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 Alpharius wrote:
RULE #1 - again, it isn't 'optional'.

I don't see how I violated the rules there.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
RULE #1 - again, it isn't 'optional'.

I don't see how I violated the rules there.

Not everything is about you! Gosh darn teenagers...

I think it was a general thread warning.

I think this whole thing is a fascinating revelation about how far the games media has gotten from it's readers. They're out of touch, and if they're backlashing this hard over allegations of corruption... kinda makes you wonder what they're hiding right?

I'd actually connect it to the general disconnect in the industry itself. Developers and Publishers have bought up directly and indirectly various interests in journalism, especially online, and have over years fostered an environment that favors their interests. Given that there's plenty of reason to believe that the industry itself is out of touch with its consumers, and that they've fostered a journalistic environment that favors their interests, it stands to reason that journalism itself in this field has become out of touch.

It's also an issue maybe, that there's no different between games journalism, and other kinds of journalism, but given that journalism in video games is so dependent on its online presence via social media and websites, that they're the ones who have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar before other fields. I know I've read other articles about nepotism in the media, not just game media but other media outlets especially politics, music, and film.

I almost never read video game articles, and when I do, it is usually from Canard PC, a French magazine, because they are really funny. I do not care as much about the content as I care about their writing style. Do people really rely that much on game journalism to make up their mind before buying games? I would have thought by now demo would be the way to decide if you want to buy a game. Are there many AAA titles without demo? If so, that is quite awful.

 LordofHats wrote:
It gets more messed up;

The colors of her sweater are meant to represent the Piccolo Dick meme/joke produced by /v/;

Daily Dose / Piccolo Dick refers to an animated GIF of the Dragon Ball character Piccolo anally raping Vegeta.

Images related to the gif are often not aimed at representing the GIF, but instead just contain the colors green and purple. The idea of this is to make the combination of the two colors evolve as a trigger in a person’s subconscious that results in him being reminded of the gif each time he sees those colors.

So not only did they produce a female character who is not skimply dressed, but the colors of her sweater are meant to invoke a male on male rape joke

And this is only the second disturbing thing that I encountered on the internet starting this week.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:





I have a feeling they're really enjoying messing with what everyone expects from them at the moment XD

My life sucks and is gakky by comparison to that lady.

As a side note, I do want to comment on the /v/ thing, Vivian James and 4chan's charity move. As a long time elegan/tg/entleman and /k/ommando I will stand with /v/. This time we hold!




And if giving money to TYFC and attention to real feminists in the industry is one of the ways to do that, while boycotting IGN, Kotaku and their ilk... so be it.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

As a side note, I do want to comment on the /v/ thing, Vivian James and 4chan's charity move. As a long time elegan/tg/entleman and /k/ommando I will stand with /v/. This time we hold!

Spoiler:

And if giving money to TYFC and attention to real feminists in the industry is one of the ways to do that, while boycotting IGN, Kotaku and their ilk... so be it.

Yeah, as a /co/mrade Ca/tg/irl, its really only /b/ that is truly 'horrible'.

Its like hating on Dakka because of Off Topic.

 Piston Honda wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:




I have a feeling they're really enjoying messing with what everyone expects from them at the moment XD

My life sucks and is gakky by comparison to that lady.

Indeed. Never before have I been impressed by someone who for a living, makes machines that make triangles

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I almost never read video game articles, and when I do, it is usually from Canard PC, a French magazine, because they are really funny. I do not care as much about the content as I care about their writing style. Do people really rely that much on game journalism to make up their mind before buying games? I would have thought by now demo would be the way to decide if you want to buy a game. Are there many AAA titles without demo? If so, that is quite awful.

There are tons of games without demo's, indie and AAA alike.

 Cyporiean wrote:
Its like hating on Dakka because of Off Topic.

Why? OT is full of nice people, and we do not launch harassment campaigns from here .

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
There are tons of games without demo's, indie and AAA alike.

That is awful. For indie, I can understand because of extra development costs, but for AAA? Boycott those, rather than video game journalists!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
A couple of new articles....

So this is the point where we don't back down.

Made my day, thanks!

Loved the bit about "Adblock has already cut deep into our profits, and now our site owners are scared".

I don't feel quite as guilty for using Adblock as I used to now.

 Cyporiean wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

As a side note, I do want to comment on the /v/ thing, Vivian James and 4chan's charity move. As a long time elegan/tg/entleman and /k/ommando I will stand with /v/. This time we hold!

Spoiler:

And if giving money to TYFC and attention to real feminists in the industry is one of the ways to do that, while boycotting IGN, Kotaku and their ilk... so be it.

Yeah, as a /co/mrade Ca/tg/irl, its really only /b/ that is truly 'horrible'.

Its like hating on Dakka because of Off Topic.

I'm just kinda shocked it's /v/ this time. Usually getting gak done is /tg/'s bailiwick.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Cyporiean wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

As a side note, I do want to comment on the /v/ thing, Vivian James and 4chan's charity move. As a long time elegan/tg/entleman and /k/ommando I will stand with /v/. This time we hold!

Spoiler:

And if giving money to TYFC and attention to real feminists in the industry is one of the ways to do that, while boycotting IGN, Kotaku and their ilk... so be it.

Yeah, as a /co/mrade Ca/tg/irl, its really only /b/ that is truly 'horrible'.

Its like hating on Dakka because of Off Topic.

I'm just kinda shocked it's /v/ this time. Usually getting gak done is /tg/'s bailiwick.

To be fair, when it comes to video games, a lot of gamers are like New Yorkers; yeah, we are complete and utter donkey-caves to eachother, but when you mess with the collective.....

 Slarg232 wrote:


To be fair, when it comes to video games, a lot of gamers are like New Yorkers; yeah, we are complete and utter donkey-caves to eachother, but when you mess with the collective.....

So...




Just replace 'Jersey' with 'Gamers' and 'South Park' with 'Journalists' XD

 Slarg232 wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Cyporiean wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

As a side note, I do want to comment on the /v/ thing, Vivian James and 4chan's charity move. As a long time elegan/tg/entleman and /k/ommando I will stand with /v/. This time we hold!

Spoiler:

And if giving money to TYFC and attention to real feminists in the industry is one of the ways to do that, while boycotting IGN, Kotaku and their ilk... so be it.

Yeah, as a /co/mrade Ca/tg/irl, its really only /b/ that is truly 'horrible'.

Its like hating on Dakka because of Off Topic.

I'm just kinda shocked it's /v/ this time. Usually getting gak done is /tg/'s bailiwick.

To be fair, when it comes to video games, a lot of gamers are like New Yorkers; yeah, we are complete and utter donkey-caves to eachother, but when you mess with the collective.....

You basically begin a war if you mess with the collective. You cannot think oh this is won't. "Oh darn what have I done."

Its one of the major reasons why I both fear and love the gaming community, because it has the power to change the idea of artists and writers.

In case you didn't see HMBC's post last page. We're winning.

]https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10464297_10152748328265815_967714611847428963_n.jpg?oh=ee0ab59eaac1b9ac2b4b4bf859f72562&oe=5477E875

Also on further investigation of that gamersnosh website. It's pretty excellent, I am giving them my traffic for the foreseeable future for industry news.

To be fair, though, they don't really throw their weight around unless people actually try to be stupid with them.

Then they collectively rise out of their seats.... and crash back unto the couch, wheezing.

Assuming that post on 4chan is real. It'd be pretty easy to post something that contradicts it completely and no one would really be able to tell.




As far as the term "SJW" goes, like a lot of things in language it's a word that's developed over time. "SJW" doesn't mean someone who supports/fights for the cause or advancement of social equality. No, what an "SJW" is is an extremist, the type of person who obsesses of minutia and acts as a professional offence taker, ready to dogpile/browbeat/abuse and generally harass people for imagined slights.

And none of them are worth getting angry about. These people are not to be feared. They're not even worth getting angry about. They're piteous. They expend so much energy on things that matter so little in the grand scheme of things ("Oh noes! Boob-plate! THE PATRIACHY IS IN FULL FORCE") when there are real social challenges and cultures that devalue women. It's not quite a case of "don't sweat the small stuff", but more a case of directing your energies towards things that matter. Games are, for the most part, trivial. They're no more fostering a generation of misogynistic Neanderthals than they are a generation of violent sociopath numb to graphic violence. We've spent years arguing against the idiots who thought that Rock & Roll music/D&D/video games/Rap music/whatever was going to corrupt the youth, so why should the time of day be given to those arguing that video games are going to "promote rape culture" (and this is one of the major inherent problems with Anita's arguments). We shouldn't. Games are a hobby for most people, and people need to shift there attention to real inequality.


And it looks like this rabbit hole goes even deeper...

Sure, and though I do finding it kinda frustrating when say boob plate comes up on Dakka, people like me, who want female minis sans boob plate are accused of being feminazis and SJWs. In the many threads on "feminist" subjects I participated in before leaving it to Peregrine because he's angrier and has more energy then me, and for the most part on that subjects says what I would any way, ditto Mel when she's around, I don't think any one from team girl power was saying the cheesecake or boob plate had to /go/. Just asking for more options in the way of sensibly dressed female warrior badasses.

In that same vein I'd certainly enjoy a little more variation in my vidya game protagonists. I don't need a caucasian male lead to direct around killing bad guys, making cakes or whatever the game has me doing. Assassin's Creed seems tailor made for opportunities like this, The animus framing device could stick you in the gata of Tomoe Gozen, a 12 century female Samurai who fought in the Genpei war for example, or for a slightly more trite example the historical personage Hua Mulan, or Ching Shih for another Chinese example, the commander of a Chinese pirate fleet with estimates as high as 80,000 sailors, men and women, under her command. For a more European flare there's the easy heroine in La Pucelle d'Orléans (Joan of Arc), or the Celtic warrior queen Boudicca, famous for curb checking the Roman legions back when that was unheard of.

That's not what the other side is arguing here. Even when they're actually trying to make feminist arguments that's not what comes out. There are REAL issues to address in gaming, including feminist issues about how women are portrayed, how female characters are addressed, and there's the IRL issue of getting more women into ALL the sciences period. Not just behind a game programmer's desk. However when groups like The Fine Young Capitalists run programs to do that, they're slandered and attacked (by Zoe Quinn as it happens). None of these people are actually DOING anything, and many of the SJWs who's hearts at least are in the right place are being down right manipulated in this situation to cover people who are essentially dictating from on high to the commoners. What is a morality, corruption and industry issue is trying to be made into a social issue so the industry and journalists can play CYA, to the point that games journalists are now trying to embarrass and insult gamers FOR BEING GAMERS. If that's what happens when someone brings up corruption, if someone brings up issues in house, if this is the backlash we receive from the mainstream gaming media and the indy devs, who demand we silence ourselves and not question any one, instead of addressing criticism, complaints, etc like... you know a group of adults and professionals... as I said up thread it makes you wonder just what they're hiding.

I will say for the Indy Devs I think it's just a case of a clique circling the wagons around one of their own, not actual conspiracy or anything silly like that, but when every criticism of a person is shut down as misogyny we have ourselves a serious problem, and it's not sexism.

Side note. Who is Phil Fish? I think he made a kinda gakky game called Fez... why does he think he's relevant?

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Sure, and though I do finding it kinda frustrating when say boob plate comes up on Dakka, people like me, who want female minis sans boob plate are accused of being feminazis and SJWs. In the many threads on "feminist" subjects I participated in before leaving it to Peregrine because he's angrier and has more energy then me, and for the most part on that subjects says what I would any way, ditto Mel when she's around, I don't think any one from team girl power was saying the cheesecake or boob plate had to /go/. Just asking for more options in the way of sensibly dressed female warrior badasses.

Feminists promote equality. Femnazi's browbeat anyone who disagrees with them and attack men simply for being men. SJW's concentrate all their energy on non-issues or issues that they themselves have invented are simply not worth worrying about. They are to social equality what vuvuzelas are to football/soccer.

As far as "boob-plate" goes, well, here's an artist's perspective on it.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
In that same vein I'd certainly enjoy a little more variation in my vidya game protagonists. I don't need a caucasian male lead to direct around killing bad guys, making cakes or whatever the game has me doing. Assassin's Creed seems tailor made for opportunities like this, The animus framing device could stick you in the gata of Tomoe Gozen, a 12 century female Samurai who fought in the Genpei war for example, or for a slightly more trite example the historical personage Hua Mulan, or Ching Shih for another Chinese example, the commander of a Chinese pirate fleet with estimates as high as 80,000 sailors, men and women, under her command. For a more European flare there's the easy heroine in La Pucelle d'Orléans (Joan of Arc), or the Celtic warrior queen Boudicca, famous for curb checking the Roman legions back when that was unheard of.

The Assassin's Creed games are perfect for this sort of thing, but at the same time Ubisoft have said they're not doing Rome, Egypt or Japan... which sucks as they could get some great stuff from those games. And Ubisoft's own claims that making one of the four assassins in the next game a female was too difficult/costly fall flat because they're one of the biggest developers/publishers on the planet and they have all the money and the world to make the changes.

There's nothing wrong with wanting protagonists that aren't your standard gruff-talking male with 3-day stubble and a bad attitude (I pretty much always choose female characters in games that give the choice, sometimes for the most trivial of reasons*), but I'd also argue that story informs on characters as much as characters inform on story -and- including things for the sake of diversity is tokenism and doesn't solve any problems. The type of character within a story should naturally fit into that story (like Lara Croft in the recent Tomb Raider game), or be so secondary to the plot that the character's appearance/gender makes no difference (MaleShep/FemShep from the Mass Effect series). Going back to that link I posted above, that artist was talking about the game Divinity: Original Sin. It's a fantastic RPG that I'm enjoying. You start with two characters, and the game defaults to one male and one female. You can make it two males, you can make it two females, and you can change their appearance 'til the cows come home. Me personally? I went with two females - one a paragon of virtue who wants to protect the innocent and smite the wicked, and the other a rogue who will do just about anything if the price is right. The game allows you to have your characters argue and disagree on certain courses of action, meaning you can play out those things. That's good design. That's a positive use of character that flows naturally from the setting. Yet the SJW's got all up in arms because of "boob plate", completely missing what the rest of the game was about. That's why I say SJW's aren't were worrying about because the things they care about are tiny, minor and trivial and not at all relevant to real issues of equality (and inequality).


*There was an old game called Wages of War where you put together a team of Mercs that went on various missions. It was very a X-Com/Jagged Alliance style game. I chose an all female team simply because the single male voice actor (which was used on all the male characters) was annoying as all feth. I said I did it for some trivial reasons.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Who is Phil Fish? ... why does he think he's relevant?

Yes, he created Fez, and then had a gak fit because he's an amazingly arrogant guy. And I've said this in other threads: Phil Fish is never relevant. Even in topics dedicated to Phil Fish he's still the least important part of the topic.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Sure, and though I do finding it kinda frustrating when say boob plate comes up on Dakka, people like me, who want female minis sans boob plate are accused of being feminazis and SJWs. In the many threads on "feminist" subjects I participated in before leaving it to Peregrine because he's angrier and has more energy then me, and for the most part on that subjects says what I would any way, ditto Mel when she's around, I don't think any one from team girl power was saying the cheesecake or boob plate had to /go/. Just asking for more options in the way of sensibly dressed female warrior badasses.

Feminists promote equality. Femnazi's browbeat anyone who disagrees with them and attack men simply for being men. SJW's concentrate all their energy on non-issues or issues that they themselves have invented are simply not worth worrying about. They are to social equality what vuvuzelas are to football/soccer.

As far as "boob-plate" goes, well, here's an artist's perspective on it.

I always like to post this, for an actual armor smith's perspective. https://web.archive.org/web/20140116195013/http://madartlab.com/2011/12/14/fantasy-armor-and-lady-bits/

Sadly the original post is gone, but that's what the wayback machine is for.

The goal of equality should always be to increase opportunity. So if you ask me what I want, as a feminist, and as a gamer be it video or table top, I want more opportunity for models and characters dressed like they're actually here to kick ass to shine. I want more stories featuring bad ass women in all walks of life, or any one in any walk of life for that matter. Stories are a vital part of our society and culture, and the more interesting, different stories we're telling, no matter the medium the better. You'll notice none of this means we can't have our cheese cake and eat it too... hell I'm entering a KD Twilight Knight pin up in a painting competition weekend after this coming.

The practicality of "boob plate" is largely irrelevant because I've never seen someone seriously trying to say that it is a valid type of protection, or that it offers any real benefits. But you're talking past the issue here. I'll just quote the article I linked instead:

Our kickstarter campaign for Divinity: Original Sin has gotten quite some criticism on its original poster art. Apparently it was deemed to be sexistic and women unfriendly by the way the female protagonist was portrayed: with a bare belly.

A bare belly was for some enough a trigger to send our company enough hate and threatening mails to persuade my boss to ask me to change the cover. I did, but did so reluctantly. Disagreeing wholeheartedly with the claim of the artwork being sexistic, the better half of me decided to meet "offended-by-design" people somewhere in the middle.

In the world of journalism there are channels that take an aggressive stance against everything they judge even remotely sexistic and in many instances denying the word of opposition by disabling criticism and reactions on their articles or blogs. Also blackmails in the form of "change your game art or we won't publish a single word about you." is a common behavior found among those.

Fact is, there is a strong lobby going on out there which is holding a very aggressive campaign for women in the games industry. Despite that its root is very well hidden it is recruiting a lot of followers including some big names.

Now compare the two pieces (sorry about the size):





This is why SJW's are nuts. Fighting for social equality is a good thing and something worth expending energy on. A campaign to change this picture is not.

To be fair, the top one looks bad ass, where as the bottom one looks cliche.

Still, kind of ridiculous that "Change you're art or we won't publish anything about the game" is there. Not sure why SJW's are so.... pervasive? in the gaming journalism sphere.

Maybe the world is becoming a better place of sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies and gaming is seen as far worse than real life with it's misogyny? I dunno.

Which one you think looks better is just a matter of personal preference. For me I don't really care, because I'm more interested in the game itself and playing it than something so trivial as the box art. And that's the point I'm making. SJW's are not the same as those that fight for social equality because SJW's concentrate on minutia like this cover art.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Which one you think looks better is just a matter of personal preference. For me I don't really care, because I'm more interested in the game itself and playing it than something so trivial as the box art. And that's the point I'm making. SJW's are not the same as those that fight for social equality because SJW's concentrate on minutia like this cover art.

While I'm not going to say you're wrong or I disagree, I will say that gamers for a while have been making fun of female armor in games for a while now; it covers boobs/butt, that's it.



Hopefully with all of this, we get closer to hte top brass in the market and can make our opinions more heard.

And more...

http://i.imgur.com/xJM8YkI.jpg

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
As far as "boob-plate" goes, well, here's an artist's perspective on it.

I do not see how he has a point. Really, comparing those design, if one does not strop simply at “Showing more skin means it is more sexual”, but take one or two second to wonder what will make something sexual (hint: sometime adding MORE clothing is going to make it more sexual), then it becomes pretty obvious how one is more sexualized than the other. Of course, not having been exposed to a lot of non-sexual female nudity or sexualized male nudity does not help. So I am going to show a few examples of both.
Non-sexual nudity for female barbarians (Guess for which one it applies. Hint, it is the one that is topless.) :
http://marinka18.deviantart.com/art/Warriors-381539829
Exemple for both :
http://bikiniarmorbattledamage.tumblr.com/post/96432755434/yondamoegi-dreamsofjade-hoganddice
Sexualized male (and here, it is quite hard to find pictures are are really about making the male sexy, rather than just making fun of female sexualization by just gender-bending it):
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.207734582589507.58487.171173612912271&type=3
http://ulysses0302.deviantart.com/gallery/23629063/Tomb-Raider-Nate-Art
(A bit NSFW) http://33.media.tumblr.com/2f096769cfcaf1976b55cf9114b7cfbb/tumblr_n2gtnyhopc1tncuifo1_500.jpg

He is also missing the point in that boobplate is so omnipresent it is painful. I mean, both Ashiraya's present and previous avatar wear boob-plate, even though she certainly is not a fan of boob-plate, because it is almost impossible to get nice art of a female in armor without boob-plate, and those were the least offenders. It is literally everywhere.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
For me I don't really care, because I'm more interested in the game itself and playing it than something so trivial as the box art.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And more...

Spoiler:

- Complain about people that care for trivialities.
- Post image on random useless “controversies” that will not affect in any way how video games are made and consumed and that nobody ought to care about.
Oh the sweet, sweet irony.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

- Complain about people that care for trivialities.
- Post image on random useless “controversies” that will not affect in any way how video games are made and consumed and that nobody ought to care about.
Oh the sweet, sweet irony.

Either you're not very clever or you're just not very aware of what's been happening the past two weeks. This is the whole issue. You've got a group of people saying "We need to stop the hate" all the while saying the things they've said in those pictures. To reduce it to once sentence, it'd be like saying this:

"All of you fethers need to stop fething swearing right this fething minute, you feths!"

See how hypocritical that statement is? Now imagine media outlets like Kotaku and their ilk telling everyone how it's bad to harass people whilst at the same time them, the people that support them, and the people that they themselves support are posting constant comments like that?

Or, to put another way Hybrid: Get a clue and open your damned eyes.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
This is the whole issue.

This is the whole issue, and it is so damn trivial that I see no reason whatsoever to care about it. Whether those people are trolling or serious, why the hell do you give them any attention? Are they going to have any impact whatsoever on you or the rest of the world with their Twitter messages?
You know I am a gamer, right? I do play video games, I have always play video games, I do even watch video games, I even go to a bar dedicated to people that watch video games. And I do not care about what Joe McRandom says on Twitter about gamers. Why should I give a damn? Will it make me a better Strife player? Will it change the number of games on my Steam account? Will it prevent video game companies to release new awesome video games?

Hence the irony of you telling me that I care about trivialities while making a mountain out of a molehill.