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Post by Michael Coello on Jul 19, 2014 14:59:57 GMT -5
You've described two different forms of objectification, but you haven't explained why one is inherently worse than the other. Both examples are very shallow representations of masculinity and femininity. Are you saying that male gamers see sexy NPCs in a negative light? That representation of masculinity is still, more often than not, seen as something to be admired. Kratos, for instance, may be a hulking brute obsessed with death, but he's still depicted as a "badass" character and is designed to appeal to men as a figure they should admire, if only for his "cool" factor. Most female NPCs are side characters who are basically just walking pairs of breasts designed solely to titillate men. They're not characters, they're sex objects, and that sort of objectification is something women have to put up with in real life every day. That's why it's more harmful. It's strange that "badass" is considered a masculine trait only. It's less on that Kratos is a badass who is doing stuff, and more that what Kratos does in the game is badass. It doesn't get lost when it's a female hero, ala Bayonetta or Bloodrayne, who do the same type of actions and also can wear that badass label. It's also a bit unfair to compare Kratos to sexy NPCs, as, by their very nature, NPCs are actually objects, designed for the player to interact for either quests, story info, rewards and punishments, or just for a gag.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 15:08:54 GMT -5
You've described two different forms of objectification, but you haven't explained why one is inherently worse than the other. Both examples are very shallow representations of masculinity and femininity. Are you saying that male gamers see sexy NPCs in a negative light? That representation of masculinity is still, more often than not, seen as something to be admired. Kratos, for instance, may be a hulking brute obsessed with death, but he's still depicted as a "badass" character and is designed to appeal to men as a figure they should admire, if only for his "cool" factor. Most female NPCs are side characters who are basically just walking pairs of breasts designed solely to titillate men. They're not characters, they're sex objects, and that sort of objectification is something women have to put up with in real life every day. That's why it's more harmful. As someone else pointed out, it's very disingenuous to compare the main character of a game to an NPC. An NPC's role is the same whether male or female. There's no "power fantasy" displayed in a male NPC shopkeeper who's only role is to sell you shit or a male NPC ally who's only role is to serve as a meat shield for your character. They're ALL "side characters". I don't see a "sex object" being a worse role than say, a service object (as in my two examples). That argument implies that the objectification people face in reality is in some part caused by these games. I don't believe video games help cause objectification any more than they help cause violence.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 15:58:00 GMT -5
This shouldn't be any surprise and shouldn't really be seen as all too negative. "Power fantasy" is EXACTLY it. Most games are made for a predominantly young, male audience. So like, no surprise that it's going to have male characters who are supposed to be smart, handsome and tough, and females who are generally supposed to be sexy. It's escapism, simple as that. I'd have no problem with a game with a female lead where the roles are reversed (and that can easily be the case in some franchises like Mass Effect). Yeah, but there are more women gamers these days than ever before, so appealing solely to men is really short-sighted and disappointing. Especially since most AAA developers can easily afford to take chances with this sort of thing. Would less people have really bought GTA5 if one of the three playable characters was a woman? Nope. But I don't think it's nearly as egregious as people like Anita try to make it.
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Post by Red Impact on Jul 19, 2014 15:58:26 GMT -5
It's strange that "badass" is considered a masculine trait only. It's less on that Kratos is a badass who is doing stuff, and more that what Kratos does in the game is badass. It doesn't get lost when it's a female hero, ala Bayonetta or Bloodrayne, who do the same type of actions and also can wear that badass label. It's also a bit unfair to compare Kratos to sexy NPCs, as, by their very nature, NPCs are actually objects, designed for the player to interact for either quests, story info, rewards and punishments, or just for a gag. It's not strange at all. Men were historically the hunters, while women were caregivers. Men were the breadwinners and they fought in wars (often taking the women as prizes of such). That's why badassery is considered more of a masculine trait, and why you'll get people complaining about Joss Whedon's writing of women. I would agree that comparing main characters to NFC's is a bit unfair, but I don't think it's really possible to deny that sexualization among female main characters is more acceptable, simply by looking at how Bayonetta and Bloodrayne are modeled. I'd argue that a better counter example would be the first few Silent Hill games. You have examples of both male leads that aren't total badasses, and a strong female lead that struggles the same way the previous heroes did being overly sexualized. By subverting it for both genders, all three leads are much better then they are in most series that they try to make them badass in.
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Post by Michael Coello on Jul 19, 2014 16:45:57 GMT -5
It's strange that "badass" is considered a masculine trait only. It's less on that Kratos is a badass who is doing stuff, and more that what Kratos does in the game is badass. It doesn't get lost when it's a female hero, ala Bayonetta or Bloodrayne, who do the same type of actions and also can wear that badass label. It's also a bit unfair to compare Kratos to sexy NPCs, as, by their very nature, NPCs are actually objects, designed for the player to interact for either quests, story info, rewards and punishments, or just for a gag. It's not strange at all. Men were historically the hunters, while women were caregivers. Men were the breadwinners and they fought in wars (often taking the women as prizes of such). That's why badassery is considered more of a masculine trait, and why you'll get people complaining about Joss Whedon's writing of women. I would agree that comparing main characters to NFC's is a bit unfair, but I don't think it's really possible to deny that sexualization among female main characters is more acceptable, simply by looking at how Bayonetta and Bloodrayne are modeled. I'd argue that a better counter example would be the first few Silent Hill games. You have examples of both male leads that aren't total badasses, and a strong female lead that struggles the same way the previous heroes did being overly sexualized. By subverting it for both genders, all three leads are much better then they are in most series that they try to make them badass in. The thing is, especially with those two, they is a lot more to their stories and character beyond their sexy exterior, and writing a lot of them off for how they look is a big disservice. Take Lollipop Chainsaw, with Juliet. On the surface, it's a blond cheerleader with big boobs killing zombies with a chainsaw. That's on the box and a short run in the game gives you this impression. Just another trashy Suda 51 trope game. Except that Juliet and her character in the game is honestly interesting, from how she reacts to her boyfriend's death, and her family life and her reaction to the chaos in the game. It's an interesting aspect to her that goes beyond just her appearance as fanservice character #167543. Same goes with a lot of characters. I like to bring up Bayonetta cause it seems like, even for someone who seemed to be made to titillate, she just owns it from the first moment on screen and makes it her own. It's similar to how people wrote off Spec Ops the Line as another military shooter, especially considering the past Spec Ops game. An hour or so in would not change that fact. Then you see your character stepping into his own personal hell and that there's more to it than another generic white guy shooting people FOR AMERICA from the start! Not to say it doesn't happen and characters written to be sexy don't exist. The Bombshell trailer was not promising, especially considering the namesake she seems based on. However, it seems that a lot of characters that are called sexualized, tend to have a lot of their central features ignored to consider them sexualized in the first place. And that's sad. [/Gul Dukat]
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 17:12:25 GMT -5
I would agree that comparing main characters to NFC's is a bit unfair, but I don't think it's really possible to deny that sexualization among female main characters is more acceptable, simply by looking at how Bayonetta and Bloodrayne are modeled. I'd argue that a better counter example would be the first few Silent Hill games. You have examples of both male leads that aren't total badasses, and a strong female lead that struggles the same way the previous heroes did being overly sexualized. By subverting it for both genders, all three leads are much better then they are in most series that they try to make them badass in. I mentioned NPCs (though I meant side characters, should have been more clear) because I honestly had difficulty thinking of mainstream games with female main characters. Bloodrayne's a good example of an overly sexualized female lead, though Bayonetta I believe was intended to be more or less a satire of common female character design. Pre-reboot Lara Croft is another good example, where she had no real character and most of the focus came from her bust size increasing in each sequel. The industry has definitely made strides, but characters like Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, Ellie from the Last of Us, or even Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII seem to very much be in the minority. Most female characters are relegated to side characters even if the games themselves could easily have a female lead - Watch Dogs, Asssassin's Creed, GTA, Crysis, Hotline Miami, etc. etc. And that's without getting into how women are depicted, an issue that's particularly bad in fighting games (Soul Calibur for instance).
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Post by "Cane Dewey" Johnson on Jul 19, 2014 17:33:23 GMT -5
That argument implies that the objectification people face in reality is in some part caused by these games. I don't believe video games help cause objectification any more than they help cause violence. If anything, what she suggests is really the other way around: that there exists objectification and violence in the real world is something that video games reinforce and often perpetuate these ideas and practices of sexism. What you're describing is the hypodermic needle model of media consumption: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodermic_needle_modelNow, to say that 'video games are for fun and should not be treated seriously as such' is a perspective that can be inserted into the uses and gratifications model of why people do what they do with media. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uses_and_gratifications_theoryBut it can be added that even if two people who do the same thing, say play video games for fun', they do not necessarily go about making a fun experience from the media text in the same way. Whatever messages are 'encoded' in the game are 'decoded' by the player, who can agree, or disagree, or agree and or disagree somewhat with those messages and means of encoding. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encoding/decoding_model_of_communicationWhere we are at today, which is to say that the above approaches to understanding a video game text are all valid to some degree depending upon your perspective, is twofold. A) In what sort of ways do video games present ideological views? For example, how is violence represented as a supposedly natural way to solve problems, especially interpersonal conflicts? Do forms of femininity allow for the same forms of agency and action as do forms of masculinity? Why are certain subjectivities numerically dominant--white perspectives, male perspectives, straight perspectives, middle-upper class perspectives--over others--non-white, non-male, non-straight-non-middle upper class perspectives? Have the numerically dominant subjectivities been normalized? If so, how exactly? So what we need to discuss is the issue of how games are ideological. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IdeologyB) In what ways are video games produced and consumed? Who produces and consumes them? What is the relationship between the predominance of male-centric video games and male-centric video game productions? Do people produce in their media the same worldviews that they have outside of the video game itself? Why must video games be consumed at all? In what sense are video games a core product of the capitalist culture industry? Is this fact a good or bad thing? So what we also need to discuss is the quality of political economy that is absolutely necessary to the existence and popularity of video games as a medium. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economyWhile Sarkeesian more often than not only focuses on the content-level, representational level of who or what are in video games, her work, regardless of whether you agree with it or not, touches upon several larger, complex, meta-level discussions from which video games cannot be divorced. All of this has advanced to the point that you can actually make a career from studying video games and all of these other intersectional issues. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_studies
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Post by Michael Coello on Jul 19, 2014 17:43:49 GMT -5
I would agree that comparing main characters to NFC's is a bit unfair, but I don't think it's really possible to deny that sexualization among female main characters is more acceptable, simply by looking at how Bayonetta and Bloodrayne are modeled. I'd argue that a better counter example would be the first few Silent Hill games. You have examples of both male leads that aren't total badasses, and a strong female lead that struggles the same way the previous heroes did being overly sexualized. By subverting it for both genders, all three leads are much better then they are in most series that they try to make them badass in. I mentioned NPCs (though I meant side characters, should have been more clear) because I honestly had difficulty thinking of mainstream games with female main characters. Bloodrayne's a good example of an overly sexualized female lead, though Bayonetta I believe was intended to be more or less a satire of common female character design. Pre-reboot Lara Croft is another good example, where she had no real character and most of the focus came from her bust size increasing in each sequel. The industry has definitely made strides, but characters like Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, Ellie from the Last of Us, or even Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII seem to very much be in the minority. Most female characters are relegated to side characters even if the games themselves could easily have a female lead - Watch Dogs, Asssassin's Creed, GTA, Crysis, Hotline Miami, etc. etc. And that's without getting into how women are depicted, an issue that's particularly bad in fighting games (Soul Calibur for instance). Assassin's Creed had female assassins in Brotherhood, and was the main character in Liberation. Also, I'd recommend Saint's Row for the GTa and Watchdogs issue, and not sure how it would work in Crysis, since {Spoiler}{Spoiler}the armor is Prophet now, so even though Alcatraz was in the suit, he "died" and was made a puppet for Prophet to be reborn in time for 3. And you're forgetting released and upcoming stuff from this year like Alien Isolation, pretty much any RPG with a character creation like Dark Souls II or Divinity Original Sin, Broken Age, Tomb Raider, Loadout, Bravely Default, Pokemon Alpha/Omega, DKC: Tropical Freeze, Deception IV, X-Com Enemy Unknown, Titanfall, Child of Light, Walking Dead Season 2, Tomodochi Life, Guacamelee! Sunset Overdrive, Bayonetta 2, Sonic Boom, and a few others that are more big ensemble or party stuff like the LEGO games, Smash Bros, Hyrule Warriors, Mario Golf, Just Dance, Gardening Mama, and a ton of stuff on the Independent market that I know of like Shantae, Claire, Dreadout, Daylight, Towerfall, The Yawhg. Yeah, there can always be more, but it's not really few and far between.
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Post by Andrew is Good on Jul 19, 2014 17:46:05 GMT -5
The start about women as decorations I think is more of a societal problem and not as much a video game problem. Objectification is sadly everywhere today, and sadly some of the people on this very message board are bad culprits of it with the pics/gifs thread showing up close shots of asses and tits. Not that I'm against seeing a beautiful woman, but they're not beautiful women, they're asses and tits. Big difference.
Overall, the video seemed pretty well done though admittedly, I don't play those style of games. They honestly don't interest me, the sandbox style games. But I think the message is going to be lost to people who don't think women have that big of a disadvantage in society and have a lot more disadvantages then men, which is why I think you end up hearing about a lot of overly angry and pushy "femininazis" if you will, because they're trying to explain reality, and some people live in a bubble and don't believe in reality.
So like, while there probably have in recent years been more emphasis and push to get stronger female characters, I think the games mentioned do cause an issue and I think people should probably understand why women are outraged at stuff like this and feel like they're being ignored. The games mentioned are obviously not meant for women and I think that probably frustrates a lot of female players.
I also do have to catch up on her older videos, including some of the games I'd be more interested where they have someone like Zelda in it, because that's been a big contention with her. It's almost like in that racism article on wrestling, where the guy forgot The Rock was the WWE Champion. There were good points, but man, that was a glaring mistake, and I feel Zelda will be her glaring mistake, though I still have to see the video. Zelda is an interesting character as sometimes she is the damsel in distress, and sometimes she is a master of her domain. In reality, she probably should be Queen Zelda instead of a Princess.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 18:01:42 GMT -5
Assassin's Creed had female assassins in Brotherhood, and was the main character in Liberation. Also, I'd recommend Saint's Row for the GTa and Watchdogs issue, and not sure how it would work in Crysis, since {Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}the armor is Prophet now, so even though Alcatraz was in the suit, he "died" and was made a puppet for Prophet to be reborn in time for 3. And you're forgetting released and upcoming stuff from this year like Alien Isolation, pretty much any RPG with a character creation like Dark Souls II or Divinity Original Sin, Broken Age, Tomb Raider, Loadout, Bravely Default, Pokemon Alpha/Omega, DKC: Tropical Freeze, Deception IV, X-Com Enemy Unknown, Titanfall, Child of Light, Walking Dead Season 2, Tomodochi Life, Guacamelee! Sunset Overdrive, Bayonetta 2, Sonic Boom, and a few others that are more big ensemble or party stuff like the LEGO games, Smash Bros, Hyrule Warriors, Mario Golf, Just Dance, Gardening Mama, and a ton of stuff on the Independent market that I know of like Shantae, Claire, Dreadout, Daylight, Towerfall, The Yawhg. Yeah, there can always be more, but it's not really few and far between. RPGs don't really count since your character isn't actually a character in the sense of having recorded dialogue and characterization and whatnot; that actually goes for a bunch of the games you listed. Brotherhood and Revelations had female assassins but they really weren't characters at all, unlike Ezio and Desmond. 3 focused on an entirely new assassin, who was also a guy, as did Black Flag. The only AC game to actually have a female lead was Liberation, as you said. Saint's Row is one series compared to GTA and Watch Dogs, and there's no reason why the leads for either of the latter two series couldn't have been women. Same goes for Crysis, though admittedly I don't really follow the plot of that (I only played 2). Basically what I'm looking for is, name me three games that have women lead characters comparable to the ones I mentioned previously. Not characters that are tangential to the plot like Titanfall, or games that have no plot like Just Dance. Because I can do that a million times over for games with male leads.
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Post by Michael Coello on Jul 19, 2014 18:16:50 GMT -5
Assassin's Creed had female assassins in Brotherhood, and was the main character in Liberation. Also, I'd recommend Saint's Row for the GTa and Watchdogs issue, and not sure how it would work in Crysis, since {Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}the armor is Prophet now, so even though Alcatraz was in the suit, he "died" and was made a puppet for Prophet to be reborn in time for 3. And you're forgetting released and upcoming stuff from this year like Alien Isolation, pretty much any RPG with a character creation like Dark Souls II or Divinity Original Sin, Broken Age, Tomb Raider, Loadout, Bravely Default, Pokemon Alpha/Omega, DKC: Tropical Freeze, Deception IV, X-Com Enemy Unknown, Titanfall, Child of Light, Walking Dead Season 2, Tomodochi Life, Guacamelee! Sunset Overdrive, Bayonetta 2, Sonic Boom, and a few others that are more big ensemble or party stuff like the LEGO games, Smash Bros, Hyrule Warriors, Mario Golf, Just Dance, Gardening Mama, and a ton of stuff on the Independent market that I know of like Shantae, Claire, Dreadout, Daylight, Towerfall, The Yawhg. Yeah, there can always be more, but it's not really few and far between. RPGs don't really count since your character isn't actually a character in the sense of having recorded dialogue and characterization and whatnot; that actually goes for a bunch of the games you listed. Brotherhood and Revelations had female assassins but they really weren't characters at all, unlike Ezio and Desmond. 3 focused on an entirely new assassin, who was also a guy, as did Black Flag. The only AC game to actually have a female lead was Liberation, as you said. Saint's Row is one series compared to GTA and Watch Dogs, and there's no reason why the leads for either of the latter two series couldn't have been women. Same goes for Crysis, though admittedly I don't really follow the plot of that (I only played 2). Basically what I'm looking for is, name me three games that have women lead characters comparable to the ones I mentioned previously. Not characters that are tangential to the plot like Titanfall, or games that have no plot like Just Dance. Because I can do that a million times over for games with male leads. From my list, Alien Isolation, Child of Light, Broken Age, Deception IV, Walking Dead Season 2, Bayonetta 2, Claire, Shantae, Daylight, & Dreadout. Going off your Silent Hill example, take off Bayonetta, Deception and Shantae, though I'd say Shantae is about as sexualized as Jasmine was in Aladdin, and think she can stay. That's about 7-8. And that's just games I remember or know of. I do know there's more, but I'd need to actually go into Steam and the eShop to know for sure.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 18:39:27 GMT -5
Those all seem like decent enough examples, but the fact that you had to delve into indie games shows how skewed the ratio is in terms of more well known titles. Bayonetta and Walking Dead (and maybe Child of Light) are the only real big names out of that list. Compare those to the countless, countless mainstream games with male leads, everything from Watch Fogs to Call of Duty to Infamous and on and on. I'm not saying that games with female leads don't exist, just that they're generally under-represented and oversexualized when they do show up in more mainstream titles. That developers like Tim Schafer are willing to take chances on characters that are typically marginalized shows how homogeneous the rest of the the games industry is.
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Post by Michael Coello on Jul 19, 2014 18:46:04 GMT -5
Those all seem like decent enough examples, but the fact that you had to delve into indie games shows how skewed the ratio is in terms of more well known titles. Bayonetta and Walking Dead (and maybe Child of Light) are the only real big names out of that list. Compare those to the countless, countless mainstream games with male leads, everything from Watch Fogs to Call of Duty to Infamous and on and on. I'm not saying that games with female leads don't exist, just that they're generally under-represented and oversexualized when they do show up in more mainstream titles. That developers like Tim Schafer are willing to take chances on characters that are typically marginalized shows how homogeneous the rest of the the games industry is. I would dare ask why it has to be a mainstream game for it to "count", and mention that the guidelines for an "acceptable game" were pretty narrow, especially compared to the initial list.
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Post by "Cane Dewey" Johnson on Jul 19, 2014 18:53:59 GMT -5
Those all seem like decent enough examples, but the fact that you had to delve into indie games shows how skewed the ratio is in terms of more well known titles. Bayonetta and Walking Dead (and maybe Child of Light) are the only real big names out of that list. Compare those to the countless, countless mainstream games with male leads, everything from Watch Fogs to Call of Duty to Infamous and on and on. I'm not saying that games with female leads don't exist, just that they're generally under-represented and oversexualized when they do show up in more mainstream titles. That developers like Tim Schafer are willing to take chances on characters that are typically marginalized shows how homogeneous the rest of the the games industry is. I would dare ask why it has to be a mainstream game for it to "count", and mention that the guidelines for an "acceptable game" were pretty narrow, especially compared to the initial list. Do more people play mainstream games (say, AAA games facilitated by the technologies of the Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo corporations) than they do independent games (say, playing Child of Light off of Steam)? Sheer numerical access when media conglomerates own, control, and often set the parameters of what constitutes the artistic landscape of North American video game production is definitely worth considering, no?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 19:17:52 GMT -5
I would dare ask why it has to be a mainstream game for it to "count", and mention that the guidelines for an "acceptable game" were pretty narrow, especially compared to the initial list. Do more people play mainstream games (say, AAA games facilitated by the technologies of the Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo corporations) than they do independent games (say, playing Child of Light off of Steam)? Sheer numerical access when media conglomerates own, control, and often set the parameters of what constitutes the artistic landscape of North American video game production is definitely worth considering, no? You basically took the words out of my mouth. It's not that indie games don't count as valid, it's that they are ultimately less visible and therefore less likely to dictate trends in the gaming industry than AAA titles.
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Post by Michael Coello on Jul 19, 2014 19:30:49 GMT -5
Do more people play mainstream games (say, AAA games facilitated by the technologies of the Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo corporations) than they do independent games (say, playing Child of Light off of Steam)? Sheer numerical access when media conglomerates own, control, and often set the parameters of what constitutes the artistic landscape of North American video game production is definitely worth considering, no? You basically took the words out of my mouth. It's not that indie games don't count as valid, it's that they are ultimately less visible and therefore less likely to dictate trends in the gaming industry than AAA titles. I would have responded earlier, but I honestly had no idea what he said. Sorry. I'd argue it's the reverse. AAA is more about doing the less risky thing and using the same ideas as before to sell, and the indies are where the actual trends begin and where you can see more attempts at actual creativity. With a few exceptions, of course, but that seems to be the trend, especially with the loss of a ton of medium-level studios recently, leaving either the big dogs or the small development houses.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 19:50:07 GMT -5
I'd argue it's the reverse. AAA is more about doing the less risky thing and using the same ideas as before to sell, and the indies are where the actual trends begin and where you can see more attempts at actual creativity. With a few exceptions, of course, but that seems to be the trend, especially with the loss of a ton of medium-level studios recently, leaving either the big dogs or the small development houses. Oh I'm not disputing that indie games are more creative, I just don't necessarily think they set trends the way AAA titles do. Compare the amount of games that copy GTA or Call of Duty to the amount of games copying, say, Braid or Gone Home. AAA games seem to be the trendsetters even if indie games are often more critically praised; you can see the same thing happen with films. And I think because of that, AAA studios could afford to be more diverse in their character designs. Watch Dogs was the title that immediately stood out to me in this regard. I don't mean to rag on it too much since it's a fun game, but it's something I've thought about since the first E3 trailer: in a game about hacking and shooting and driving, why couldn't the main character be a black guy or an Asian woman or something, instead of yet another gruff white guy with short brown hair?
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 19, 2014 19:59:41 GMT -5
I remember when the whole kerfluffle erupted over these videos back when it first got put on Kickstarter. When they finally came out, I sat down, watched it, and immediately thought "...That's it? What's everyone up in arms about?".
That isn't to say I think they've been bad; not at all, Ms. Sarkeesian sounds well-versed in her topic and covers a good deal of material. However, most of what I've seen her say is, to make up a class name, "Feminist Pop Culture Analysis 101". I don't say this to bash her; if I recall (and please correct me if I'm mistaken), her Kickstarter said she was looking to make videos that could be accessible to high level high school/undergraduate level college courses, and if that's indeed the case then she's been pretty successful. Plus, video games, as a storytelling medium, have only really begun coming into their own within the past 20 years, so it makes sense to discuss them from a "ground level" perspective and hope to see more analysis and study built up from there. If video games are to become a storytelling medium we want taken more seriously, then they need to be able to stand up to a basic level of critique and scrutiny.
My larger point, however, is that I couldn't understand what had people so upset that they'd fly into Hulk-Smash-Ragefests over them. She really says nothing revolutionary, nothing that isn't already said in college lecture halls across the world on topics ranging from 18th century Western European literature to late 20th century East Asian politics. Why get worked up over one blogger online extending it to video games? If everything she was saying was factually inaccurate I'd get at least the annoyance some feel, but it isn't as if there's not a widely perceived gender gap in gaming, and often many examples she cites speak for themselves. I tried to imagine somebody getting up and screaming and making death/rape/violence threats against a professor saying similar things when discussing, say, overt patriarchal overtones and Victorian repression in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
So yeah, I think she's discussing a topic that needs hashing out in the public space, but the way she's doing it, I can't comprehend the level of agita some feel over them.
On a more personal level, my girlfriend is an avid gamer; at this point, she's probably more of a gamer than I ever was, insofar as she actually goes to conventions, owns more than one system at a time (well, not counting my halcyon years with my SNES and Genesis...), watches multiple LP channels, all that stuff. That said, we were talking about the online service for some game recently, can't remember which, and she dropped something on me I hadn't even considered before.
She told me that when she plays on XBox Live she never uses her microphone, because she doesn't want the people she's playing to know she's a woman.
Didn't take much to understand why; she told me about the things she's been called, the way she's been treated, other players telling her to take topless photos, calling her a phony or fake gamer or whatever, endless shit all because she's not a guy.
As you can imagine, this left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth, and it made me understand the gender gap in gaming a bit more; here's my girlfriend, a big time, lifelong gamer, and she's too put off by the abuse she'll get over her gender that she won't even reveal it to the other players. Obviously everybody takes some level of abuse in online gaming, but as others pointed out before, the difference is the type of abuse; for women like my GF, it's a type of abuse that strikes out at their very identity, and leads to them feeling forced to conceal those identities. That's beyond messed up.
Given that reality, I'm glad this video series exists; don't know how perfect or imperfect a messenger Ms. Sarkeesian may be, but sex/gender issues in games and in gaming culture are issues I really want to see hashed out publicly.
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Post by Long A, Short A on Jul 19, 2014 20:26:20 GMT -5
Slightly on topic but off, I think people should do more shutting down of discussion, considering the general rule of thumb on the internet is never read the comments. Turning off comments on your Youtube video effects how many people see it and where it appears in search results. So, even though it may be safer and more sane to turn off the comments, less people will get your message.
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Post by Red Impact on Jul 19, 2014 20:55:13 GMT -5
The thing is, especially with those two, they is a lot more to their stories and character beyond their sexy exterior, and writing a lot of them off for how they look is a big disservice. Take Lollipop Chainsaw, with Juliet. On the surface, it's a blond cheerleader with big boobs killing zombies with a chainsaw. That's on the box and a short run in the game gives you this impression. Just another trashy Suda 51 trope game. Except that Juliet and her character in the game is honestly interesting, from how she reacts to her boyfriend's death, and her family life and her reaction to the chaos in the game. It's an interesting aspect to her that goes beyond just her appearance as fanservice character #167543. Same goes with a lot of characters. I like to bring up Bayonetta cause it seems like, even for someone who seemed to be made to titillate, she just owns it from the first moment on screen and makes it her own. It's similar to how people wrote off Spec Ops the Line as another military shooter, especially considering the past Spec Ops game. An hour or so in would not change that fact. Then you see your character stepping into his own personal hell and that there's more to it than another generic white guy shooting people FOR AMERICA from the start! Not to say it doesn't happen and characters written to be sexy don't exist. The Bombshell trailer was not promising, especially considering the namesake she seems based on. However, it seems that a lot of characters that are called sexualized, tend to have a lot of their central features ignored to consider them sexualized in the first place. And that's sad. [/Gul Dukat] We're really talking two different things here. Whether a character is sexualized is purely a design issue. Whether they're a well-rounded or deep-character is purely a writing/plot issue. They can be independent from each other, there are non-sexualized female characters that are boring as sin (Trish from inFamous and Elena from Uncharted come to mind), and there are more sexualized characters that actually have some decent writing behind them. So the in-game writing and backstory aren't usually brought up because those features aren't how they market the character nor do they determine whether a character is sexualized by the developer. The writers may have written a great story for them, but if they're just going to parade a scantily clad woman with a big rack on the cover, they're undermining their efforts to market to the most base aspects of their audience. And it's not the audience's or critic's fault that they're undermining their own writer's efforts, it's the developer's. Image is one of the problems with the medium, and the sexy exterior they put on most female characters is an important part of that image. Now, like I said, I think there are modern games out there that are probably doing a better job that I haven't played, I think the end of this cycle has begun to see games that genuinely try to buck that trend, but until those are no longer the exceptions then there will be fuel for this fire. Most other medium have successfully developed markets that don't rely so much on that, which is where videogames need to get before this criticism dies down. Until then, it doesn't matter if it's Lara Croft or Kasumi from DoA. As far as the mainstream vs. indie topic goes, obviously with any image problem you need the big examples to buck the image. To use Hollywood as an example, we know the summer season is usually full of fairly vapid wish-fulfillment, guns and explosions and sexy leads, but outside of that season we see a lot of other movies that aren't marketed toward teenagers. They're equally visible, even if the blockbusters make more money on average, because Hollywood promotes them and praises them. Videogames aren't at that level yet, and while it'd be wrong to say that indie games don't count, they're a pebble on the ocean floor for the industry's image. If people really want the image of videogames to improve, it has to occur in the AAA titles, because unless it's one of the rare mobile games that hit it big, only the most hardcore of gamers know about the indie titles.
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