Imru al-Qays
Banned
I'll point out that the conversation in this thread is the most civil it's been since this whole thing erupted. Thanks Erik!
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(Erik Kain) The Gamer is Dead: Long Live the Gamer
- Thread starter Imru al-Qays
- Start date
Man, between this and the Sterling thread, there's been a lot of good discourse about the current shape of gaming discussion. This write up in particular is chock full of quotables.
These two especially.
These two especially.
I think I also helped that in Song of Ice and Fire, we follow several important, diverse female characters, and witness from their perspective how they deal with the misogyny of their world.
Yeah. It's used thoughtfully and the story is pretty damn clear that it's not endorsing those ideas. The same can't be said of many video games, where some inclusions come down to a developer thinking "Yeah, sure, throw in some hookers that the player can kill." and passing that directive on to the art and level design teams because it seemed vaguely appropriate for some part of the game.
I wish RA Salvator would write for games, besides for just big huge games, and Neverwinter.
He is such a good writer and does such a good job at making all sorts of characters. I think anyone who has picked up his books would know what I'm talking about(specially the women). It's why in another thread I advocated Forgotten Realms coming back. I think it would do a good job against the skyrims of the industry, specially if he manned the helm in terms of writing and setting. There is such untapped potential in the Forgotten Realms world, that it is truly saddening that the IP is in obscurity for the most part, in the gaming world, anymore.
Outstanding stuff. I can't even believe people are trying to take "gamer" away. It is a label that I've always owned and was never ashamed of.
And when other writers throw around pejoratives like "entitled" it is simply bad writing and not worth the click to see. It is a shame that there are so many anti-gamer writers trolling with their political agendas. They are hurting both themselves and their cause when they do so.
And when other writers throw around pejoratives like "entitled" it is simply bad writing and not worth the click to see. It is a shame that there are so many anti-gamer writers trolling with their political agendas. They are hurting both themselves and their cause when they do so.
IrishNinja
Member
Not a bad article at all, but conflating this mess with Iraq + Libya was an odd choice in this ode to the fallacy of argument to moderation
thesolidshark
Member
I liked this article. I usually like Erik Kain's take on issues, and this is no different. If I'm not mistaken he might be the one of the first OP writers I've seen to specifically call out "gamers"/blogger issue recently, which some people kind of mention but never specifically talk about (basically glad that it gets mentioned).
For everyone (on GAF) who's been arguing about this, it almost feels like this article has something for everyone, or at least consideration thrown in more directions.
For everyone (on GAF) who's been arguing about this, it almost feels like this article has something for everyone, or at least consideration thrown in more directions.
It's the risks of belaboring the point, you bloviate in some spots.
Good article, but ya, it did get wordy in spots.
I'm struggling to understand what you're really arguing against. No one has called for censoring that I know of. So are you just upset that critics would call misogyny in games harmful? BTW, I had to chuckle at the idea that porn isn't considered harmful.
Pretty much. Feminist critique is not unique to gaming, and has always existed for all mediums:
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/04/the_hunger_games_is_sexist_fai.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/50-shades-of-grey-books-to-be-burned-1276635
http://www.forbes.com/sites/crime/2012/06/23/is-fifty-shades-of-grey-dangerous/
http://feministguidetohollywood.blogspot.com/2011/06/sexist-beatdown-of-megan-fox.html
What is unique to gaming is the backlash to the criticism. Critics of these popular works haven't received death threats, despite going up against much larger passionate fanbases.
Yeah, no, there's plenty of people that have called Fifty Shades of Gray dangerous.
plasmawave
Banned
What? Why?
You literally included a fringe book burner on your list of 4 sites.
Imagine if that person, and people like them, ran all the top websites for finding out about books. Imagine if they put out 20 articles on the same day saying any critics who like Fifty Shades of Gray are "over" or "dead" and that they have an army to silence anyone who disagrees with them.
And look at what she said.
No one rational believes it encourages sexual violence. It's read almost entirely by women.
I'd say they use twitter a lot less. Remember most of the harassment is on twitter. Other then that, she is getting the Jack Thompson treatment, because people are not seeing a critic, they feel she is trying to blame video games for sexism/misogyny. Some people are more snesitive to it, because they just assume the ulterior motive is censorship, instead of just debating the talking points. You would think that if anything, Jack Thompson showed that games are not going anywhere, specially the ones bought the most. Much less from a single critic in the social media.
I can't imagine any scenario where one person runs all the top websites for any news medium. But have any of the feminist critics of 50 Shades or Hollywood films received death threats?
Many people have said or implied that the works are dangerous and damaging. Yet their views haven't prompted any sort of equivalent backlash from any small subset of crazed fans. The criticism is no different, it's just the audience.
Well, firstly because Simon Says is an atrocious game, but secondly because it implies the player has agency. Only in games could such a serious issue be so hilariously misrepresented.
I don't know. But most people in Hollywood can barely even lead a normal life, and they have hired bodyguards. The critics, probably not. It's not like I'm condoning harassment. No one here is.
If extreme fundamentalist critics had the kind of influence that they seem to have in gaming, people might start to get equally aggressive. I wouldn't condone it there either. Harassment isn't okay.
Games ciriticism as a clique is a lot smaller than book or movie criticism, individual critics are a lot more likely to receive attention. Not that it's ok to threaten anyone. Also there are a lot more movies and books than games. The medium is more mature and established.
Imru al-Qays
Banned
I don't think many Fifty Shades of Grey fans or fans of Hollywood summer blockbusters are actually exposed to feminist critiques of those works, to be honest. This is another way in which gaming is different: feminist critiques are represented in the mainstream gaming media to a much larger extent than they are anywhere else.
In other mediums it's fringe criticism not endorsed by the entire media.
I guess that's also true. I hadn't considered those factors
Though, Anita received a large amount of backlash prior to being picked up and "endorsed" by the "entire" media.
Nikki Finke was a headline last week ago
She was also well known before she stepped into gaming though. And she was receiving the same criticisms she's receiving now back then too (namely representing one side of the argument and cherry picking and such).
I don't know if she received threats back then though. Clearly the situation escalated to an awful point.
Anita was not the first part of this movement. She actually capitalized on it at about the right time to hit extreme visibility.
For several years before that, these same battles were taking place on Kotaku and other blogs about the ideas themselves.
And like I have said twice now, no one here is defending harassment.
Kadayi
Banned
The positive of the mass dump of 'death to gamer' articles is one of knowing which writers not to bother reading going forward.
I'm guessing you're not an SFF fan.
I'm not familiar with that, what is it?
thesolidshark
Member
I'm guessing you're not an SFF fan.
...Sonic Fan Fiction?
Imru al-Qays
Banned
(Science fiction/fantasy)
I think it's interesting that feminist critiques seem to be the most taken to heart in genres with stereotypically male fanbases, whereas they're totally ignored when the fanbase is more mixed or predominantly female.
and no one here is defending censorship either, yet you continue to insist otherwise
It's a game we've played back and forth in every thread. Just because the words "censor" are never used, or it's not legislation from congress, people deny everything.
I have said specifically that it creates a climate of fear and self-censorship. Those are different, and I do think they're happening.
Imru’ al-Qays;128053490 said:
Yeah, I don't know if that's what he meant really. Some of my favorite shows are Stargate SG-1, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica (new one), and X-Files to name a few.
As I've said many times, I'm all for creating new inclusive media. Nowhere in that do we have to demonize anything to the extent people are now. I just got out of a thread an hour or so ago where Sakaguchi said he wanted to make a Ballet Dancer game. My post was totally endorsing it, and I'd likely buy it.
How old are you? Because there's a pretty big history to videos games with "a total lack of graphics."
That's interesting. I haven't followed any of that. I posted on a Stargate SG-1 forum for a couple years, but that's about it. Everyone was pretty nice.
Alright, how would you characterize people seeing Anita's work, coming to agree with her message, and making those changes of their own volition? For sake of argument let's assume that it's purely done in good faith and that they're not doing it because they're afraid of a boycott, internet backlash, etc.
It that still bad? (We already have verified cases of this happening, by the way, and I'm kind curious if you're the type to shitlist the people involved.)
I'm fine with that, and I think Bioware is a good example of that.
I think many of her arguments are objectively inaccurate in some ways and I think the media could do a lot of good providing a platform for rational critique of some of those ideas with the same publicity they grant her. If people choose to do something on their own after that, I'm fine with it.
Brawndo Addict
Banned
Oh come on. Self-censorship as its defined on GAF is not a bad thing. If anything, it's a completely semantic distraction to stop anyone from realizing its the status quo already. Don't we have thread upon thread with people saying "Developers make choices based on capitalism and money, if there was a market for games with more women, they would do that". But suddenly the consumer base seems to be shifting to desiring more equal representation but now it's not the wonders of the free market, it's the evils of self-censorship. If we're going to say that, I'll just retort and say developers were already self-censoring to not include equal representation because their audience didn't want it. But for some reason that's okay but not the inverse. People refuse to have it both ways.
Boycotts, bad publicity, and all the rest are an integral part of our economic and social system. People demand certain things from companies, and those companies are free to ignore or change their behavior in response. Their competitors may make different decisions and make more/less money, but that's the whole point isn't it?
Boycotts, bad publicity, and all the rest are an integral part of our economic and social system. People demand certain things from companies, and those companies are free to ignore or change their behavior in response. Their competitors may make different decisions and make more/less money, but that's the whole point isn't it?
Paracelsus
Member
The fact there was The Count on VIC20 doesn't mean you have the right to do it in 2013. Roberta Williams was making games with graphics when I was not even born, there is absolutely no excuse.
Imru al-Qays
Banned
I think it's dishonest to call the latest hullabaloo "the consumer base shifting." We don't actually know if the consumer base of console games is shifting. What's clear is that the gaming media has shifted very sharply and aggressively. That's what people are talking about.
Imru al-Qays;128053490 said:
I think it's probably less about them being male fanbases and more about the subjects generally involving saving the world or rescuing people in distress. Which are probably good things in moderation, but they can get a bit paternal in the negative sense when taken to the extreme.
accusing everyone who disagrees with you of having ulterior motives and objectives is not the way to get civil discourse.
i'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt (such as it is) that you think those you argue with are idiotically oblivious to the supposed negative effects of their actions and aren't actively trying to coerce game developers to do things they don't want to do, but you've shown such an inability and/or unwillingness to engage with the actual arguments people are making and not what you think they're saying that i just can't deal with you anymore.
Brawndo Addict
Banned
Imru’ al-Qays;128056541 said:
Fine, let's take a step back. The market for gaming media has shifted to want more debate on equal representation. Unless you think the market for gaming media and gaming are significantly disparate, I don't see why that makes the point any less true. If the audience of gaming news didn't want to read or listen to this type of stuff, there would not be a market for it.
Imru al-Qays
Banned
Absolutely. I agree with the fundamental critique that depictions of women in games could stand to improve. But take a look at romance novels (and Twilight and Fifty Shades are just the most mainstream edge of this predominantly female genre): as a whole this sort of fiction is just as problematic as anything that shows up in gaming, and yet the feminist critique doesn't seem to have much traction at all. At least from the outside, maybe Twilight fans really do agonize over what feminists think about their favorite books and I just don't know about it.
The market for gaming media is being devoured by YouTube personalities and let's players who are by and large totally uninterested in talking about social justice. The most popular voice in all of gaming is PewDiePie.
The Count is your point of reference? Did you google randomly, and somehow miss Zork, one of the most influential games of all time? There are text adventures in Saints Row IV for pete's sake. It's a huge cornerstone of the industry and is not a wonder that people seek to emulate it, especially in a freeware game.
there's also the way fantasy novels often portray people of color entirely by way of medieval stereotypes and sci-fi novels mostly don't include them at all
Brawndo Addict
Banned
Imru al-Qays;128056925 said:
Of course you won't be familiar with it because it's not a community you involve yourself with to the degree you do with gaming. But anyone can Google "Feminism romance novels criticism" or any similar objection and see there's plenty of substance there too.
Oh but I'll just use the same criticism and say the reason they don't talk about social justice is because they're self censoring out of fear their audience can't handle it. But if we're all about free capitalistic societies, then isn't that exactly the type of battleground we want? And if developers and companies decide pay more attention to the "social justice crowd", (which is an interesting adjective when it's basically asking for equal representation in media, hardly a provocative or controversial notion compared to something like prison reform or poverty campaigns), then shouldn't we trust that they have the most investment in their own profitability and simply realize that catering to a more inclusive audience might just be more profitable over the long term than sticking with the majority (if it exists) that they have now? Companies want to make more money, and they eagerly forecast shifts in the market and what future conditions might look like. If the SJ crowd is so miniscule and unimportant, why would a company bother even addressing their issues if it has no relevance to their earnings?
Well, all I said was that I think it happens and it does exist.
You are the same person who just yesterday (or was it today?) said in the other thread that no one is ever pressured into silence on this board. I got several PMs from people thanking me for my post in that thread because they were too intimidated to speak about it.
That same kind of bullying takes place across a broader scale, and it creates a climate of fear. If you can't see it, I can't take something that broad and link you to every example step by step, for the last several years. So agree to disagree.
Speaking for myself (because I largely agree with Shinta from what I've seen in these discussions), I not only would be ok with that, I'd actively like that to happen. I still am very, very skeptical of Anita's agenda and methods.
This is a really simplistic way to put things, so please don't think this is the summation of my thoughts on the matter, but:
A) I want developers to create more diversity in games, and
B) I don't want developers to think they're doing the right thing by putting more diversity in games, and I don't think we should think of games with minority characters as being "better", more meaningful, or more worthy of praise than games with frat boy white male characters.
There's something that worries me about B), and I've been trying to put my finger on it for a long time now, so I can't really fully explain it now. It just feels... disingenuous or patronizing or something. Like it's more about feeling like the good guy than it is about equality. I don't know. I don't think there's any inherent contradiction between the two thoughts, though.
What I see from the "gamer" side of gamergate (excluding the loud, violent section of likely idiots that clutter up the discussion) is people uncomfortable with B). I don't really think that many people don't want A) as well, but it's hard to talk about B) without sounding like it.
MHWilliams
Member
I'm just jumping in on this one part, the rest i'm decently fine with.
The concept you're looking for is called priming. Priming has been shown to subtly influence actions in different directions. No, violent content won't make you perform a violent act, but it will subtly influence how you see violence itself.
Here's one study on priming as it relates to sexual content and immediate cognitive effects. This one happens to be game-related, though that's mostly by luck.
Society and entertainment is an interesting closed loop. Society creates entertainment, which then further changes society. On and on intro infinity. Hence why people worry about portrayals in the media.
Its Quite Toasty
Banned
Its really a breath of fresh air to finally see some kind of article that isn't blatantly one side of this issue. These types of pieces really are few and far between aren't they.