The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
[PA Comic] Friday, June 1, 2012 - Turnaround
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Posts
ok maybe it's 50/50
Oh I saw the trailer and understand how dumb it is. I was just a little confused by the later part of this comic.
Sexualized for no reason. Because obviously some sexy pvc clad nuns are better choice to take down 47 and not say......a special forces unit?
Its kind of shortsighted to try and condemn the entire medium like a lot of sensationalists try to.
Except it certainly isn't limited to videogames. But Quantum Conundrum is hardly a turnaround and more of an outlier. And I am going to buy it so fast.
Thats what I'm saying, why single video games out when film, television, and virtually every other source of entertainment is guilty of pandering as well?
and what would constitute a turnaround exactly? I mean, the game industry is not so narrow that you can generalize it. You can generalize what is most popular, because THAT is narrow, but thats more a complaint at the game community, not the game industry itself.
I am certainly tempted to think of Quantum Conundrum as the outlier, not as fast turnaround, but it's still a good joke.
I also disagree that films, books, and television don't oversexualize as much as video games do.
Every now and then I fall apart.
And I need now tonight, and I need you more than ever ..............
Thanks guys, gonna be humming that all day now ................. godammit
Well gosh, I suppose I might as well settle in for a nice cuppa ...... this is gonna be good!
Goddamit guys.
First, as already pointed out, this sort of shit happens in other entertainment media pretty regularly, and there isn't half as much furor.
Second, while I agree the kinky nun outfits are pretty gratuitous and tacky, the "violence against women" thing doesn't hold water IMO. Would anybody take notice if Agent 47 kicked the asses of a male hitsquad the exact same way? No, worse things happen to men in video games literally all the time. There seems to be a presupposition here that violence against women (or the fictional depiction thereof) is somehow worse than violence against men.
Edit - And as long as I'm sure I'm going to piss people off anyway, I'll throw this in: I'm sure Quantum Conundrum is brilliant and all, but I have no interest in puzzle games, be they Tetris or Portal, I just don't. And so I won't be playing it, however redemptive of the contemptible state of our hobby it may be.
The problem is "Other folks are doing it too!" is a really easy way to not have the discussion at all. Who cares what other mediums are doing? We're not talking about sexism in other mediums. Right now, we're talking about sexism in video games.
And just because there are plenty of examples of video games doing things "right", doesn't mean we shouldn't also condemn offensive stupidity like the Hitman trailer. It's not "This Hitman trailer represents everything wrong with video games" because obviously that is a silly, generalized and condescending opinion, but "The existence of this OTHER, totally charming game absolves all wrongs!" is also not correct, and kind of a weird argument?
It's not that women are getting killed, because we've seen that happen in a billion video games, it's the effort to associate that with an objectified sexiness.
Hmmm. Not sure if I buy that or not.
Obviously there's no way to test it, and everyone has different sensibilities & reactions, but I think the added ingredient of hypersexualization put it in a new tier of concern.
you can't just accept the trailer in a vacuum. there is a ton of historical context where violence against women has been a deplorable, persistent thing in almost any society.
at the very least, the Hitman trailer shows a huge lack of imagination or even thinking on the part of Squeenix. it's somewhat insulting. hadn't we moved past the "tits and blood" part of video game development? are gamers really still this immature and lacking in attention span?
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Sure, I understand that, but does it mean that violence against women is off-limits to be depicted in any type of fictional media? If so, how intense must the violence be to be off-limits? Any violence at all? For how long? Indefinitely?
As long as a huge part of the target demographic for video games is still 15 year old males, I don't see how this can be a serious question.
I would guess that if it is used in order to get you jazzed and hyped up to buy something, it is probably off-limits.
As a side note, I am amused/bemused that in this whole discussion of whether we should be offended and what exactly we should be offended by, nobody has yet mentioned the possibility that Catholics or other religious people may be offended by dominatrix assassins masquerading as nuns. I guess that just isn't a hot button for this forum's demographic, or simply isn't a hip thing to be concerned about.
Additionally, I think it's is extremely shortsighted to classify any complaints about sexualized violence as 'infantilizing chivalry' as Tycho did, because you basically say that you don't want to talk about sexism when you do that.
There are probably people on the internet 'white knighting', but that doesn't necessarily make the complain illegitimate.
The question is not whether the complaints are nevertheless legitimate, the question is more why these things lead to far more hand-wringing and condemnation with games (including by gamers themselves) than they do with any other type of media.
In a vacuum, I actually don't mid the trailer that much. As far as victimization goes, women with RPGs probably fall on the 'less helpless' side, but the trailer is rather tiresome in its cliched 'appeal'.
Edit:
As a separate question, I agree it's annoying. Obviously, I enjoy games, but I do wonder from a devil's advocate perspective if the added interactivity in gameplay makes depictions of violence 'worse'. Of course, it might be worse than, say, movies, but no worse than playing an aggressive sport, like rugby or American football.
Gamers, I think, will be more concerned, or at least more active, because that's the sphere they follow. I know more about games than I do about french films, for example.
And I think it isn't, so we are pretty clearly not going to agree on this.
In both cases, you're basically saying that due to past injustices or wrongs committed against a class or group (in one case women, in the other racial minorities), those groups are entitled to special protections or privileges - in one case freedom from having violence depicted against them in fiction, in the other special consideration in getting educational scholarships, etc.
The problem, as I alluded to earlier, is that it seems impossible to draw the line on these things and say how far these benefits should extend or how long they should persist. When have women achieved a sufficiently "safe" or "equal" position in society? When have we achieved "enough" "diversity" or "equality" in society that ethnic minorities no longer need special consideration? Who's to say?
Either it's wrong to depict brutal violence against human beings, or it isn't. Either it's wrong to treat people differently based on their ethnicity, or it isn't. That's the position I would be inclined to.
I really have less than 0 interest in discussing affirmative action on my video game forums, though, so I'll leave it at that.
When you see an influx of games depicting violence against a hit squad of men wearing assless chaps that features a whole lot of specific shots of their crotch, abs and toned buttocks we'll be able to compare and contrast to this trailer accordingly.
One article about this shitty trailer also brings in the print adverts for one of the previous Hitman games, two of which feature male victims and two of which feature female victims. Guess which two are either naked or wearing sexy underwear.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
So again, you're saying that the problem isn't that he kills a group of women, but the way the women are dressed? As I said to begin with, I agree that the outfits are eye-rollingly tacky, but I'm not sure I believe that we wouldn't be having this same conversation if they were wearing combat fatigues.
I admit, I don't fully understand why you think I'm wrong for making a distinction here, Gaslight.
We wouldn't and I haven't said that we would. But they were so we are.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
If you're referring to making a distinction between violence against women and violence against sexualied women, I've never said I necessarily think you're wrong. I'm just trying to understand the reasoning of those who have a bigger problem with this than I do, as I seem to be hearing some talk about the "sexualized" nature of the trailer, and some about the issue of violence against women generally. It seems most people who've explained their position so far specifically have a problem with the combination of sexualized and violent imagery.
I guess I, like Tycho, do not really estimate the size of the demographic which gets off on this sort of thing as highly as some people do.
I agree wholeheartedly. Great newspost!