichyZ;46968157]lets ignore the tons of aggers being people who make comedic content, i.e. comedic webcomics and animations[/QUOTE] Like Andrew Dobson

[QUOTE=SelfishDragon;46968967]God forbid someone tell a joke The logic that one person not being mature and mocking something must mean he represents a large variety people is ridiculous, and I'm not going to ask him to stop for the sake of making something look good. I really hate it when people cherrypick one person's attitude towards the situation and claim this is why no one takes them seriously.[/QUOTE] Because multiple people do, and each of those people go "wow, take a joke." Needless to say, it was a dumb, shitty joke, and I'm not going to tell him to stop for the sake of public image; I'd tell him to stop being it's flat out stupid.

[QUOTE=SelfishDragon;46968967]God forbid someone tell a joke The logic that one person not being mature and mocking something must mean he represents a large variety people is ridiculous, and I'm not going to ask him to stop for the sake of making something look good. I really hate it when people cherrypick one person's attitude towards the situation and claim this is why no one takes them seriously.[/QUOTE] It's not one person and you and I both know that. And I'm just saying, as pro-GG, you get back whatever you put in. You can't complain about the movement not being seriously then defend weaksauce jokes making fun of someones appearance or gender. [editline]19th January 2015[/editline] To say nothing of the ammo you are handing anti-GG. Half the posts on r/gamerghazi are "I found proof of a GGer attacking a woman, ethics lel". Jokes like that are perpetuating your adversaries.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;46969144]To say nothing of the ammo you are handing anti-GG. Half the posts on r/gamerghazi are "I found proof of a GGer attacking a woman, ethics lel". Jokes like that are perpetuating your adversaries.[/QUOTE] In every internet movement there's a goldmine of stupid people, even if those persons are only representative of 1% of the population the opposition can cherrypick and claim everybody does it. So it's not like it has much of an impact. A drop in the ocean, so to speak. However, that it is hypocritical and dumb is a valid reason indeed.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;46969144] To say nothing of the ammo you are handing anti-GG. Half the posts on r/gamerghazi are "I found proof of a GGer attacking a woman, ethics lel". Jokes like that are perpetuating your adversaries.[/QUOTE] You could literally do this to anything, and the people who do this morons. I don't need to cater to these of morons by policing others jokes.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;46968899]"Why don't people take us seriously :("[/QUOTE] I might support GG but I do not represent GG.

[QUOTE=Clovernoodle;46968567]Who is Briana Wu[/QUOTE] A clinical narcissistic with schizophrenic tendencies

[QUOTE=Craptasket;46943411][img]http://i.imgur.com/6dD3Rv0.png[/img][/QUOTE] "They told me specifically that they were going to castrate my boyfriend." if I were her boyfriend I'd probably lay low.

[QUOTE=Tools;46970037]"They told me specifically that they were going to castrate my boyfriend." if I were her boyfriend I'd probably lay low.[/QUOTE] I doubt he uses his dick for anything besides peeing anyway.