MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
I think the Holy Grail here would be to simply have females included as an equal participant in...well, here, specifically, games. We can extrapolate this to everything, but we're in Penny-Arcade...we're not exactly discussing the fine brush techniques of early impressionists, are we?
Women are half of the population, they are also half of the population in games. Companies need to recognize them and stop marketing ONLY to the horny males out there. There are things that females want, there are studies that show what the female population metric finds attractive, and how to market to them. This statue, would be absolutely fine if we had such a culture. If the statue came in two flavors, a mutilated female torso with perfect tits, and a mutilated male torso with an inexplicable boner. Okay, maybe that's not exactly what needs to happen, just doing that for humor's sake, but the point is that there needs to be some form of equality out there. Stop thinking of females as the "other gamer" that will latch on to your game just because they have to. Stop marketing to the guys and assume that girls will buy it because they really have no other choice. Market to the women! I mean, Jesus, it should be so painfully obvious that stockholder wallets should be howling with rabid starving fury.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
And therefore behaving in a way plenty consider reprehensible. Deal.
I don't know what you mean when you say "deal." I'm not upset about the reactions people are having (or anything ever on these boards). I am just saying why I think they apologized adequately. I think the people claiming this is not a real apology are being silly, especially since it literally says they apologize, but we'll see if they made the right calculation when the game hits.
Right you're not upset.
You just don't understand why people would talk this long about it. They totally apologized form their disgusting action and have so far continued with that disgusting action. And this makes no sense to you because something something business people.
No, I am saying that they made an apology. Its fine to not accept it, but then they lost you anyway. But I don't think its reasonable to claim they did not actually apologize.
Where did I say they didn't?
Oh right nowhere. I called it empty, yes, because it's observably so. An apology is worthless if you continue your current course of action.
You came in here confused how people could talk about about this for so much. You then hide behind business when it's explained why. It's pathetic.
You are not the only person I am talking to in this thread, are you?
I came in saying that I didn't see what the big deal was, as they made a gaffe and apologized. I also said that I did not think that the statue itself was such a big deal. People have explained why they think the statue was a sparkpoint for discussion, and I understand that. But on the issue of how big of a deal it is, there exists a disagreement in this thread as to whether the apology was "real." You are engaged in this argument yourself by calling it empty. What noone has done is accepted that this was a legitimate apology but then still staked a claim for why this remains problematic in spite of the legitimate apology. Until someone does that, there are just two camps (1) the people who think it was shitty but are forgiving because they apologized and (2) the people who think it was and remains shitty because they did not do enough to rectify the situation. The more interesting claim (which noone seems to be making) would be that they did apologize, but this is just unforgivable.
The more interesting claim (which noone seems to be making) would be that they did apologize, but this is just unforgivable.
Where did I say they didn't?
Oh right nowhere. I called it empty, yes, because it's observably so. An apology is worthless if you continue your current course of action.
You could try reading posts before replying to them.
Quid on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited January 2013
I'm of the opinion that the statue itself was almost a non-event, except in so far as it started a needed discussion, and was just another "brick in the wall" example of things. Straw that broke the camels back, if you will.
In the grand scheme of things, most of us will forget this statue ever existed sometime this year...but the overarching issue of women's rights and misogyny is not going anywhere, especially if the 2012 election cycle taught us anything (and it did).
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
So, what makes an "apology" an apology? The words "I'm sorry"?
I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. Their response to everything may have technically been an apology if you define an apology solely as someone expressing the regret over something. They certainly did express regret. But whether or not that was an apology that actually had any meaning or substance is what matters here, not yet another pedantic debate over whether or not some meaningless drivel with the words "sorry" and "regret" in it is technically an apology or not.
If nothing else, I think this thread proves that people care more about semantics than sexism.
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
+1
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
So, what makes an "apology" an apology? The words "I'm sorry"?
I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. Their response to everything may have technically been an apology if you define an apology solely as someone expressing the regret over something. They certainly did express regret. But whether or not that was an apology that actually had any meaning or substance is what matters here, not yet another pedantic debate over whether or not some meaningless drivel with the words "sorry" and "regret" in it is technically an apology or not.
If nothing else, I think this thread proves that people care more about semantics than sexism.
A company can't really emote, and I will agree that being sorry that the gaffe is going to hurt sales would not be much of an apology at all. I think that what really matters is whether the people who actually greenlit the thing feel bad about having done it, and not just having people be mad at them for having done it. We can't really know that. But at least we know that the company issued a statement when it absolutely did not have to (companies make gaffes without apologizing all the time). For me, that counts for something. That said, I was not buying this game either way, so. . .
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
And therefore behaving in a way plenty consider reprehensible. Deal.
I don't know what you mean when you say "deal." I'm not upset about the reactions people are having (or anything ever on these boards). I am just saying why I think they apologized adequately. I think the people claiming this is not a real apology are being silly, especially since it literally says they apologize, but we'll see if they made the right calculation when the game hits.
Right you're not upset.
You just don't understand why people would talk this long about it. They totally apologized form their disgusting action and have so far continued with that disgusting action. And this makes no sense to you because something something business people.
No, I am saying that they made an apology. Its fine to not accept it, but then they lost you anyway. But I don't think its reasonable to claim they did not actually apologize.
Where did I say they didn't?
Oh right nowhere. I called it empty, yes, because it's observably so. An apology is worthless if you continue your current course of action.
You came in here confused how people could talk about about this for so much. You then hide behind business when it's explained why. It's pathetic.
You are not the only person I am talking to in this thread, are you?
I came in saying that I didn't see what the big deal was, as they made a gaffe and apologized. I also said that I did not think that the statue itself was such a big deal. People have explained why they think the statue was a sparkpoint for discussion, and I understand that. But on the issue of how big of a deal it is, there exists a disagreement in this thread as to whether the apology was "real." You are engaged in this argument yourself by calling it empty. What noone has done is accepted that this was a legitimate apology but then still staked a claim for why this remains problematic in spite of the legitimate apology. Until someone does that, there are just two camps (1) the people who think it was shitty but are forgiving because they apologized and (2) the people who think it was and remains shitty because they did not do enough to rectify the situation. The more interesting claim (which noone seems to be making) would be that they did apologize, but this is just unforgivable.
"We're sorry people were offended."
That's what their entire "apology" amounts to.
They did not apologize for what we are holding them accountable for in this thread. Insofar as I am concerned, they have issued no apology relevant to my interests in this topic.
This isn't a rejection of reality. I am quite certain they ARE legitimately sorry that people took offense and are now giving them shit over this. But apologizing for THAT is not the apology I or others require. So, in essence, they have not apologized.
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
So, what makes an "apology" an apology? The words "I'm sorry"?
I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. Their response to everything may have technically been an apology if you define an apology solely as someone expressing the regret over something. They certainly did express regret. But whether or not that was an apology that actually had any meaning or substance is what matters here, not yet another pedantic debate over whether or not some meaningless drivel with the words "sorry" and "regret" in it is technically an apology or not.
If nothing else, I think this thread proves that people care more about semantics than sexism.
A company can't really emote, and I will agree that being sorry that the gaffe is going to hurt sales would not be much of an apology at all. I think that what really matters is whether the people who actually greenlit the thing feel bad about having done it, and not just having people be mad at them for having done it. We can't really know that. But at least we know that the company issued a statement when it absolutely did not have to (companies make gaffes without apologizing all the time). For me, that counts for something. That said, I was not buying this game either way, so. . .
The "apology" they issued actually counts for less than zero in my opinion. It sounds as disconnected from why this is an issue as the dumbshit statue was in the first place. I think less of them after reading their "apology."
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
+1
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
So, what makes an "apology" an apology? The words "I'm sorry"?
I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. Their response to everything may have technically been an apology if you define an apology solely as someone expressing the regret over something. They certainly did express regret. But whether or not that was an apology that actually had any meaning or substance is what matters here, not yet another pedantic debate over whether or not some meaningless drivel with the words "sorry" and "regret" in it is technically an apology or not.
If nothing else, I think this thread proves that people care more about semantics than sexism.
A company can't really emote, and I will agree that being sorry that the gaffe is going to hurt sales would not be much of an apology at all. I think that what really matters is whether the people who actually greenlit the thing feel bad about having done it, and not just having people be mad at them for having done it. We can't really know that. But at least we know that the company issued a statement when it absolutely did not have to (companies make gaffes without apologizing all the time). For me, that counts for something. That said, I was not buying this game either way, so. . .
The "apology" they issued actually counts for less than zero in my opinion. It sounds as disconnected from why this is an issue as the dumbshit statue was in the first place. I think less of them after reading their "apology."
If they said they were sorry for doing something that a lot of people are regarding as sexist, as that was not their intention, would that make you more likely to buy their game? Were you planning on it before this issue arose?
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
So, what makes an "apology" an apology? The words "I'm sorry"?
I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. Their response to everything may have technically been an apology if you define an apology solely as someone expressing the regret over something. They certainly did express regret. But whether or not that was an apology that actually had any meaning or substance is what matters here, not yet another pedantic debate over whether or not some meaningless drivel with the words "sorry" and "regret" in it is technically an apology or not.
If nothing else, I think this thread proves that people care more about semantics than sexism.
A company can't really emote, and I will agree that being sorry that the gaffe is going to hurt sales would not be much of an apology at all. I think that what really matters is whether the people who actually greenlit the thing feel bad about having done it, and not just having people be mad at them for having done it. We can't really know that. But at least we know that the company issued a statement when it absolutely did not have to (companies make gaffes without apologizing all the time). For me, that counts for something. That said, I was not buying this game either way, so. . .
Bullshit, we can know how the "company feels" as they've had a pattern of behaviour: calling character skills femnistwhorepurna, their PR chap trying to deflection twitter by arguing the statue could be a tranny.
Going through the process of conceptualising, selecting, building, costing etc etc a tits torsos can in no way be considered a "gaffe" it's not a mistake, they ment to do it. And the so called apology underlines this by mearly being a: we're sorry your offended at us being offensive.
Philippe about the tactical deployment of german Kradschützen during the battle of Kursk:
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
So, what makes an "apology" an apology? The words "I'm sorry"?
I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. Their response to everything may have technically been an apology if you define an apology solely as someone expressing the regret over something. They certainly did express regret. But whether or not that was an apology that actually had any meaning or substance is what matters here, not yet another pedantic debate over whether or not some meaningless drivel with the words "sorry" and "regret" in it is technically an apology or not.
If nothing else, I think this thread proves that people care more about semantics than sexism.
A company can't really emote, and I will agree that being sorry that the gaffe is going to hurt sales would not be much of an apology at all. I think that what really matters is whether the people who actually greenlit the thing feel bad about having done it, and not just having people be mad at them for having done it. We can't really know that. But at least we know that the company issued a statement when it absolutely did not have to (companies make gaffes without apologizing all the time). For me, that counts for something. That said, I was not buying this game either way, so. . .
The "apology" they issued actually counts for less than zero in my opinion. It sounds as disconnected from why this is an issue as the dumbshit statue was in the first place. I think less of them after reading their "apology."
If they said they were sorry for doing something that a lot of people are regarding as sexist, as that was not their intention, would that make you more likely to buy their game? Were you planning on it before this issue arose?
They should have called attention to their error and apologized for it. That is what, in my opinion, constitutes a legitimate apology. I would have thought better of them for it.
I've already stated that I plan on buying the game despite all this. Literally the only thing that might change my mind now is after reading comments on so many other forums and news sites, I don't want to be online with so many misogynistic, oblivious assholes. This forum is very tame - there are a lot of silly geese out there, pledging to buy this. So now I'm questioning whether or not I want to play with them.
When talking about the objectification of men, or misandry, there is something I never understood until very recently, but once you wrap your head around it makes a ton of sense:
It's hard to objectify the power class, or more specifically, objectifying the power class doesn't have real, detrimental, effects on them. They hold the power. It's like calling a white person a cracker, and how that's not nearly as powerful as using the n-word towards an African American. White people have been the power base for hundreds of years, and they weren't oppressed as slaves using the word cracker.
This goes for misogyny as well. As a male, when you yell "MISANDRY, MISANDRY", you're completely missing the point. Your gender isn't being used to keep your pay low, or to keep you out of certain jobs. You aren't being asked to live up to a false physical ideal, simply to be treated correctly in society. None of this is happening to you, because you're male, in a male dominated society. It took me a long time, and some help from people on these forums, to fully understand the perils of privilege and how it skews your vision to what is normal.
Are there some social things pointed towards males that I think are reprehensible and need to stop? Yeah, such as the portrayal of all men/fathers as bumbling idiots that would be worthless without their doting wives. That shit should be offensive to both sexes...but to claim that seeing a commercial that offends me as a father is the same as the real glass ceiling, or the real cat calls I see women get, is false equivalency at it's finest (worst).
I think Louie CK put it best when he pointed out (paraphrase): Cracker, yeah take me back to when I owned land and people. what a drag. . .
Bastable on
Philippe about the tactical deployment of german Kradschützen during the battle of Kursk:
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
When I read their apology, this is all I could think about it.
Well, it's getting semantic, but I don't think gaffes have to be unintentional acts. Doing something you think people will appreciate when that turns out to be incorrect is called gaffe, isn't it?
Anyway, if I'm one of the surprisingly upset people who need to be explained, part of it is maybe just having a difficult time coming to terms with how much my friends and family get raped and abused.
Like what? Planescape torment, I guess. But other than the greatest game ever made, what other games have male leads that aren't attractive?
Off the top of my head, Medieval, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, King Kong, all of the Soul Reaver games, and all of the Abe's Oddysee games. If you open up the field to games with unattractive male characters that you can play, rather than just lead characters, then we have The Cave and any fighting game ever made. I won't count games where you create your own character's appearance, because that's a bit cheaty. If I keep thinking I bet I could come up with dozens more.
If we look at the flip side, games that allow you to play unattractive female characters, the field is much narrower. The only fighting games I can come up with are the original Bloody Roar, Skullgirls, and I guess some of the Mortal Kombat games, if you count Mileena and Sheeva, although they're still weirdly sexualized.
Bullshit, we can know how the "company feels" as they've had a pattern of behaviour: calling character skills femnistwhorepurna, their PR chap trying to deflection twitter by arguing the statue could be a tranny.
I don't think any of these constitute much of a pattern except in the absence of any other information.
A pattern from deep silver being really sexist against women? Yeah compare how the women pcs are dressed versus the male ones, the first game also had the zombie rape porn studio, the implied gang rape of a character and victim blaming and the purna skill thing. This is not a company prior to the Tit statue that was getting high marks for progressive leaning.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
German-based Deep Silver and Polish-based decade-preceding Techland are not the same entity.
And yet they both seem to ok decisions and ok a internal culture that results in femnistwhorepurna and tit's torso.
Bastable on
Philippe about the tactical deployment of german Kradschützen during the battle of Kursk:
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
Look neither one knows how all this sexist stuff shows up in their games/marketing, but its not their intention you be offended by it, nor does it represent any kind of culture at their offices.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Like what? Planescape torment, I guess. But other than the greatest game ever made, what other games have male leads that aren't attractive?
Off the top of my head, Medieval, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, King Kong, all of the Soul Reaver games, and all of the Abe's Oddysee games. If you open up the field to games with unattractive male characters that you can play, rather than just lead characters, then we have The Cave and any fighting game ever made. I won't count games where you create your own character's appearance, because that's a bit cheaty. If I keep thinking I bet I could come up with dozens more.
If we look at the flip side, games that allow you to play unattractive female characters, the field is much narrower. The only fighting games I can come up with are the original Bloody Roar, Skullgirls, and I guess some of the Mortal Kombat games, if you count Mileena and Sheeva, although they're still weirdly sexualized.
Most of those characters are not human or close to Human though.
Like what? Planescape torment, I guess. But other than the greatest game ever made, what other games have male leads that aren't attractive?
Off the top of my head, Medieval, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, King Kong, all of the Soul Reaver games, and all of the Abe's Oddysee games. If you open up the field to games with unattractive male characters that you can play, rather than just lead characters, then we have The Cave and any fighting game ever made. I won't count games where you create your own character's appearance, because that's a bit cheaty. If I keep thinking I bet I could come up with dozens more.
If we look at the flip side, games that allow you to play unattractive female characters, the field is much narrower. The only fighting games I can come up with are the original Bloody Roar, Skullgirls, and I guess some of the Mortal Kombat games, if you count Mileena and Sheeva, although they're still weirdly sexualized.
Most of those characters are not human or close to Human though.
Day of the Tentacle (actually features two unattractive male protagonists and one unattractive female protagonist), I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream - though I suppose that is somewhat of a gimme...etc.
And yet they both seem to ok decisions and ok a internal culture that results in femnistwhorepurna and tit's torso.
I think it's important not to extrapolate larger conclusions than are reasonable or carelessly conflate. How many people read the debug lines that had the Purna joke? That probably falls on, what, a few programming leads? There may be a great deal of these things in their game or past games, so aim those at Techland. So far as I can tell the tit statue is solely the responsibility of the publisher, so on their shoulders you have two issues: one, the statue, and two, the retweet by a community manager, who seemed sincere in their apologies by my initial survey of their feed and at any rate does not as data point two contribute to a very strongly formed pattern. Additionally I question the point of making broad assessments about the company: my problem with these ideologies is that they're endemic, unquestioned and culturally entrenched, not that they're the willful product of a limited collection of assholes. It wouldn't surprise me coming out of almost anyone, and that's my problem.
The statue matters, and microscoping in on the company instead of the big picture (even if it was justified) invites the opportunity to dismiss it as a localized issue.
This is like the apology thing. I don't care about their routinized apology beyond its absence being worse because I don't expect epiphany as starting point, I'm happy to start with sufficient heat to cause anyone to second-guess unthinkingly repeating a similar incident. I'll take wariness first and revelation second; they can understand the why later when they've grown up.
I'm fully capable of two things at once, I can look at the people behind dead island as anti woman, and still see the larger problem with the games industry and its consumers that they represent.
I'm amazing like that.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Pretty sure anyone with a brain in their head can make that same connection. I understand cynical belief in others is kind of the PA boards thing, but its not much of a stretch for most of the world to go "Man this developer had some monumentally bad decision making, and it seems endemic in their medium so much that people actually defended their bankrupt vision."
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
So I can't point out those involved in torso tits and femnistwhorepurna are mysogonist douchbags because a patriarchal society and culture generates this sort of trash, what.
Bastable on
Philippe about the tactical deployment of german Kradschützen during the battle of Kursk:
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
I don't share your faith in the ability of a reflexively sexist society to recognize sexism, but whatever, I don't want to hash over that. My point about dismissal is not about people cognizant of the issue beyond framing of arguments.
So I can't point out those involved in torso tits and femnistwhorepurna are mysogonist douchbags because a patriarchal society and culture generates this sort on trash, what.
Well, I don't particularly want to start making character allegations for people unwittingly complicit in poisonous culture for the same principle as the is a racist/said a racist thing, but to the extent that we're addressing amorphous corporate entities I think it's important not to conflate or make overbroad judgments, yes. That doesn't lessen the misogyny of the statue or its formation in the slightest nor weaken the arguments against it, whereas I think characterizing the publisher entire on this limited evidence is overreaching and exposing a weak point that will be easily latched on to by the dissident and is thus of no value.
But at any rate I think even this tangent is distracting, so if you don't object we could take any further to PMs.
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AJRSome guy who wrestlesNorwichRegistered Userregular
And it's pretty telling that half those characters are always mentioned, without fail, every time someone wants to make a list of strong female video game characters who aren't sexualized; ideally, the list of reasonably-presented female characters would be long enough that Jade wouldn't show up on every single iteration of the list.
Jade isn't a reasonably-presented female character outside of cutscenes. In gameplay, she's a 95-pound woman who is magically able to take on and defeat multiple trained, armed men in hand-to-hand combat...men who, judging by their physiology, are around twice her weight and multiple times her strength. Despite looking like the most strenuous exercise she does is yoga, she's somehow faster in hand-to-hand combat than soldiers. Jade is a man's idea of what a "strong female character" should look like...basically, he took a strong, male character, i.e., a champion of physical combat (mechanized combat's a different story---a woman can be a hell of an aviator), and gave it a perfect midriff and boobs. The only reason it begins to work is that video game programmers can ignore bone density, muscle mass, height, and the propensity to injury all they like.
Basically every example people come up with of "strong female character" is a male fantasy where a woman has been swapped in
I’m assuming you haven’t played the game? There is no hand to hand combat. You attack with a massive stick, which Jade carries around at all times. And it’s pretty clear that Jade has trained pretty heavily in some form of weapon based martial art. Not to mention the fact that it’s a crazy future weapon; you could tell me it disperses energy that disables enemies and I’d believe you. But more to the point; a huge part of the gameplay in Beyond Good and Evil is stealth based. You can’t take the soldiers head on because they’ll crush you. They’re invincible from attacks from the front, and need to be taken out from behind. She’s certainly shown as being more nimble and faster than the soldiers, but they’re wearing a massive amount of armour, whereas Jade is wearing street clothes.
If anything you could argue that she’s so good at stealth because she doesn’t have the bulk of her male counterparts. But it definitely doesn’t feel like a power fantasy.
Like what? Planescape torment, I guess. But other than the greatest game ever made, what other games have male leads that aren't attractive?
Off the top of my head, Medieval, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, King Kong, all of the Soul Reaver games, and all of the Abe's Oddysee games. If you open up the field to games with unattractive male characters that you can play, rather than just lead characters, then we have The Cave and any fighting game ever made. I won't count games where you create your own character's appearance, because that's a bit cheaty. If I keep thinking I bet I could come up with dozens more.
If we look at the flip side, games that allow you to play unattractive female characters, the field is much narrower. The only fighting games I can come up with are the original Bloody Roar, Skullgirls, and I guess some of the Mortal Kombat games, if you count Mileena and Sheeva, although they're still weirdly sexualized.
Most of those characters are not human or close to Human though.
Hotline Miami, Borderlands, Nier, and The Witcher, then.
And besides, whether or not they are human doesn't exactly matter. Giants, I think, is a great example specifically because all the female characters are beautiful and humanlike, and all the male characters are weird looking aliens or monsters. The problem is that it's okay for male characters, human or not, to run the gamut from attractive to completely monstrous and ugly, where female characters, human or not, usually have to be pretty.
Oh yeah and their pr guy who implied the tit statue could be transexual, because when you're in a hole keep digging.
I don't want to believe they really tried this. I don't want to live in a world where someone would think that would make it acceptable. Jesus H. Christ.
Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
I want realistic-looking women. I mean, from a selfish dude standpoint, that's what I find attractive. Barbie dolls like the Hollywood starlets ending in -ashian are pretty grotesque to me because of how much effort Dr. Frankenstein puts in to make them flawless. If games allowed people to be portrayed realistically, with some super-pretty people and mostly average people, then I'd be a much happier person. I love comic books, but JESUS CHRIST, it's like the world is populated by barbies and bodybuilders! Even the senile old coots have some impressive muscle on them! I play games for realism, and it's cool to be pretty protagonist, but every.damn.time. Gets so old. I was doing some people-watching in Sleeping Dogs and I was pleasantly surprised that they look...normal!
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think it's more that games don't have plain people as protagonists or major characters. They are mostly attractive, and only tend to be unattractive when that is part of the story. The vast majority of people are average, but you never see main characters that are a little overweight or don't have particularly nice hair, etc. I don't think this is a problem, but I do think that even without planet sized tits, our female characters will almost always continue to be model pretty and unrealistic.
One thing we should not lose site of is that noone here is defending the statue. I think that is pretty great, personally.
Anyone close to defending the statue usually gets kicked out of the thread by @Geth.
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
As with all things internet related, we just seem to quibble over details. I honestly don't see any vast disagreements here. The arguments are usually around semantics, tangents, and about the DEGREE to which outrage should be voiced.
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Women are half of the population, they are also half of the population in games. Companies need to recognize them and stop marketing ONLY to the horny males out there. There are things that females want, there are studies that show what the female population metric finds attractive, and how to market to them. This statue, would be absolutely fine if we had such a culture. If the statue came in two flavors, a mutilated female torso with perfect tits, and a mutilated male torso with an inexplicable boner. Okay, maybe that's not exactly what needs to happen, just doing that for humor's sake, but the point is that there needs to be some form of equality out there. Stop thinking of females as the "other gamer" that will latch on to your game just because they have to. Stop marketing to the guys and assume that girls will buy it because they really have no other choice. Market to the women! I mean, Jesus, it should be so painfully obvious that stockholder wallets should be howling with rabid starving fury.
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You are not the only person I am talking to in this thread, are you?
I came in saying that I didn't see what the big deal was, as they made a gaffe and apologized. I also said that I did not think that the statue itself was such a big deal. People have explained why they think the statue was a sparkpoint for discussion, and I understand that. But on the issue of how big of a deal it is, there exists a disagreement in this thread as to whether the apology was "real." You are engaged in this argument yourself by calling it empty. What noone has done is accepted that this was a legitimate apology but then still staked a claim for why this remains problematic in spite of the legitimate apology. Until someone does that, there are just two camps (1) the people who think it was shitty but are forgiving because they apologized and (2) the people who think it was and remains shitty because they did not do enough to rectify the situation. The more interesting claim (which noone seems to be making) would be that they did apologize, but this is just unforgivable.
You could try reading posts before replying to them.
In the grand scheme of things, most of us will forget this statue ever existed sometime this year...but the overarching issue of women's rights and misogyny is not going anywhere, especially if the 2012 election cycle taught us anything (and it did).
So, what makes an "apology" an apology? The words "I'm sorry"?
I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. Their response to everything may have technically been an apology if you define an apology solely as someone expressing the regret over something. They certainly did express regret. But whether or not that was an apology that actually had any meaning or substance is what matters here, not yet another pedantic debate over whether or not some meaningless drivel with the words "sorry" and "regret" in it is technically an apology or not.
If nothing else, I think this thread proves that people care more about semantics than sexism.
A company can't really emote, and I will agree that being sorry that the gaffe is going to hurt sales would not be much of an apology at all. I think that what really matters is whether the people who actually greenlit the thing feel bad about having done it, and not just having people be mad at them for having done it. We can't really know that. But at least we know that the company issued a statement when it absolutely did not have to (companies make gaffes without apologizing all the time). For me, that counts for something. That said, I was not buying this game either way, so. . .
"We're sorry people were offended."
That's what their entire "apology" amounts to.
They did not apologize for what we are holding them accountable for in this thread. Insofar as I am concerned, they have issued no apology relevant to my interests in this topic.
This isn't a rejection of reality. I am quite certain they ARE legitimately sorry that people took offense and are now giving them shit over this. But apologizing for THAT is not the apology I or others require. So, in essence, they have not apologized.
The "apology" they issued actually counts for less than zero in my opinion. It sounds as disconnected from why this is an issue as the dumbshit statue was in the first place. I think less of them after reading their "apology."
If they said they were sorry for doing something that a lot of people are regarding as sexist, as that was not their intention, would that make you more likely to buy their game? Were you planning on it before this issue arose?
I am overcome with gratitude.
Bullshit, we can know how the "company feels" as they've had a pattern of behaviour: calling character skills femnistwhorepurna, their PR chap trying to deflection twitter by arguing the statue could be a tranny.
Going through the process of conceptualising, selecting, building, costing etc etc a tits torsos can in no way be considered a "gaffe" it's not a mistake, they ment to do it. And the so called apology underlines this by mearly being a: we're sorry your offended at us being offensive.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
They should have called attention to their error and apologized for it. That is what, in my opinion, constitutes a legitimate apology. I would have thought better of them for it.
I've already stated that I plan on buying the game despite all this. Literally the only thing that might change my mind now is after reading comments on so many other forums and news sites, I don't want to be online with so many misogynistic, oblivious assholes. This forum is very tame - there are a lot of silly geese out there, pledging to buy this. So now I'm questioning whether or not I want to play with them.
I think Louie CK put it best when he pointed out (paraphrase): Cracker, yeah take me back to when I owned land and people. what a drag. . .
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
Anyway, if I'm one of the surprisingly upset people who need to be explained, part of it is maybe just having a difficult time coming to terms with how much my friends and family get raped and abused.
Off the top of my head, Medieval, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, King Kong, all of the Soul Reaver games, and all of the Abe's Oddysee games. If you open up the field to games with unattractive male characters that you can play, rather than just lead characters, then we have The Cave and any fighting game ever made. I won't count games where you create your own character's appearance, because that's a bit cheaty. If I keep thinking I bet I could come up with dozens more.
If we look at the flip side, games that allow you to play unattractive female characters, the field is much narrower. The only fighting games I can come up with are the original Bloody Roar, Skullgirls, and I guess some of the Mortal Kombat games, if you count Mileena and Sheeva, although they're still weirdly sexualized.
I don't think any of these constitute much of a pattern except in the absence of any other information.
pleasepaypreacher.net
pleasepaypreacher.net
he claimed it was retweet from a friend and he shared it because of how outrageous it was
yeah, sure, okay. that excuses the transphobia.
Of course, because he totally said "Man this is outrageous" what a load of bullshit.
pleasepaypreacher.net
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
pleasepaypreacher.net
Most of those characters are not human or close to Human though.
Day of the Tentacle (actually features two unattractive male protagonists and one unattractive female protagonist), I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream - though I suppose that is somewhat of a gimme...etc.
Even Far Cry 3 probably fits the bill.
I think it's important not to extrapolate larger conclusions than are reasonable or carelessly conflate. How many people read the debug lines that had the Purna joke? That probably falls on, what, a few programming leads? There may be a great deal of these things in their game or past games, so aim those at Techland. So far as I can tell the tit statue is solely the responsibility of the publisher, so on their shoulders you have two issues: one, the statue, and two, the retweet by a community manager, who seemed sincere in their apologies by my initial survey of their feed and at any rate does not as data point two contribute to a very strongly formed pattern. Additionally I question the point of making broad assessments about the company: my problem with these ideologies is that they're endemic, unquestioned and culturally entrenched, not that they're the willful product of a limited collection of assholes. It wouldn't surprise me coming out of almost anyone, and that's my problem.
The statue matters, and microscoping in on the company instead of the big picture (even if it was justified) invites the opportunity to dismiss it as a localized issue.
This is like the apology thing. I don't care about their routinized apology beyond its absence being worse because I don't expect epiphany as starting point, I'm happy to start with sufficient heat to cause anyone to second-guess unthinkingly repeating a similar incident. I'll take wariness first and revelation second; they can understand the why later when they've grown up.
I'm amazing like that.
pleasepaypreacher.net
pleasepaypreacher.net
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
Well, I don't particularly want to start making character allegations for people unwittingly complicit in poisonous culture for the same principle as the is a racist/said a racist thing, but to the extent that we're addressing amorphous corporate entities I think it's important not to conflate or make overbroad judgments, yes. That doesn't lessen the misogyny of the statue or its formation in the slightest nor weaken the arguments against it, whereas I think characterizing the publisher entire on this limited evidence is overreaching and exposing a weak point that will be easily latched on to by the dissident and is thus of no value.
But at any rate I think even this tangent is distracting, so if you don't object we could take any further to PMs.
I’m assuming you haven’t played the game? There is no hand to hand combat. You attack with a massive stick, which Jade carries around at all times. And it’s pretty clear that Jade has trained pretty heavily in some form of weapon based martial art. Not to mention the fact that it’s a crazy future weapon; you could tell me it disperses energy that disables enemies and I’d believe you. But more to the point; a huge part of the gameplay in Beyond Good and Evil is stealth based. You can’t take the soldiers head on because they’ll crush you. They’re invincible from attacks from the front, and need to be taken out from behind. She’s certainly shown as being more nimble and faster than the soldiers, but they’re wearing a massive amount of armour, whereas Jade is wearing street clothes.
If anything you could argue that she’s so good at stealth because she doesn’t have the bulk of her male counterparts. But it definitely doesn’t feel like a power fantasy.
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Hotline Miami, Borderlands, Nier, and The Witcher, then.
And besides, whether or not they are human doesn't exactly matter. Giants, I think, is a great example specifically because all the female characters are beautiful and humanlike, and all the male characters are weird looking aliens or monsters. The problem is that it's okay for male characters, human or not, to run the gamut from attractive to completely monstrous and ugly, where female characters, human or not, usually have to be pretty.
I don't want to believe they really tried this. I don't want to live in a world where someone would think that would make it acceptable. Jesus H. Christ.
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One thing we should not lose site of is that noone here is defending the statue. I think that is pretty great, personally.
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