Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2012/11/29/1reasonwhy-you-should-be-worried-about-gender-equality-in-the-game-industry/

Edit: I'll just leave it like that, the link should be good now.

What bothers me more is that the industry will (and does) create games that simultaneously reflect and reinforce its own cultural attitudes around gender.

This is a big problem; we should be concerned.

Thoughts on how big boobs, guns, and your manly self mix in a testosterone filled environment? Thoughts on how this affects war gaming in general?

That link isn't working for me.

The link isn't working either...

But, I'll jump in... the game developers are in this to make money, not to make/drive societal changes... so, they're going after a specific targeted audience.

"Consider Mario Brothers. The game features elements that subtly reinforce the values of patriarchy. Little phallic mushroom heads give you exceptional powers, bonuses, and recognition. When your avatar grabs things that look like penises, you get ahead in the game." I think he might be reading a little bit too much into Mario...

To be honest it is people like the author of that article who probably turn men off actually doing anything about sexism in the gaming industry.

And your link has an extra "url" at the end which is why it is not working.

The games industry certainly does have more than a few sexist tendencies that are not only holding it back now, but will only serve to stifle it in the future.This is on top of the fact that it's just plain kind of eye-rolling and awful for certain people already in the community like me.That said this author... with the bizarre tangent on mario penis-mushrooms amongst other things, doesn't do a terribly good job of presenting the issue.

"Consider Mario Brothers. The game features elements that subtly reinforce the values of patriarchy. Little phallic mushroom heads give you exceptional powers, bonuses, and recognition. When your avatar grabs things that look like penises, you get ahead in the game."

I think that's a bit odd... You might be paying too much attention so you ignore the fact they're MUSHROOMS.

Anyway, I don't think that the gaming industry really cares. If it sells, that's what they'll do. There's no reason for them to try and appeal to a particularly resilient market.

Plus, you know, most people don't care. A cluster of pixels with animations is just that.

Leisure Suit Larry did not have enough 8-bit nudity.

Corrected link

If climbing the corporate ladder as a phallic crazed Mario turned you off to the subject of gender sterotypes and how the game industry influences society as much as it is influenced by it, I suggest you look at this. Not gonna lie, her introduction is not very good, so I'd start at the 2:00min mark and go from there.

Seriously?

People have way to much time on their hands.

"Consider Mario Brothers. The game features elements that subtly reinforce the values of patriarchy. Little phallic mushroom heads give you exceptional powers, bonuses, and recognition. When your avatar grabs things that look like penises, you get ahead in the game." I think he might be reading a little bit too much into Mario...

Silver has the heart of it.

Fact of the matter is that the Games Industry is just like the rest of popular culture on this front. By and large, films and television shows tend to present men as heroes and women as being in distress at worst or sidekicks at best. The big difference is that you'll find movies and tv shows that break the mold far more often than games because those things have much wider audiences.

All demographics on the matter still show that men are the majority in gaming by a hefty margin at least in the market of large release block buster titles. This would probably change if the industry targeted itself at bring more women in, but well, who ever credited the games industry with wanting to expand its audience over milking the one it already has dry?

@DemitriDominov; Thanks, interesting video.

Anyway, this article is...questionable. Whilst it starts off strong (questioning the need for female characters to look like porn stars) it quickly descends into a mess of "this object is long, therefore it is phallic, therefore DIS GAEM IZ SEXIST!". The mushrooms in Super Mario Bros are symbols of misogyny? Really? I call horsegak on this one.

 LordofHats wrote:

Fact of the matter is that the Games Industry is just like the rest of popular culture on this front. By and large, films and television shows tend to present men as heroes and women as being in distress at worst or sidekicks at best. The big difference is that you'll find movies and tv shows that break the mold far more often than games because those things have much wider audiences.

All demographics on the matter still show that men are the majority in gaming by a hefty margin at least in the market of large release block buster titles. This would probably change if the industry targeted itself at bring more women in, but well, who ever credited the games industry with wanting to expand its audience over milking the one it already has dry?

I got you covered too. Watch this video, and learn from it:




The message? Well mine is this anyway: Society influences everything regardless of the audience because labels carry weight. Labels created by media centers of our society. The men disappear or already assumed great until they are blamed, women are victims of countless crimes or assumed to be worth less but disappear when they themselves perpetrate them. What is true no matter which lens you're viewing through, is that people are being objectified. Even the word "people" is not as powerful in media as men or women. There are so many influences to dehumanize a person that even the word mean's less. I could report that 10,000 people died in agony, but if I reported that 10,000 men, women, and children died in agony, suddenly we come to grips of how much power are in humanizing words.

The message? Society influences everything regardless of the audience.

And your video is right, except when its wrong. Like with every chick flick ever made.

You think so?

Who are the hunks that are the main characters in those movies? They all portray that same image of the first video I posted, and are rarely at first romantic. They are often wild, embodying that stereotype of a Casanova baddass we cannot and should not expect in people, just the same as we should not and cannot expect that women are submissive, in the sense that they are [our] mistresses worth their cup size and fulfillment of fantasy.

The problem with the internet is that it's so opinionated it's sometimes difficult to find the truth each voice is riding on. My best advice is to look at both the videos and the article and find the common ground between them - which is that the role of gender is not a personal view, it is a label imposed by many different forces that molds people to believe in often very destructive ways.

After Twilight and more recently 50 shades of grey I stopped caring about the kind of images created by media.

Haven't we already had a dozen threads like this one? Isn't there one on table top gaming that just wrapped up in general discussion? Will this one be any different than that one?

(Maybe we should just have RELIGION: THE THREAD and SEXISM: THE THREAD permanently stickied to the top of OT)

That may not be a bad idea.

Why is the guy who is constantly thinking about penises while playing Mario not regarded as the problem? I mean, writing a lame and uninformed screed is a lot easier than doing market research and gathering empirical evidence to convince the evil game designers on why they should make more games directed at the ladies. So I totally get that aspect of it. Mario is a plumber that turns into a raccoon and kicks turtles. I'm not even going to get into the fact that mushrooms are only one of many power ups, and one of the better is a flower, which is a highly feminine symbol.

This guy is a fool.

As a father of daughters, misogyny really angers me. Slightly less so are people who lower the discourse and deligitimize the issue to varying degrees with this sort of nonsense.

 LordofHats wrote:

All demographics on the matter still show that men are the majority in gaming by a hefty margin at least in the market of large release block buster titles.

That demographic is changing though. More women are becoming gamers and the male gamers are aging, IIRC the average age of a gamer is now late 20s/early 30s. The usual hackneyed big tits/armoured bikini routine looks increasingly crass and out of touch and its an issue that I have been seeing criticised more and more as gaming becomes an accepted part of society at large. AAA publishers will follow the money, or at least where they think the money is.

There certainly is a large section of gamers, and apparently developers, who are mysogynistic feckers but they are going to have to move with the times. I would say that within 5 years this is an issue that will, for the most part, be behind us.

The problem with the internet is that it's so opinionated it's sometimes difficult to find the truth each voice is riding on. My best advice is to look at both the videos and the article and find the common ground between them

The common ground is that they're both idiotic... The video is just some guy screaming "I'm a man and society expects to much of me!" and the article is just some person being a moron talking about Mario's mushrooms.

Here's a question. Why aren't we talking about the vegetarian conspiracy in video games? I mean, Mario eats mushrooms and flowers and gets super powers. Obvious game developers are trying to brainwash our children.

That demographic is changing though. More women are becoming gamers and the male gamers are aging, IIRC the average age of a gamer is now late 20s/early 30s. The usual hackneyed big tits/armoured bikini routine looks increasingly crass and out of touch and its an issue that I have been seeing criticised more and more as gaming becomes an accepted part of society at large. AAA publishers will follow the money, or at least where they think the money is.

That's a question of future where as this thread is supposedly about the present. And as you bring up in the last sentence, publishers follow where they think the money is. IMO publishers have a rather poor track record of doing anything worthwhile on that account.

Basically all this thread can ever amount to is the op article is stupid and this stuff goes away with time. Both are kind of obvious.

I really doubt that using tits to sell products is going to go away. Ever.

 Monster Rain wrote:
I really doubt that using tits to sell products is going to go away. Ever.

Well obviously, but I think we're talking about more than general fan service.

The game industry is one of the biggest media industries in the world.
They should reflect a positive (Or at least not negative) social atmosphere. People claiming video games don't have any affect on society are fooling themselves.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:
I really doubt that using tits to sell products is going to go away. Ever.

Well obviously, but I think we're talking about more than general fan service.

Someone needs to actually provide evidence to support the fact that the service in question requires changing, then.

 purplefood wrote:
They should reflect a positive (Or at least not negative) social atmosphere. People claiming video games don't have any affect on society are fooling themselves.

And some people worry too much. What does the general video game present that you won't find in the general action movie? They're pretty much loaded with the same tropes, motifs, and cliches. So pretending that video games exist off in some bubble of reality where they're somehow different from the rest of the media in the world is pretty foolish too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Monster Rain wrote:
Someone needs to actually provide evidence to support the fact that the service in question requires changing, then.

It's easier to just cry misogyny and accuse anyone who disagrees of being a misogynist.

 LordofHats wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
They should reflect a positive (Or at least not negative) social atmosphere. People claiming video games don't have any affect on society are fooling themselves.

And some people worry too much. What does the general video game present that you won't find in the general action movie? They're pretty much loaded with the same tropes, motifs, and cliches. So pretending that video games exist off in some bubble of reality where they're somehow different from the rest of the media in the world is pretty foolish too.

I'm not saying it's only games that should change.
Gender inequality is a big problem in pretty much all of the media industry.
Games are merely more disappointing because they're a more modern media and I would have hoped that it would reflect a more modern world.

Maybe they do reflect the modern world?

BS do they.
Have you ever tried naming all the games you can think of where you play a positive female character?
I tried and I didn't get that many.

 purplefood wrote:
BS do they.
Have you ever tried naming all the games you can think of where you play a positive female character?
I tried and I didn't get that many.

That's what I'm saying. People pretend that the modern world is gender neutral. Maybe it isn't.

 LordofHats wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
BS do they.
Have you ever tried naming all the games you can think of where you play a positive female character?
I tried and I didn't get that many.

That's what I'm saying. People pretend that the modern world is gender neutral. Maybe it isn't.

I'm not saying it is.
I'm saying it has more than just men in it and games don't reflect that what so ever. (Barring a few examples)