Tropes vs. Women Author Driven From Home

[cmdrdredd]

Exactly. I have no problem with women designing video games. None! But the people holding themselves out as champions for the cause are scumbags, and the good female developers are having nothing to do with them and their gender-politic garbage. They're too busy, you know, designing actual video games.

Yep, like one of the creators of Uncharted on the Playstation and a higher up in the studio. I forget her name, think she left. However, 14% of the studio are women.

Ahh...found it. Amy Hennig

 

[Dumac]

The hilarious thing is that feminists and SJWs are ALWAYS pushing equality.

Equality
Equality
Equality

Men and women are equal.

But wait, we need women in gaming to provide insight that men don't have.

Y'know...'cause we're so equal...

It'd be really hilarious, if it wasn't so tragic.

Equality in society doesn't mean everyone has to be identical.

Do you not think that a more diverse set of creators would not lead to better and more interesting content? I've always been a proponent of diversity.

 

[werepossum]

I'd basically have to back up ad read the whole the thread again, but seems I had the gist of it the other day.

Seems to me she's just basically a female troll making additional income off it more or less.

Pretty much. If Ms. Sarkeesian actually wanted to make a difference, she should be promoting what she sees as good games, thus increasing their sales and inspiring more such games to be developed. Unfortunately she's decided to spend her time complaining about the things that offend her and ignore the things that don't. Probably an easier way to make her nut all things considered as she doesn't need to seek out really good games, just pick whatever is popular and demand that it be changed to suite her. That no doubt leaves her lots of time to, um, complain about other things that offend her.

Since it's a thread about her supposedly being driven from her home, I'll go out of my way to wish her well.

 

[BoberFett]

Right, and who is predictable here? Really, its the same every time. Use predefined labels for anyone even daring to suggest that they agree that games could benefit from more diversity. They must be silenced and categorized immediately before anyone listens apparently...

And on the flip side, the entire game industry is full of misogynists because there's a couple of dicks online that called her names. Talk about predefined lables and blanket categorization...

While claiming like was just done that there is an agenda "ruin our games forever"? Really? Trust me, the violent, male-centric games with sexy females as decorations are not going away (nor do I want them to). But you're trying to fool people into thinking that there can't be new ideas introduced or different games/plots made because that would ruin everything? That is basically the definition of paranoid.

OK, then what's the point of her video series? There are tons of games that don't objectify women. She pulled out some that do. If she doesn't want to eliminate those type of games entirely as you claim, what exactly is her agenda?

Read up a bit and you can see why AS and others react in the first place. There are tons of blanket statements here of the type that "women are", "women do", reducing all women to supposedly have the same agenda or interests. When moods cool down, you should scroll back up and you will find lots of statements from the crowd that you support here that you probably would not want to defend.

Again the double standard. Nobody can say "women do" but she's allowed to say "gamers do", because as long as you're the accused oppressor, then it's OK to categorize and vilify, right?

Just drop the "white male rights" hijack and the completely irrelevant slurs about AS and there could be actually be a useful conversation to be had again.

So as long as everyone agrees with you and follows your script, then you're OK with the conversation? Wow, how enlightened.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I also use a gender-neutral gamertag and avoid talking on the microphone. Seems fair to me. I might even say "equal."

Then you should be on the same side as me. You should want better then what we have. The state of our gaming community is atrocious. We need to fix it.

I've already stated that I barely even know who Anita Sarkeesian is, I've watched one of her video's ever. I just know that it is not at all unbelievable, or even surprising, that she is being harassed to the point of being afraid by the online community. Just look at the amount of hate she has generated here. I am sure it is only the threat of the moderators that is keeping some people from making similar over the top sexist rants against her and other women on this forum.

 

[Grooveriding]

Then you should be on the same side as me. You should want better then what we have. The state of our gaming community is atrocious. We need to fix it.

I've already stated that I barely even know who Anita Sarkeesian is, I've watched one of her video's ever. I just know that it is not at all unbelievable, or even surprising, that she is being harassed to the point of being afraid by the online community. Just look at the amount of hate she has generated here. I am sure it is only the threat of the moderators that is keeping some people from making similar over the top sexist rants against her and other women on this forum.

This is an example of the broken logic that is used to distort reality and label people who disagree with the nonsense that AS is spewing as misogynists.

Because we disagree with her broken tirades, we must have deep seated misogynistic tendencies. In this case we're all just repressing it, but 'they' know it's there. The hallmark of a broken premise is when its proponents start making claims about those who counter the premise that amount to claiming the ability to read minds.

 

[BoberFett]

I have two gamer girls in my house, both who love to play video games on PC and consoles. And I can tell you from personal experience from playing online games with them that it is more then 'some assholes' it is a overwhelming stream of vitriol. It is so bad that both of them had removed their microphones and changed their gamertags to non-feminine names just to stop being harassed constantly. This is not a sometimes problem. This is EVERY time they play any game. Funny thing is, the day they did that the harassment stopped. Sure there is still some smack talk in game, but the quality and vitriol went from 11 to maybe 3.

I have a gamer daughter too. We even play WoW, a game in a genre based around interaction with others. We've talked about the crude chat that happens, but other than that she hasn't been harassed. Of course she doesn't run around shouting "Look at me, I'm a girl, worship at my feet nerdy desperate males! Teehee!"

There will always be assholes in life. Unless there's genuine, inescapable harassment, learn to ignore them. Feeding trolls just makes them hungrier.

 

[BoberFett]

This is an example of the broken logic that is used to distort reality and label people who disagree with the nonsense that AS is spewing as misogynists.

Because we disagree with her broken tirades, we must have deep seated misogynistic tendencies. In this case we're all just repressing it, but 'they' know it's there. The hallmark of a broken premise is when its proponents start making claims about those who counter the premise that amount to claiming the ability to read minds.

Precisely.

As I said earlier, hyperfeminism and some of these other social justice issues have become almost cult-like. Even if you can't see it, the high priests can tell you when they "just know" that something is the truth. All you have to do is send money and chant the mantra, and they'll help you see it too.

 

[BoberFett]

Then you should be on the same side as me. You should want better then what we have. The state of our gaming community is atrocious. We need to fix it.

I've already stated that I barely even know who Anita Sarkeesian is, I've watched one of her video's ever. I just know that it is not at all unbelievable, or even surprising, that she is being harassed to the point of being afraid by the online community. Just look at the amount of hate she has generated here. I am sure it is only the threat of the moderators that is keeping some people from making similar over the top sexist rants against her and other women on this forum.

Stop harassing Nebor, you're making him fear for his safety.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Then you should be on the same side as me. You should want better then what we have. The state of our gaming community is atrocious. We need to fix it.

I've already stated that I barely even know who Anita Sarkeesian is, I've watched one of her video's ever. I just know that it is not at all unbelievable, or even surprising, that she is being harassed to the point of being afraid by the online community. Just look at the amount of hate she has generated here. I am sure it is only the threat of the moderators that is keeping some people from making similar over the top sexist rants against her and other women on this forum.

No...look at how she attacked gaming in general. Then look at the people who are telling her she is wrong with real examples in a calm manner. Then look at the vile crap spewed at the people who disagree with her. You're looking at it entirely one sided and it's the absolute wrong side.

She hates gaming, this is pretty much a proven fact at this point. She takes any popular game...Watch Dogs, Skyrim,. GTA, and picks out only the parts of the game that are the most over the top and skews them to a twisted viewpoint that the game is only played by people because of one specific scene or action that can be triggered or performed. Ignoring the entire premise of the game and the rest of the activities. Even if her point makes sense, she isn't looking at the games...just specific parts of them

The state of gaming is fine, the community is fine. There's always a handfull of a-holes in everything. Football fans have theirs, baseball, hockey, soccer, gaming, race fans. Any hobby that has a fanbase of any kind has these people. They do not ever represent the entire community as a whole. You are falling right into the trap set up by her and others who agree with her and are no better than the supposed gaming journalists who propagate the myth that the entire gaming community is a cesspool.

There is one thing you can always be sure of though and that is if you throw rocks at the hornets nest, expect to get attacked. You can't just attack the industry without some backlash. Then when you get some people pointing out your flawed argument you have the defense squad out in force calling everyone white male misogynists, sexists, and whatever else.

 

[jruchko]

I just woke up and read through the last few pages and I can't help but laugh at this point. I do have to say though that I am happy that so many gamers are not falling for this shit. It is looking like the gamer community is going to withstand what the skeptical/atheist community could not.

EDIT: I just looked at the 2 different petitions going around, and here are the results:

Open letter to the gaming community - 2490 signatures. They just closed the signups for this.

Please stop the hate - 4,373 signatures.

Just look at which one is recieving coverage.

I had to to use a lmgtfy for the first link as the direct link didn't work.

 

[Subyman]

I don't want to go into a whole economics lesson here, but if the market for such games existed, someone would be making them. As it is, people attempt to make those games and they fail miserably. Much like the feminists, you're trying to change something that it seems you don't really care for to begin with.

If anything I'd like to see more opportunities to rescue women in video games, particularly in RTS games.

What you are saying, if it is true, is that men are so base, so animalistic, that the main story they want to hear over and over and over is saving a girl. I do not believe that to be true. In fact, take away all the feminist stuff. Don't you want to hear a new story? Can we kill the trope for the sake of being incredibly bored of it?

I'll take that last sentence as you being sarcastic and agreeing with me

 

[Subyman]

OK so, I tell you what, I'll take you hostage, put a gun to your head, we'll release that info the internet, wait for swat to turn up and we'll see if it's a male swat team kicking the door in to save you or if it's a female one.

Weakness in characters in video games generally reflect weakness in real life, what people like Anita fail to do is actually establish that damsels in video games as a ratio of occurrences to non-occurrences is somehow not reflected in real life.

But she's not an intellectual, she's certainly not pro-science, if she wanted to actually conclusively prove this was the case she could look at real life instances of damsels and then look at gaming and see if the trope is overplayed relative to reality or if it's not.

But she doesn't do some wide reaching statisitcal analysis of games, and then reflect that analysis in real life and then compare the two, she just cherry picks every possible damsel game she can, represent it disproportionately (well entirely) in her videos and then ASSERTS there's a problem and ASSERTS it harms women, which again isn't backed with evidence, either of her own original research nor any published and peer reviewed works of science that link negative tropes of women in video games to real world negative treatment of women.

She's extremely intellectually dishonest, she's come at the situation as a feminist firstly and merely cherry picked instances to fit her conclusion, she's not actually done any unique research.

Yup, probably would be a dude. You know what though, that's a very very very boring story. A guy kicks in a door and rescues a hostage. No thanks. I've played that scenario a thousand times. That's the point. Let us move on to something else. Surely you don't want to play a dude rescuing people your whole life right?

If we were playing by statistics we'd be buying groceries in our games.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yup, probably would be a dude. You know what though, that's a very very very boring story. A guy kicks in a door and rescues a hostage. No thanks. I've played that scenario a thousand times. That's the point. Let us move on to something else. Surely you don't want to play a dude rescuing people your whole life right?

If we were playing by statistics we'd be buying groceries in our games.

I don't always play the same stories. That's the point people elsewhere are making. She and others make it seem as if the only games out there are like GTA. That's simply not true. There's games in every genre from sci-fi, to sports, to adventure games. They only focus on the ones that have the things that illustrate their argument but they fail to mention that those are not the only games out there.

 

[Nebor]

Then you should be on the same side as me. You should want better then what we have. The state of our gaming community is atrocious. We need to fix it.

I've already stated that I barely even know who Anita Sarkeesian is, I've watched one of her video's ever. I just know that it is not at all unbelievable, or even surprising, that she is being harassed to the point of being afraid by the online community. Just look at the amount of hate she has generated here. I am sure it is only the threat of the moderators that is keeping some people from making similar over the top sexist rants against her and other women on this forum.

I love the way it is. To say it's atrocious is ridiculous. My main gaming hobby is Payday, who has a pretty famous player named TRIBE. He's a delightfully droll gentleman with a knack for making friends, as you can see here. The guy cracks me up. He's kicked me more often than not, but he's part of the rich tapestry of the online gaming community.

 

[MongGrel]

I just woke up and read through the last few pages and I can't help but laugh at this point. I do have to say though that I am happy that so many gamers are not falling for this shit. It is looking like the gamer community is going to withstand what the skeptical/atheist community could not.

EDIT: I just looked at the 2 different petitions going around, and here are the results:

Open letter to the gaming community - 2490 signatures. They just closed the signups for this.

Please stop the hate - 4,373 signatures.

Just look at which one is recieving coverage.

I had to to use a lmgtfy for the first link as the direct link didn't work.

Most gamers that have been around awhile can sniff out BS when they see it.

Did for a few decades myself in MMO's, haven't even been gaming lately, but still it looks pretty obvious what she's doing.

:sneaky:

I could tell you about an incident about 15 years ago some guy jumped on my making claims in a forum over a supposed sexual remark some guy wasn't even in our guild on DAOC made after an incident at the time, about 5 at least other guild leaders jumped on the forum and jumped down his throat saying he was full of BS and lying out his ass.

As he was.

I did get booted but it was a bit of an odd thing, sexual remarks were not involved.

Went on to play with a Merc group for awhile after that for a bit we mauled things, wish they'd make a good modern day DAOC these days. OCT was really fun in there at the time, we ran around mauling people.

Jedis in SWG were fun after that till they nerfed that thing into the ground on CURB.

Pathetic what they do to MMO's these days.

Had a good Rogue in the Manhatten Project on Rift a few years ago I stopped playing, PVP was good in there awhile.

I had fun messing things up there.

 

[BoberFett]

Yup, probably would be a dude. You know what though, that's a very very very boring story. A guy kicks in a door and rescues a hostage. No thanks. I've played that scenario a thousand times. That's the point. Let us move on to something else. Surely you don't want to play a dude rescuing people your whole life right?

If we were playing by statistics we'd be buying groceries in our games.

People play games/watch movies/read books/partake in entertainment to get away from daily life. To immerse yourself in something that you don't do everyday. What are the exciting things that people get to do through entertainment? Save the world, save the country, save an individual. Why are games being singled out for this? Look at Hollywood. Look at literature. If the goal is to live out an action fantasy, then saving something is one of the key elements. Without conflict, there's nothing to do. Often that takes the shape of a single protagonist and something which needs to be saved. Sometimes you save the president. Sometimes it's a damsel in distress. Sometimes it's yourself. But these nutjobs have decided that when it's a woman being savOMGMISOGYNYRAPECULTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you're saying that there are other stories to be played out in action gaming other than saving something, I'm all ears. There's always dating simulators like the ones in Japan, because I hear those aren't sexist AT ALL.

 

[Nebor]

Stop harassing Nebor, you're making him fear for his safety.

I'm going to stay at my friend's place. Please notify the media.

 

[Nebor]

What you are saying, if it is true, is that men are so base, so animalistic, that the main story they want to hear over and over and over is saving a girl. I do not believe that to be true. In fact, take away all the feminist stuff. Don't you want to hear a new story? Can we kill the trope for the sake of being incredibly bored of it?

I'll take that last sentence as you being sarcastic and agreeing with me

There are tons of new, interesting stories out there. They're just not AAA titles. AAA titles are always going to follow the most popular formats. Again, it's simple economics.

I mainly just play multiplayer shooters with a ton of grind built into them. I've tried to play Skyrim repeatedly and get bored quickly. You know, now that I think about it, CoD: Ghosts has female playable characters in multiplayer. You know, just like all the real women in military special operations forces.

 

[Nebor]

People play games/watch movies/read books/partake in entertainment to get away from daily life. To immerse yourself in something that you don't do everyday. What are the exciting things that people get to do through entertainment? Save the world, save the country, save an individual. Why are games being singled out for this? Look at Hollywood. Look at literature. If the goal is to live out an action fantasy, then saving something is one of the key elements. Without a protagonist and a crisis, there's nothing to do. Sometimes you save the president. Sometimes it's a damsel in distress. Sometimes it's yourself. But these nutjobs have decided that when it's a woman being savOMGMISOGYNYRAPECULTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you're saying that there are other stories to be played out in action gaming other than saving something, I'm all ears. There's always dating simulators like the ones in Japan, because I hear those aren't sexist AT ALL.

They're picking on the people that are least likely to fight back and the most likely to trade their dignity and pride for a bit of female approval. They can't change Hollywood, or wider culture, and they sure as shit don't want to do anything that actually matters, like help the women in Africa & the Middle East who are truly oppressed. So they go after video games.

 

[thedosbox]

This, exactly. And with that sentiment, it seems a good time to leave the thread to the trolls.

OK, I lied, but given the nonsense perpetuated in this thread, I couldn't resist one last encore for the benefit of those with an open mind:

http://www.newstatesman.com/future-...esian-passing-anti-feminist-nonsense-critique

As I'm sure the "death threats are OK" trolls won't bother reading it (just as they didn't bother watching the original videos), here are some key quotes:

re: threats and reporting to police

A few days ago, Sarkeesian tweeted that she had left her home to stay with friends because she had received specific threats - ones so serious that she had reported them to police.

re: not a gamer

Pauline Kael was an ad copywriter before she became a film critic; Roger Ebert wrote science fiction. It's never been necessary to have experience creating something before being allowed to critique it.

re: cherry-picking

There's a common trope of framing Sarkeesian's work as "cherry-picked", as she takes isolated examples from many games and presents them as a stream of misogyny in order to create the illusion that all of these games are entirely misogynist, the entire way through. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is Sarkeesian is doing with TvsWVG, and what cultural criticism in general is. These are tropes - they're fragments of a whole. By definition they don't make up the entirety of a work of art by themselves, but are instead definable cultural touchstones which artists, writers, developers etc, can use when creating a fictional reality.

In other words, Anita Sarkeesian only presents sections of games as sexist because she's only talking about the sexist bits of games, and how, of the tropes developers choose to put in their games when designing for female characters, they frequently fall back on sexist ones.

Anyhow, I'm sure those of you on my ignore list will have fun with this. /s

 

[BoberFett]

OK, I lied, but given the nonsense perpetuated in this thread, I couldn't resist one last encore for the benefit of those with an open mind:

http://www.newstatesman.com/future-...esian-passing-anti-feminist-nonsense-critique

As I'm sure the "death threats are OK" trolls won't bother reading it (just as they didn't bother watching the original videos), here are some key quotes:

re: threats and reporting to police


re: not a gamer


re: cherry-picking


Anyhow, I'm sure those of you on my ignore list will have fun with this. /s

LOL, again, typical of your type. Lies and distortion are your goto tools.

Please quote the post if I'm wrong, but nobody in this thread has said death threats are ok.

Further, yes you can be a critic without having been a creator. Nobody said anything to the contrary. Anita is not even a gamer, much less a developer. I can't imagine that Ebert would say someone would be a good film critic of they disliked movies and never watched them, which is what Anita said about games.

In summary, you're still misrepresenting the conversation, because the truth isn't in your favor.

 

[Subyman]

People play games/watch movies/read books/partake in entertainment to get away from daily life. To immerse yourself in something that you don't do everyday. What are the exciting things that people get to do through entertainment? Save the world, save the country, save an individual. Why are games being singled out for this? Look at Hollywood. Look at literature. If the goal is to live out an action fantasy, then saving something is one of the key elements. Without conflict, there's nothing to do. Often that takes the shape of a single protagonist and something which needs to be saved. Sometimes you save the president. Sometimes it's a damsel in distress. Sometimes it's yourself. But these nutjobs have decided that when it's a woman being savOMGMISOGYNYRAPECULTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you're saying that there are other stories to be played out in action gaming other than saving something, I'm all ears. There's always dating simulators like the ones in Japan, because I hear those aren't sexist AT ALL.

Having a hard time coming up with conflict? I'll get you started, from the book Plotto here are the major categories:

Misfortune
Mistaken Judgement
Helpfulness
Deliverance
Idealism
Obligation
Necessity
Chance
Personal Limitations
Simulation
Craftiness
Transgression
Revenge
Mystery
Revelation

Bolded are the two in which the save-the-girl or get revenge for her death are sub-categories of. Plenty more to explore there, even in the same category there is more to explore than saving girls. As for your other comments, you surely know and agree with the position that because someone else does something doesn't make it "good." TV and Hollywood are cesspits of crappy plots and throw away movies, so not a high bar at all there.

The problem is that the industry has terrible writers. The same plot over and over, crappy prose, and on and on. If it takes a feminist movement to get some good writers in there to create complex characters and new plots then let's do this. I'm tired of playing dude-bro saving the world.

PS seriously, look up the book Plotto. It is fun to glance through. There are millions of plots.

 

[Subyman]

There are tons of new, interesting stories out there. They're just not AAA titles. AAA titles are always going to follow the most popular formats. Again, it's simple economics.

I mainly just play multiplayer shooters with a ton of grind built into them. I've tried to play Skyrim repeatedly and get bored quickly. You know, now that I think about it, CoD: Ghosts has female playable characters in multiplayer. You know, just like all the real women in military special operations forces.

So, you are saying if a dude doesn't save a girl in a game then they won't make as much profit? That's a pretty demanding audience there.

 

[Subyman]

I don't always play the same stories. That's the point people elsewhere are making. She and others make it seem as if the only games out there are like GTA. That's simply not true. There's games in every genre from sci-fi, to sports, to adventure games. They only focus on the ones that have the things that illustrate their argument but they fail to mention that those are not the only games out there.

There are tons of games with different storylines sure! However, just look at the big games I listed a few pages ago. All have the singular mechanic of saving a helpless female. If it was saving a person, then sure, its just a well-troden plot device, but it is nearly always a helpless girl.

Did you not fire up Watch Dogs and roll your eyes when the entire game hinged on Aiden's revenge for his sister's child? Even the sister didn't want him to get revenge. Aidens revenge even led to more violence against his sister. Its becoming a parody of itself. Watch Dog's writing was atrocious by the way and hit just about every facet of humanity with a gross stereotype. I remember the black guys kept saying "All I have is my word and my balls." Classy writing, sounds like an idiotic high schooler wrote that game.