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 Seaward wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
Maybe. But more and more games and media are not being made for just Americans. Starcraft (unless you don't include RTS as strategy) extremely popular in South Korea. Or LoL. Heck look at the demographic for fighting games. If EVO is representative of the American fighting game demographic, it is changing.

I would say almost no games are being made exclusively for Americans anymore, if they ever were.

But as we discussed in the recently-locked thread regarding Smite's representation of Chinese gods, the demand out of the Asian market isn't for more representation, it's for more blonde Caucasian sex kittens.

You always want to be a little weary when you assume what companies are doing is what people want. They don't always sync up.

 illuknisaa wrote:
Witcher 2 was made men. The only woman in CDPR is/was some lady in pr department.

Did Witcher 2 fix that bug from the first game where all the dialogue was replaced four letter words and references to genitalia on a continuous loop? I mean without that bug is was perfectly serviceable as you run of the mill awkwardly-controlling RPG set an interchangeably generic "Gritty" setting so devoid of joy and humanity it may as well have been populated by snarling robots. However with the bug... actually never mind that bug did they fix all those other things?

 Delephont wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Delephont wrote:
So where's the "entitlement" if 99% of the outcome is purely accidental.

The entitlement is the assertion that anyone who doesn't fit your "straight white male" category should either just shut up and enjoy the games catered to you, or go and make their own games-- things which you do not have to do. Basically, you asserted (And continue to assert) that you should get the benefits of society without working for them, while anyone who is different from you should have to work for those same benefits.

Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.
Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males", probably because the product is developed by " straight white males". Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration?

Ooooh! Ooooh!
I got this one!
Look at GW: they target the "collector market that wants to buy their jewel-like models"!!!
There are quite a few examples of a targeted market where making sense or not, they are happy to exclude other potential customers.

Easy fix: try not to buy their stuff if it makes you upset both as the non-target market or the more activist target market (I try so hard with GW... you win some, you lose some).

Melissia: Yes, they should try to be more responsible and be more inclusive (even from a business viewpoint it only makes sense).
The reaping the "benefits of society without working for them" is a rather nasty generalization, there is a case that some demographics may have more resources available than others so the question of "why" becomes all the more acute. We all seek personal advantage where we can, if it takes aligning with some "faction" many do not pause.

Delephont: Another subscriber to "Life is not obligated to be fair."?

 Delephont wrote:
Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.

Just because I reach an entirely different conclusion than you doesn't mean lack of comprehension.

 Delephont wrote:
Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males"

Citation needed.

Seriously, citation needed. Because you're making an assertion without evidence.

You're making the assertion that the only market that matters is the Straight White Male market, and claiming that it so massively dwarfs any other target demographics that there's no reason to even consider them at all.

This is an assertion made without any evidence backing it up, and in fact, with tons of evidence-- as well as comments from developers themselves-- that this assertion is inherently flawed and wrong.

 Delephont wrote:
Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration?

Because they're people.

Claiming that someone is entitled because they want to be treated with equal respect is, frankly, a real jerk thing to do. And that's exactly what you did. And what you keep doing. There's nothing "entitled" about wanting to be treated equally. By definition, entitlement requires one to ask to be treated in a special manner which other people do not get. Which... is what you have been doing with your arguments.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Delephont wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Delephont wrote:
So where's the "entitlement" if 99% of the outcome is purely accidental.

The entitlement is the assertion that anyone who doesn't fit your "straight white male" category should either just shut up and enjoy the games catered to you, or go and make their own games-- things which you do not have to do. Basically, you asserted (And continue to assert) that you should get the benefits of society without working for them, while anyone who is different from you should have to work for those same benefits.

Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.
Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males", probably because the product is developed by " straight white males". Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration?

Ooooh! Ooooh!
I got this one!
Look at GW: they target the "collector market that wants to buy their jewel-like models"!!!
There are quite a few examples of a targeted market where making sense or not, they are happy to exclude other potential customers.

Easy fix: try not to buy their stuff if it makes you upset both as the non-target market or the more activist target market (I try so hard with GW... you win some, you lose some).

Melissia: Yes, they should try to be more responsible and be more inclusive (even from a business viewpoint it only makes sense).
The reaping the "benefits of society without working for them" is a rather nasty generalization, there is a case that some demographics may have more resources available than others so the question of "why" becomes all the more acute. We all seek personal advantage where we can, if it takes aligning with some "faction" many do not pause.

Delephont: Another subscriber to "Life is not obligated to be fair."?

Yes and no.

Put aside all the big money and corporate bullshog and you have (generally) some guys sitting in a room getting sweaty about their latest fantasy! Let's assume its a video game, and these guys think it will be awesome to have some women running around, easy for sex, with breast enough to shame Dolly Parton.....imagine a really crass game, and then some! So these guys think they've done good. They haven't considered Jews, Muslims, Christians, Animal rights, Feminists, Blacks, Hispanics, Little people, disabled people, Refugees, or War veterans.....they've simply sat in their room and had a fantasy. So, they now float the game on the market, it makes millions.....it's a best seller in fact.

Now, over the horizon comes the Feminist brigade......these guys are like criminals in their eyes, why? Well, not only did they fantasise in a way that the Feminists didn't agree with, they had the audacity to share it.......and......gnnn gnnnn MAKE A GOD DAMN PROFIT.......AAAaaaaAaHhhhh. How dare they dream, and how dare they make money from such sordid objectification of the opposite sex!!

So, in order to atone for their "sins", they will now have to make a game that ignores their fantasy in the way the want to portray it, it WILL have women that look like the average Jane on the street (don't want to give women a body complex), those women WILL likely NOT respond to any in character sexual advance, in fact the females will NOT have any need for men whatsoever! These in game women will NOT conform to any socially derived gender stereotypes (you know, caring about makeup, shopping, gossip, etc) even though 89% of women in reality DO conform to those stereotypes!......And to top it off, just because the PC brigade is in full swing, let's make it Jew, Muslim, Christian, Black, Hispanic, disabled friendly as well.........and the incentive to do this? Well, to keep xxx% of the population of the world happy, even though only a fraction of that xxx% will even buy the game in the end anyway

Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males"

Untrue.

The game designer's mission is to find the largest possible audience. Not the smallest demographic.

This whole niche gaming thing for triple A titles is completely false. They want to sell to many gamers.

Hence why GTA 5 made a billion dollars on launch day. And guess what. It wasn't just white people who bought it.

 Delephont wrote:
Now, over the horizon comes the Feminist brigade......these guys are like criminals in their eyes

A pointless strawman argument.

I'd have to spend twenty minutes just compiling a list of things wrong with that one sentence, never mind the entire post. Frankly, it's not worth the effort if this is the kind of response that you're going to be giving.

 illuknisaa wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:
No, that is what you said. I didn't take your quote out of context. You said mobile games as well. But that is still a video game. You are insulting all female designers everywhere!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Legend of Grimrock isn't AAA though.

Correct. Triple A games are usually multi-cultured as they are suppose to garner a larger audience.

Dude you took out a part of a sentense which alters it's meaning entirely. Here is the my reply to melissa's post.

 illuknisaa wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
And when women DO make games, they aren't given the same level of attention by producers a when men do it, anyway, so your request just doesn't work.

The reason why women don't get attention from publishers is because women make gakky mobile games. Nobody is interested in gakky mobile games.

At this point people should just completely ingnore everything you say because you take stuff out of context, make false accusations and rile people up because of that.

The point of asking for a game which is made by women was to find out that women moke something other than mobile games.

I don't care if the dev has men as long as over 50% is female. Game can still be in developent or be a failed crowdfunding project (kickstater, indiegogo etc.)

Just for those who are interested. Witcher 2 was made men. The only woman in CDPR is/was some lady in pr department.

Mate I am not the only who is pointing out to you, that is a sexist idea. That sentence is completely sexist.
You are implying that women can't make games.

That women don't make games.

That is how it is read.

That is how it is grammatically written.

That is the context and meaning of the sentence you have written.

And we aren't talking about crowd funding. Infact there have been games recently that have been crowd funded. I mean do you know who does the majority of the art and design of most of relics games?

No?

Well....
That would Be Allision Theus one of the major artists at relic entertainment and a member of the Extra Credits team.
http://beastofoblivion.deviantart.com/

There is not one person that makes a video game. it is a complete team effort.

We have Animators, Programmers, Developers, Designers, Artists, Liasons, and many more. The most important people and most famous are the Designers. The ones who have power over all the others. They are the people that communicate their ideas and can work as writers. They are the more flexible people as well.

It is one of the few fields that combines almost several hundred skills. And if a game design studio so wished. They could probably become their own animation company or tech company.

There are many people in the gaming scene that are women.

The mainstream media has never even heard of them sadly.

But your remarks are completely incorrect. You made that remark and I am refuting it. I am not getting a rise out of it, nor am I taking it that way. I just found it completely insulting to female designers. Some I am friends with. AS a complete and utter insult.

 Melissia wrote:

 Delephont wrote:
Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.

Just because I reach an entirely different conclusion than you doesn't mean lack of comprehension.

 Delephont wrote:
Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males"

Citation needed.

Seriously, citation needed. Because you're making an assertion without evidence.

You're making the assertion that the only market that matters is the Straight White Male market, and claiming that it so massively dwarfs any other target demographics that there's no reason to even consider them at all.

This is an assertion made without any evidence backing it up, and in fact, with tons of evidence-- as well as comments from developers themselves-- that this assertion is inherently flawed and wrong.

 Delephont wrote:
Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration?

Because they're people.

Claiming that someone is entitled because they want to be treated with equal respect is, frankly, a real jerk thing to do. And that's exactly what you did. And what you keep doing. There's nothing "entitled" about wanting to be treated equally. By definition, entitlement requires one to ask to be treated in a special manner which other people do not get. Which... is what you have been doing with your arguments.

Citation needed? Hmm, well, I don't have the numbers, but I can theorise based on extrapolation of data! Here we go, let's see.

Firstly, we're having this debate regarding objectification of women in video games, and we can both agree (I hope) that this isn't an isolated phenomenon! Therefore, I can conclude that there is in the minds of either many people (or a vocal minority) a "genuine" problem.

Secondly, the video games industry is doing quite well as a whole, with production values rising and the investment in games hitting record breaking levels, in some cases rivalling the production vales of the movie industry.

Conclusion: There appears to be a "problem" (as witnessed by debates like this), however, the offending industry is not only continuing to survive, but it's thriving.......logical conclusions: 1) There isn't an issue, 2) The people complaining are hypocrites who continue to purchase the games that they state offends them, or 3) The issue is real, people are offended, but only form a significantly small minority as to have no financial bearing on the market!

So while the target market may indeed NOT be "straight white males" (and I used that phrase as a direct quote from one of your earlier posts!) it doesn't appear to be poo faced hard line Feminists either. Given that it's those hard line feminists who want things to change, I imagine market demographics are more of a problem for them then those "straight white males" you keep referring to.

As a straight white male, I wish I felt more like games were made for me. I might not feel like some 90+% of them were utter gak at that point. Seriously, my Steam list of games I've had for months that don't have more than 3 hours of play time on them is pathetically long, and my Eve Online hours played proves I don't have attention issues.

poo-faced hard-line feminists

Ahem.

I do not feel any obligation to respond seriously and deeply to a post that calls me a gak-faced hard-liner.

 daedalus wrote:
As a straight white male, I wish I felt more like games were made for me. I might not feel like some 90+% of them were utter gak at that point. Seriously, my Steam list of games I've had for months that don't have more than 3 hours of play time on them is pathetically long, and my Eve Online hours played proves I don't have attention issues.

Sorry I am laughing way too hard.

Seriously guys stop making me laugh.

I might have to take a break for a bit.

I mean you may say, "There are no games made for me."

That is very true.

I mean I like edgy and dark games. I mean truly dark games. And guess how many of those games I encounter?

(VERY FEW)

I like games like Home, where the story changes and the end changes according to what you do during the game.

Or no one has to die. Where a fire breaks out in an office building.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that games aren't made because there's some dark conspiracy to only make them for straight white men. They're not made for straight white men. They're made for companies, to turn a profit. What turns a profit? The same thing that turned a profit yesterday. The creative process is a widget, and we gotta stamp out as many of them as we can before they shut down the factory.

You could make every single game about a transexual asian woman who's from the future, and I wouldn't give a damn, so long as it wasn't just some contrived crap dragged and dropped into a previous game with a lame veneer of freshness smeared over it. THAT'S the reason why the gaming industry is fethed.

To the original observation of how women are represented in games? Sure, sex sells. It does so in games, just like it does in commercials, movies, conventions, physical games, tv shows, billboards, music videos, web sites, teen magazines, adult magazines, and damned near any other medium that you could be exposed to.

I mean, I understand the crusade. I can see why it would be annoying at best, degrading at it's worst even. It just seems overzealously focused and myopic. There's a culture there that extends far beyond video games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well, okay, maybe the problem is that they ARE marketing games to straight white men, but not to people who, you know, actually enjoy games.

I find it odd that you say overzealously focused and myopic. Why shouldn't there be focus? A lack of focus means things probably won't get done in the first place. It's hardly myopic, either-- it's taking a long view of the industry that many people simply refuse to take; companies don't like taking it because of the infestation of short-termism in American corporate culture (seriously, just look at how different American companies define "long term" compared to, say, Asian companies... the difference is astounding!), and fans don't like taking it because it often makes them uncomfortable. But it's still an important conversation to have.

Well, because it's ALL media, not just games. It seems strange to only limit the desire for change to one form of media, while others continue on, as bad or worse. Okay, maybe to use an example. Consider the Twilight books. I've not read them, so this is probably a bad example, but I'm going to continue anyway. I've had discussions about them, inluding critical estimates of them from several intelligent women who described the lead character as being a weak women who's fairly incapable and helpless.

Maybe it's because I go among gaming forums, not twilight forums, but I don't see the same level of reaction to that kind of stuff, and that's what's being targeted at women.

Maybe I just don't get it somehow.

So now we are talking about escapism or fantasies (elicit or not) being floated into the market place that may "exploit" various portrayals of people.

Been going on a long time with books.

Various romance novels have all kinds of "classy" portrayals in either gender.
I like "Anita Blake" books but still feel like I am getting a kick in the now and then from that particular author (probably how women feel with some male authors).

I think the female role into gaming development is still not far enough into the management / business decision making part so they may have good representation in work force but little influence on finished product.

"Green Light" on Steam and Indie support in general may give more freedom for leveling the playing field.

So, just like with the various Harlequin Romance books made good money in the past, "trash" games appeal to a similar market (different demographic however).

I remember as a kid reading the "Red Sonja" comics and thinking her skills with sword and strength of will was awesome, really wondered on the point of the metal bikini.
Always thought at least leathers or chainmail was better and the long hair was always a problem and should have been cut.
<edit> Point being, the older version would have a whole different take on the comic.

The thing is, it may start off as a good story, then a "shotgun" approach is wanted, so add eye candy, risky content, so management gets those sales they wanted.

 daedalus wrote:
Well, because it's ALL media, not just games.

And there's groups of feminists devoted to trying to change each type of media for the better.

 daedalus wrote:
Consider the Twilight books.

Errr... I find it odd that you think that feminists haven't criticized this book. I mean, it's not like it hasn't been criticized by just about everyone else

Fair enough then. To be honest, outside of Dakka, I spent considerably small amounts of time online outside of strictly technical research, let alone going to websites discussing Twilight for whatever reason. I suppose the only thing I'm actually causing me to operate under those assumptions is my own genuine ignorance of the situation.

Hey, I don't know. I just came here to point out that Roberta Williams was a female software developer pages back. My big dumb brain just made me keep thinking on the topic.

Yeah, she's one of the more famous ones, really. She practically created a brand new genre at the time.

Twilight has be criticized as terrible by both MRM and Feminists. You know something is just plain awful, when MRM and Feminists are both willing to agree that it's awful for basically the same reasons.

 LordofHats wrote:
Twilight has be criticized as terrible by both MRM and Feminists. You know something is just plain awful, when MRM and Feminists are both willing to agree that it's awful for basically the same reasons.

Its funny that is an exceptional good market now, as people still produce it. Smuttygirl fiction I call it.

 Asherian Command wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Twilight has be criticized as terrible by both MRM and Feminists. You know something is just plain awful, when MRM and Feminists are both willing to agree that it's awful for basically the same reasons.

Its funny that is an exceptional good market now, as people still produce it. Smuttygirl fiction I call it.

I don't even have an issue with 'smuttygirl' fiction. I have an issue with bad fiction, and Twilight made pretty much every mistake under the sun (I've read similar books/series that were at least decent). The movies were great comedies though.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Twilight has be criticized as terrible by both MRM and Feminists. You know something is just plain awful, when MRM and Feminists are both willing to agree that it's awful for basically the same reasons.

Its funny that is an exceptional good market now, as people still produce it. Smuttygirl fiction I call it.

I don't even have an issue with 'smuttygirl' fiction. I have an issue with bad fiction, and Twilight made pretty much every mistake under the sun (I've read similar books/series that were at least decent). The movies were great comedies though.

Oh god yes.

The only equalivent in gaming that I know of is Ride to Hell Retribution.

Ride to Hell was just plain old offensive. I didn't want my money back, I wanted EVERYONE to get their money back on that one.

 Talizvar wrote:
So now we are talking about escapism or fantasies (elicit or not) being floated into the market place that may "exploit" various portrayals of people.

Been going on a long time with books.

Various romance novels have all kinds of "classy" portrayals in either gender.
I like "Anita Blake" books but still feel like I am getting a kick in the now and then from that particular author (probably how women feel with some male authors).

I think the female role into gaming development is still not far enough into the management / business decision making part so they may have good representation in work force but little influence on finished product.

"Green Light" on Steam and Indie support in general may give more freedom for leveling the playing field.

So, just like with the various Harlequin Romance books made good money in the past, "trash" games appeal to a similar market (different demographic however).

I remember as a kid reading the "Red Sonja" comics and thinking her skills with sword and strength of will was awesome, really wondered on the point of the metal bikini.
Always thought at least leathers or chainmail was better and the long hair was always a problem and should have been cut.
<edit> Point being, the older version would have a whole different take on the comic.

The thing is, it may start off as a good story, then a "shotgun" approach is wanted, so add eye candy, risky content, so management gets those sales they wanted.

'

Here is a reimagined piece.


And yes that is a woman.

A badass redheaded woman.

I would like to see a game made out of that character. Who is free to do whatever they want.

There are quite a few artists who have taken a similar stance.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Ride to Hell was just plain old offensive. I didn't want my money back, I wanted EVERYONE to get their money back on that one.

I disagree actually. I loved it. I thought it was so bad that it made it really stupidly funny. The glitches were kind of funny.

It wasn't really offensive. The graphics were so bad I thought the main character is Hispanic.

 Asherian Command wrote:

There are quite a few artists who have taken a similar stance.

OMG yes. She looks like a badass, though I'm a sucker for armored figures with birds.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Ride to Hell was just plain old offensive. I didn't want my money back, I wanted EVERYONE to get their money back on that one.

I disagree actually. I loved it. I thought it was so bad that it made it really stupidly funny. The glitches were kind of funny.

It wasn't really offensive. The graphics were so bad I thought the main character is Hispanic.

 daedalus wrote:
Well, because it's ALL media, not just games. It seems strange to only limit the desire for change to one form of media, while others continue on, as bad or worse. Okay, maybe to use an example. Consider the Twilight books. I've not read them, so this is probably a bad example, but I'm going to continue anyway. I've had discussions about them, inluding critical estimates of them from several intelligent women who described the lead character as being a weak women who's fairly incapable and helpless.

Maybe it's because I go among gaming forums, not twilight forums, but I don't see the same level of reaction to that kind of stuff, and that's what's being targeted at women.

Maybe I just don't get it somehow.

Like you said, you are in a gaming forum so you get gaming related complaints. There was a ton of feminist criticism of Twilight. Heck, there was a lot of mainstream criticism as well.

People are not limiting their complaints to one medium, just to the medium at hand. And one cannot solve a global problem at once: You have to break it up in pieces, address one issue, and use the success to support another issue.

 Slarg232 wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

There are quite a few artists who have taken a similar stance.

OMG yes. She looks like a badass, though I'm a sucker for armored figures with birds.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Ride to Hell was just plain old offensive. I didn't want my money back, I wanted EVERYONE to get their money back on that one.

I disagree actually. I loved it. I thought it was so bad that it made it really stupidly funny. The glitches were kind of funny.

It wasn't really offensive. The graphics were so bad I thought the main character is Hispanic.

Blech, the game was just trying WAAAAAY too hard.

WE are in agreement, I want a game about her more than...

This...



I mean come on! How is that suppose to be protective in the slightest?

That is... almost NSFW. Careful what images you post heh.

 Melissia wrote:
That is... almost NSFW. Careful what images you post heh.

Which one the one I just posted?

Because its art, and I agree. But that is the typical woman in fantasy settings.