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 LordofHats wrote:
Because two people represent all feminists everywhere.

That's pretty much the opposite of what I was saying. Most feminists aren't gamers and/or aren't interested in gaming. They don't exert pressure on the industry because they don't make up its target audience and they don't make political/social waves to change it. Pressure on the industry comes from the type of feminists that rally behind Sarkeesian and Quinn - tumblrites who are so estranged from reality and sense that even the average feminist balks at their suggestions. Even though their numbers are small, their online footprint and subsequent impact on internet media is disproportionately large, and as a result they've managed to put themselves at the heart of this controversy and largely control the flow of the conversation on the issue.

 Kali wrote:
Most feminists aren't gamers and/or aren't interested in gaming.

So you don't actually know anything about feminism? Gee. Color me surprised.

Google is your friend (except when its trying to take over the world).

 LordofHats wrote:
So you don't actually know anything about feminism? Gee. Color me surprised

If you are seriously going to cling to this ridiculous notion that women are avid gamers, put some warrants behind it. I find it absurd that anyone can seriously believe that.

 Kali wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Because two people represent all feminists everywhere.

That's pretty much the opposite of what I was saying. Most feminists aren't gamers and/or aren't interested in gaming. They don't exert pressure on the industry because they don't make up its target audience and they don't make political/social waves to change it. Pressure on the industry comes from the type of feminists that rally behind Sarkeesian and Quinn - tumblrites who are so estranged from reality and sense that even the average feminist balks at their suggestions. Even though their numbers are small, their online footprint and subsequent impact on internet media is disproportionately large, and as a result they've managed to put themselves at the heart of this controversy and largely control the flow of the conversation on the issue.

That is why I wanted a gamer directed conversation like what we have here. If we don't want the tumbler people to control the conversation about gaming then we need talk about it. If you neglect the issue, then you abandon responsibility and someone else will pick up the slack. Basically if you don't address it someone else will.

 Kali wrote:
If you are seriously going to cling to this ridiculous notion that women are avid gamers, put some warrants behind it. I find it absurd that anyone can seriously believe that.

If you're going to seriously cling to the ridiculous notion that there's no such thin as a woman who plays video games, put some warrants behind it. I find it absurd that anyone seriously believes that.

There's at least 3 women who've participated in this thread (two of them among the most active of participants).

LordofHats wrote:If you're going to seriously cling to the ridiculous notion that there's no such thin as a woman who plays video games, put some warrants behind it. I find it absurd that anyone seriously believes that.

My position is supported by the status quo, as that's what publishers and developers believe. As a result, the burden of proof falls on you and your extraordinary claims.

 Kali wrote:
My position is supported by the status quo,

No your position falls on your assumptions about the status quo.

As a result, the burden of proof falls on you and your extraordinary claims.

If I've learned anything from the internet, is that I can provide all the proof in the world, and people who've displayed certain levels of ignorance will never believe it. Google is your friend. Take some initiative and challenge your own assumptions instead of demanding I do it for you. I have better things to do with my time than trying to teach a horse to drink

 Asherian Command wrote:
There is a difference between teaching an idea, and changing someones behavior.

Except there are a whole lot of idea that will change someone's behavior.

 Kali wrote:
What's problematic is when female characters are forced into prominent roles when they clearly shouldn't be

When exactly female characters should not be into prominent roles? When racist gender segregation say they should not, or what?

 Kali wrote:
Every character should be defined well enough so that their sex isn't just an arbitrary characteristic which can be swapped out to meet quotas, or else you're dealing with some pretty shallow characters.

What would make sex not an arbitrary characteristic?

 Kali wrote:
I don't think many people are going to cite Zoey from Left 4 Dead as an example of an unwelcome female character.

Can you cite any female character as an example of an unwelcome female character?

 Kali wrote:
Attacking an aesthetic on the basis that it's unrealistic or undignified is simply not going to fly in an entertainment media.

Yeah. Totally okay to include blackface in your video game, nobody will care about it .

 Kali wrote:
Feminism wants to destroy a lot of what I like about games and replace it with things I very strongly dislike.

Yeah, like what? You keep on saying this kind of things, but can you give precise examples?

 Kali wrote:
It's not a contradiction, as developers should have the freedom to make whatever they want, but what I'm personally interested in incentivizing them to make are products that I personally like.

Do you mean, incentivizing just like feminists do? But when it is them, it is bad, because they are incentivizing the bad things!

 Kali wrote:
Any, since the characters are at least half of what makes the story what it is.

So, changing the hair color of Snake would totally change the story of Metal Gear? That is a very… weak argument to make.

 Kali wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
what most feminists are saying.

Doesn't matter, because they're not the ones exerting pressure on the gaming community. These ones are:

I want to tell you that putting the image of someone who as far as I know never said anything about female representation in games, totally did not make you look like an absolute idiot. I would like to emphasize that. This shows how strong your arguments are!

 Melissia wrote:
Right, because I have the millions of dollars needed to make a big budget game. Because that's the kind of game we're referring to here-- most indie games do not get the kind of market share or impact that games by multi-million (or multi-billion) dollar producers get (indie games are also more likely to be creative, but have less budget to use to expand on their creativity). Your objections are meaningless.

I'm curious, would you have a problem with EA releasing a Legends Football League lingerie football game using the madden engine?

No male characters in the game (female refs, female fans) exactly the same as gameplay as madden, big budget, marketing out the wazoo. Just women competing against women, no males involved.

Would you support or oppose this game? I'm going to have to insist on a binary here (no 'just add women to madden!' response) considering the National Women's Football Association has been defunct for the last few years, and there are no female players in the NFL


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just posed the question to my dirty leftie wife (her words ) she said she'd play that game. Didn't even get to finish listing the criteria

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
That's not a boobplate. She's just wearing a very tight suit.
For science reasons.

If you think this is cloth rather than armor, boobsocks then.

Bishop F Gantry wrote:
Silly thing is, the boobplate actually makes sense here, while pulling high G manouvers having proper support makes sense, its still eyecandy but its kinda justified as silly as it is.

Checked pictures of actual female jet pilots and astronauts, none of them wore boob-plate or boob-socks. Maybe because to get proper support, they just use some bra underneath their uniform .

Still G-suits is a thing irl...

 Kali wrote:
Most feminists aren't gamers and/or aren't interested in gaming.

Irrelevant.

I'm a feminist. I not only probably play more games more often than you do, I have probably done so for longer than you have (longer than you've been alive, in fact, if you count Atari and arcade games)

Stop generalizing about me.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:
I'm going to have to insist on a binary here

Then you'll get no answer at all, because a binary answer would not be productive.

I googled it, I got image like this:

 Melissia wrote:
Stop generalizing about me.

What specifically do you want to see changed, then?

 Kali wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Stop generalizing about me.

What specifically do you want to see changed, then?

I've explained this numerous times in this thread.

But if you insist on me reiterating (can't blame you with something like seventy pages to read through), I want games to stop lazily defaulting to male when writing characters (I have offered solutions on how to do this in an unbiased manner, in fact); I also desire for games to allow for more customization of the player character, especially (but not exclusively) RPGs and multiplayer-only or multiplayer-heavy games like most first-person shooters, two genres I'm more heavily invested in (but there's no reason that this could not be expanded to other genres; the RTS genre, for example, would need to do little more than to change pronouns when referring to "the commander", similar to how Stronghold 2's greeting changes to "Greetings, Lady Mel" when I enter my name at the start).

That's the topic I have focused on in this thread, and the topic that I find most important. The sexualization/sexuality in games topic I find to be a secondary (but still important) concern; certainly I believe developers need to stop focusing on sexuality as the only personality trait women have; the woman should be defined by what badass/good/evil/etc thing she does, not what she looks like-- that's just lazy and boring. A good step in that is to stop using cheap and lazy titillation tactics in character design in every single major release game, but that alone won't do everything that needs to be done.

I also desire for games to allow for more customization of the player character, especially (but not exclusively) RPGs and multiplayer-only or multiplayer-heavy games like most first-person shooters, two genres I'm more heavily invested in (but there's no reason that this could not be expanded to other genres; the RTS genre, for example, would need to do little more than to change pronouns when referring to "the commander", similar to how Stronghold 2's greeting changes to "Greetings, Lady Mel" when I enter my name at the start).

I disagree. I don't want all games to have that. There should always be games that are not completely customizable. I think it doesn't work all the time. But agree with the second bit. Customization is well in good but I don't think it will change the problem.

Probably allowing for the same storyline just in different genders is a good idea. Just writing that might take longer.

 Melissia wrote:
Then you'll get no answer at all, because a binary answer would not be productive.

My apologies, I forgot the "Don't Care" option, if that's what you would have chosen

I wrote it in a hurry.

I just want games that aren't so embarrassing to play due to their usage of women characters and design. Or that cling to certain image of their audience. I also like personalization of my PCs when appropriate.

But I would love to get to the time when feminism stops being used as a four letter word. Being as gamer and a feminist is not mutually exclusive. It's not "censorship" to ask for something new or ask for your hobby to be more inclusive. Why is this so vilified? Does removing sexualization really hurt a game experience for some people?

If you refuse to read nuance, VorpalBunny, then you aren't going to like what I have to say, and you have nothing to contribute to this thread anyway.

 Asherian Command wrote:
I disagree. I don't want all games to have that.

I said "more", not "all".

While I certainly believe that all games having more customization would in fact make the gaming industry better, the post you responded to did not actually advocate that.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Just writing that might take longer.

For most games, it wouldn't make a difference in the time it takes to write them.


[edit: jegus am I tired right now. I should probably go nap for a few hours instead of participate in this discussion ]

 Melissia wrote:
If you refuse to read nuance, VorpalBunny, then you aren't going to like what I have to say, and you have nothing to contribute to this thread anyway.

It was an honest question. It's a shame you feel that way

 AdeptSister wrote:
I just want games that aren't so embarrassing to play due to their usage of women characters and design. Or that cling to certain image of their audience. I also like personalization of my PCs when appropriate.

But I would love to get to the time when feminism stops being used as a four letter word. Being as gamer and a feminist is not mutually exclusive. It's not "censorship" to ask for something new or ask for your hobby to be more inclusive. Why is this so vilified? Does removing sexualization really hurt a game experience for some people?

Largely because a lot folks would see your post and somehow interpret the words to mean this:

 AdeptSister(Interpreted) wrote:
I demand all games star only unappealing women. Anyone who wants to play games about something other than hypermasculine women are so embarrassing. They shouldn't play due to their attraction to women. I'm angry there are men in audience. I demand personalization of PCs in every game with the only options being minoirties.

I would love to get to the time when "Man" starts being used as a four letter word. Being a good person and a man is mutually exclusive. It's not "censorship" to ask for no men or ask for your hobby to be more exclusive. Why is this so vilified? Does never allowing any sexualization and knowing how much smarter I than you really hurt your fee-fees so much?

 Chongara wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I just want games that aren't so embarrassing to play due to their usage of women characters and design. Or that cling to certain image of their audience. I also like personalization of my PCs when appropriate.

But I would love to get to the time when feminism stops being used as a four letter word. Being as gamer and a feminist is not mutually exclusive. It's not "censorship" to ask for something new or ask for your hobby to be more inclusive. Why is this so vilified? Does removing sexualization really hurt a game experience for some people?

Largely because a lot folks would see your post and somehow interpret the words to mean this:

 AdeptSister(Interpreted) wrote:
I demand all games star only unappealing women. Anyone who wants to play games about something other than hypermasculine women are so embarrassing. They shouldn't play due to their attraction to women. I'm angry there are men in audience. I demand personalization of PCs in every game with the only options being minoirties.

I would love to get to the time when "Man" starts being used as a four letter word. Being a good person and a man is mutually exclusive. It's not "censorship" to ask for no men new or ask for your hobby to be more exclusive. Why is this so vilified? Does never allowing any sexualization and knowing how smarter I than you really hurt your fee-fees so much?

Made better by how the last 72 pages have proved it

 Chongara wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I just want games that aren't so embarrassing to play due to their usage of women characters and design. Or that cling to certain image of their audience. I also like personalization of my PCs when appropriate.

But I would love to get to the time when feminism stops being used as a four letter word. Being as gamer and a feminist is not mutually exclusive. It's not "censorship" to ask for something new or ask for your hobby to be more inclusive. Why is this so vilified? Does removing sexualization really hurt a game experience for some people?

Largely because a lot folks would see your post and somehow interpret the words to mean this:

 AdeptSister(Interpreted) wrote:
I demand all games star only unappealing women. Anyone who wants to play games about something other than hypermasculine women are so embarrassing. They shouldn't play due to their attraction to women. I'm angry there are men in audience. I demand personalization of PCs in every game with the only options being minoirties.

I would love to get to the time when "Man" starts being used as a four letter word. Being a good person and a man is mutually exclusive. It's not "censorship" to ask for no men or ask for your hobby to be more exclusive. Why is this so vilified? Does never allowing any sexualization and knowing how much smarter I than you really hurt your fee-fees so much?

Yeah that is how it is interpreted sometimes XD

Sexualization is not bad it is neutral.

 Melissia wrote:
Right, because I have the millions of dollars needed to make a big budget game. Because that's the kind of game we're referring to here-- most indie games do not get the kind of market share or impact that games by multi-million (or multi-billion) dollar producers get (indie games are also more likely to be creative, but have less budget to use to expand on their creativity). Your objections are meaningless.

Demanding that other people spend their time and their money satisfying your requirements is completely reasonable. Right.

And they weren't objections, offering an alternative to mass bitching is simply that, an alternative. See it how you will.

http://i.imgur.com/RDcaNCS.png

Got a quick laugh out of this. Reminds me of so many people with regards to this whole gaming issue.

Out of curiosity, what do people think of male armour that clearly has pecs? Like say Cadians or even SW storm troopers? Is it as wrong as the female boob plate?

 Kojiro wrote:
Out of curiosity, what do people think of male armour that clearly has pecs? Like say Cadians or even SW storm troopers? Is it as wrong as the female boob plate?

Because that's objectifying women, and that's bad. Always.

 Kojiro wrote:
Out of curiosity, what do people think of male armour that clearly has pecs? Like say Cadians or even SW storm troopers? Is it as wrong as the female boob plate?

I think it actually functions as armour.

But really, I have a much bigger problem with boob windows in armour than boob plate.

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:
Out of curiosity, what do people think of male armour that clearly has pecs? Like say Cadians or even SW storm troopers? Is it as wrong as the female boob plate?

Because that's objectifying women, and that's bad. Always.

You're wearing armour, so its going to be a fight-setting. The Romans started off the ornate chest armour thing (my history is not the best), emphasising the muscles. This made their officers look more strong, imposing and scary. This is useful.

This does not equate to boob plate in women. Boob plate makes female characters look sexy. This is not particularly useful in a fight. Especially if there are arrows or bullets around (it directs them towards the heart) - unless the pec armour is huge, the extent to which this happens would be much less with pec armour.

Of course, the pec armour still creates an unrealistic standard of masculinity. We could start a campaign right now asking for more realistic male action heroes who are mildly overweight?

Crystal-Maze wrote:

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:
Out of curiosity, what do people think of male armour that clearly has pecs? Like say Cadians or even SW storm troopers? Is it as wrong as the female boob plate?

Because that's objectifying women, and that's bad. Always.

You're wearing armour, so its going to be a fight-setting. The Romans started off the ornate chest armour thing (my history is not the best), emphasising the muscles. This made their officers look more strong, imposing and scary. This is useful.

This does not equate to boob plate in women. Boob plate makes female characters look sexy. This is not particularly useful in a fight. Especially if there are arrows or bullets around (it directs them towards the heart) - unless the pec armour is huge, the extent to which this happens would be much less with pec armour.

Of course, the pec armour still creates an unrealistic standard of masculinity. We could start a campaign right now asking for more realistic male action heroes who are mildly overweight?

The campaign must be for equality for all, not just one sex. I demand beer gut armor, love-handled cloaks, and double-chin shoulder guards.

 Kojiro wrote:
Out of curiosity, what do people think of male armour that clearly has pecs? Like say Cadians or even SW storm troopers? Is it as wrong as the female boob plate?

I think it looks ugly and dumb. Yes, even when it's roman


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frankenberry wrote:
The campaign must be for equality for all, not just one sex.

Then start your own damn movement instead of piggybacking off the feminist movement. Because that would indicate you're serious instead of just trying to place all the burden on women in order to belittle us and be a lazy, privileged white dude.