Hmm, it seems like both factors are involved to varying degrees. I kind of agree that the baseline issue or anger isn't misogyny at the start, but rather that feeling of invasion or taking away of their space with these new types of games or taking social criticism as preachy censoring etc. But then when it comes to acting out against those games and attacking their makers, there is a much deeper hole of anger and vitriol being directed at the women involved. That things like the Sarkeesian video cause such a disproportionate response than any other article on social issues in games. The language and tone of those attacks is rife with deep misogyny, people go so much further against these women than say Patrick Klepek writing another article about why X is an issue in games. There's definitely some pervasive misogyny at work there. But I'd agree that they're probably not consciously sitting there pondering what things women made and how they can hate on them. But the the things they hate on that also involve women? Watch out.
i am not at all (zero!) defending the awful things that internet creeps have been saying and doing. doxxing and threatening are illegal and those turds should be thrown in jail. the kind of misogyny we're seeing from some of those groups is sickening.
but
i also remember gamers - and this site/ forum in particular - gleefully doing some of the exact same shit to jack thompson not all that long ago. people said awful shit about christians and what have you.
when tipper gore was running the PMRC the attacks on her were breathtakingly nasty and as ubiquitous as could be in a pre-internet world.
like, it's great that PA is these days so considerate of SJ perspectives, but it's worth remembering that in slightly different circumstances, we were the aggrieved hobbyists trying to stand strong against the preachy hypocrites and publicity hounds.
It was our generation that grew up on genres of games that these "not a game" folk espouse. Pretty much anyone over 30 in the hobby, would have seen text adventures being a PC norm, and immediately understood Gone Home, Dear Esther, and the rest as games. We grew up finding the Hot Coffee controversy to be ridiculous. Hidden files on a game that enabled a removed sex feature was not endemic of problems with the industry or society. We rolled our eyes when Jack Thompson blamed video games for school shootings, and wrinkled our noses when Hillary was suggesting laws censoring the industry. The idea that the sims 2 was hardcore pornography, was one of many super dumb attacks by ignorant outsiders.
This reactionary #gamergate crow view folk who care about recent attacks, or women being intimidated, or the issues of misogyny, as those same outsiders getting offended by historically over exaggerated non-issues.
They need to wake up. Gamers are growing up, and we're sick of this crap.
Virgil_Leads_You on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Arguing with people from GamerGate is pretty depressing. They ask for proof of a claim, then when presented it provide the most amazing mental gymnastics as to why that proof doesn't really count and we're still totally against harassment of women (honest). Then I go and check their feed afterwards to see them basically talking about how much they hate the idea women might have anything to do with games. They don't want women critiquing games, the idea that a woman might have input in a game (such as Anita) and similar.
Yet they profoundly keep claiming "There is no misogyny here".
Yeah I wrote about the same thing earlier in reference to that, as I think they are in the late 20s and early 30s. Much of the overt defensiveness about women in games and the criticism that, hey maybe games use sexist tropes a little bit too often, comes from a reactionary defense similar to the 90s controversies about violence. I think this is why so much of that debates language has been coopted, without really thinking about why, like claiming that the criticism is akin to censorship and similar.
the "gamer community" are reacting just about identically to how they did with jack thompson, or how music aficionados responded to tipper gore's criticisms or how tabletop gamers in the 80s responded to christian condemnation of D&D. they feel that "external forces" with little investment in or real understanding of their target are attempting to force their approved perspectives and values onto their hobby.
Yeah. Mazes and Monsters is a great example of how ridiculous the whole thing about DnD got (it's a great movie to watch today with the hindsight we have now).
as a side-note, i think that sarkeesian makes some good points - tho often in some frankly dishonest ways. the fact that many of her offending/ problematic examples are divorced from necessary context really reinforces the view that she's not particularly invested or knowledgeable in the hobby.
This is a problem and not a problem at the same time. Her argument actually doesn't care about context: Only patterns. Hence good games get thrown in like Dragon Age along with games that have terrible representation all over. It isn't to say "All of these are equivalent" but say "All of these use this in some way".
So, while not directly related to the GamerGate blow-up, there was a recent discussion on women, the games industry, and the sexism within on CBC's The Current radio show.
It mostly focuses around the #no1reasonwhy and the cultural changes that are occurring within the industry.
On one level, it is fairly superficial, on another level, it's a good primer of some of the issues for the wider non-gamer multi-generational audience.
Yeah I wrote about the same thing earlier in reference to that, as I think they are in the late 20s and early 30s. Much of the overt defensiveness about women in games and the criticism that, hey maybe games use sexist tropes a little bit too often, comes from a reactionary defense similar to the 90s controversies about violence. I think this is why so much of that debates language has been coopted, without really thinking about why, like claiming that the criticism is akin to censorship and similar.
the "gamer community" are reacting just about identically to how they did with jack thompson, or how music aficionados responded to tipper gore's criticisms or how tabletop gamers in the 80s responded to christian condemnation of D&D. they feel that "external forces" with little investment in or real understanding of their target are attempting to force their approved perspectives and values onto their hobby.
Yeah. Mazes and Monsters is a great example of how ridiculous the whole thing about DnD got (it's a great movie to watch today with the hindsight we have now).
as a side-note, i think that sarkeesian makes some good points - tho often in some frankly dishonest ways. the fact that many of her offending/ problematic examples are divorced from necessary context really reinforces the view that she's not particularly invested or knowledgeable in the hobby.
This is a problem and not a problem at the same time. Her argument actually doesn't care about context: Only patterns. Hence good games get thrown in like Dragon Age along with games that have terrible representation all over. It isn't to say "All of these are equivalent" but say "All of these use this in some way".
It also fits in with her overall point that you can enjoy things that are good overall but have one or two problematic elements while still pointing those elements out. Within that framework the specific context in each game doesn't matter, because she's not making a statement about the game as a whole, just that one element. Yes you get to kill that noble in Dragon Age after his big moment of villainy, and yes in context a lot of nobles are scum towards elves and this is doing worldbuilding, but why does his big moment of villainy have to involve rape (both threatened and carried out, albeit offscreen for the latter)? Because it's easy shorthand to make him a Bad Guy, which is also why it shows up in so many other games, which is her point in that video.
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GumpyThere is alwaysa greater powerRegistered Userregular
Yeah I wrote about the same thing earlier in reference to that, as I think they are in the late 20s and early 30s. Much of the overt defensiveness about women in games and the criticism that, hey maybe games use sexist tropes a little bit too often, comes from a reactionary defense similar to the 90s controversies about violence. I think this is why so much of that debates language has been coopted, without really thinking about why, like claiming that the criticism is akin to censorship and similar.
the "gamer community" are reacting just about identically to how they did with jack thompson, or how music aficionados responded to tipper gore's criticisms or how tabletop gamers in the 80s responded to christian condemnation of D&D. they feel that "external forces" with little investment in or real understanding of their target are attempting to force their approved perspectives and values onto their hobby.
Yeah. Mazes and Monsters is a great example of how ridiculous the whole thing about DnD got (it's a great movie to watch today with the hindsight we have now).
as a side-note, i think that sarkeesian makes some good points - tho often in some frankly dishonest ways. the fact that many of her offending/ problematic examples are divorced from necessary context really reinforces the view that she's not particularly invested or knowledgeable in the hobby.
This is a problem and not a problem at the same time. Her argument actually doesn't care about context: Only patterns. Hence good games get thrown in like Dragon Age along with games that have terrible representation all over. It isn't to say "All of these are equivalent" but say "All of these use this in some way".
It also fits in with her overall point that you can enjoy things that are good overall but have one or two problematic elements while still pointing those elements out. Within that framework the specific context in each game doesn't matter, because she's not making a statement about the game as a whole, just that one element. Yes you get to kill that noble in Dragon Age after his big moment of villainy, and yes in context a lot of nobles are scum towards elves and this is doing worldbuilding, but why does his big moment of villainy have to involve rape (both threatened and carried out, albeit offscreen for the latter)? Because it's easy shorthand to make him a Bad Guy, which is also why it shows up in so many other games, which is her point in that video.
sure and i think that's an important approach when it's actually done right. s✔ wrote at length in this thread about bayonetta and how it has problematic aspects but also some angles that are empowering or subversive to a patriarchal approach to games or whatever, and it's a great read and far more interesting, informative and context-sensitive than anything i've seen from sarkeesian.
sarkeesian's videos really proceed from the premise that gaming is rotten with misogyny and misogynistic tropes. and you had better already accept this premise when you watch her videos, because her examples are lazy and divorced from context. as aegeri mentioned above, this doesn't matter - they're just used to demonstrate a larger, ubiquitous pattern - but they only demonstrate this larger pattern if you already accept its existence and scope.
rapes are not a common element in video games. i can't think of a single example of it outside of the example you just mentioned in dragon age. it strains credulity a little to say that this constitutes a video game trope. now, you could maybe say it's a literary trope - sort of a lazy literary device maybe one step up from having the badguy kick a puppy or slaughter a child or whatever - but that's kind of broadening the focus
Hmm, it seems like both factors are involved to varying degrees. I kind of agree that the baseline issue or anger isn't misogyny at the start, but rather that feeling of invasion or taking away of their space with these new types of games or taking social criticism as preachy censoring etc. But then when it comes to acting out against those games and attacking their makers, there is a much deeper hole of anger and vitriol being directed at the women involved. That things like the Sarkeesian video cause such a disproportionate response than any other article on social issues in games. The language and tone of those attacks is rife with deep misogyny, people go so much further against these women than say Patrick Klepek writing another article about why X is an issue in games. There's definitely some pervasive misogyny at work there. But I'd agree that they're probably not consciously sitting there pondering what things women made and how they can hate on them. But the the things they hate on that also involve women? Watch out.
i am not at all (zero!) defending the awful things that internet creeps have been saying and doing. doxxing and threatening are illegal and those turds should be thrown in jail. the kind of misogyny we're seeing from some of those groups is sickening.
but
i also remember gamers - and this site/ forum in particular - gleefully doing some of the exact same shit to jack thompson not all that long ago. people said awful shit about christians and what have you.
when tipper gore was running the PMRC the attacks on her were breathtakingly nasty and as ubiquitous as could be in a pre-internet world.
like, it's great that PA is these days so considerate of SJ perspectives, but it's worth remembering that in slightly different circumstances, we were the aggrieved hobbyists trying to stand strong against the preachy hypocrites and publicity hounds.
But... Jack Thompson WAS someone to "stand strong" against, no? I'm sure people did and said reprehensible things to him as well, but the slightly different circumstances are slightly different in that one target's crime was trying to convince lawmakers that games were sinmurdersex training simulators and the other target's crime is being a woman who made a game.
I would not characterize both targets as preachy hypocrites and publicity hounds.
sarkeesian's videos really proceed from the premise that gaming is rotten with misogyny and misogynistic tropes. and you had better already accept this premise when you watch her videos, because her examples are lazy and divorced from context. as aegeri mentioned above, this doesn't matter - they're just used to demonstrate a larger, ubiquitous pattern - but they only demonstrate this larger pattern if you already accept its existence and scope.
Completely disagree. She goes out of her way several times to show other aspects of games. And "rotten with" is an extreme statement, it's certainly very frequent and that's why she does the videos.
And one certainly doen't have to accept the fact its frequent but if someone watches her videos and DOESN'T, then the person either being stubborn or actually didn't watch them all the way through.
Metro Last Light & Ground Zeroes are two games that immediately spring to mind that use rape.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
I would not characterize both targets as preachy hypocrites and publicity hounds.
To those railing against them, that's probably often what they are seen as. In other cases it tips over into the weird conspiracy illuminati end of things. But the more basic middle of the road participants I'd agree they're seen as Jack style threats to gaming. Which really how much of a threat was he actually? Instances of death threats and vitriol flung at Jack just helped his case just as much as people spewing hate at Sarkessian helps prove hers.
the other target's crime is being a woman who made a game
If that's what you guys think this is all about then this thread has been pretty pointless. I'm with Irond: no way would I ever condone or defend the harassment and abuse she, or any person, has gotten. However, there are plenty of people that legitimately hate her for a variety things. I personally think she's a giant asshole for the TFYC stuff, so in this instance I don't give even one shit about how she's being treated because I just don't care about her, and her gender has nothing to do with that. Don't be an asshole if you can't handle the fallout, no matter how shitty and unnecessary the fallout is.
Now take those feelings and give them to some lonely goose who hasn't even touched a girl. No one except the most primitive of shits cares that she's just "a woman who made a game."
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Metro Last Light & Ground Zeroes are two games that immediately spring to mind that use rape.
Ground Zeros even has it as an integral part of the games plot.
Dead Rising 3, Dead Island, Grand Theft Auto 5 has an exploit currently that let's you "rape" other characters, Fallout 3, Far Cry 3, The Darkness II and a bunch of other games also have rapes (either direct or implied). This is only off the top of my head as well.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
I don't think that Sarkeesian says, "Don't ever, ever use that!" That's not how her argument works. What she says is, "Look at this trope. Now think about what it implies, and especially what its prevalence - together with other tropes re: the depiction of women, and the relative scarcity of other depictions - implies in cultural and social terms. Also, think about if there aren't better ways of achieving the same narrative goals without the problems that arguably accompany these tropes."
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
I would not characterize both targets as preachy hypocrites and publicity hounds.
To those railing against them, that's probably often what they are seen as. In other cases it tips over into the weird conspiracy illuminati end of things. But the more basic middle of the road participants I'd agree they're seen as Jack style threats to gaming. Which really how much of a threat was he actually? Instances of death threats and vitriol flung at Jack just helped his case just as much as people spewing hate at Sarkessian helps prove hers.
Oh, I'm definitely not saying that Thompson should have received any abuse, or that people didn't see him as more of a threat than he was. Just that the core idea, that Thompson was wrong, still seems to hold up.
The purported core ideas of this movement fall apart pretty quickly under inspection, but even if they WERE legitimate, sticking with the movement condones the harassment it is doing, either implicitly or, as in the post above by Kryhs, explicitly.
The actual core ideas as evidenced by the chatlogs and posts on 4chan are by no stretch of the imagination comparable to the motivation behind the resistance to Thompson.
the other target's crime is being a woman who made a game
If that's what you guys think this is all about then this thread has been pretty pointless. I'm with Irond: no way would I ever condone or defend the harassment and abuse she, or any person, has gotten. However, there are plenty of people that legitimately hate her for a variety things. I personally think she's a giant asshole for the TFYC stuff, so in this instance I don't give even one shit about how she's being treated because I just don't care about her, and her gender has nothing to do with that. Don't be an asshole if you can't handle the fallout, no matter how shitty and unnecessary the fallout is.
(Emphasis mine)
What?
(And you should probably read a bit more into the TFYC thing if you think she was a giant asshole in that situation.)
It's true that none of these issues are limited to games, but nobody seems to be running hate campaigns against people who point that out lately. The closest I can think of its people attacking a rape victim for putting a director or producer at risk of not being able to make more movies - related psychology, but a bit different situation.
Metro Last Light & Ground Zeroes are two games that immediately spring to mind that use rape.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
I've found the videos to be a little disappointing, I think they could have been done better. But the overall concept is pretty sound. Again the point is not to show how in this one particular game, this element was wrong and therefore the game is sexist. It's that the trope of violence against women in games is lazy shorthand for establishing the bad guy's cred is a problem in how common it is. It's also not saying that that isn't an issue in other mediums. It's a pretty often used device in all kinds of other media, but it's a focused video series, it's not comparing games against movies or books. It's showing a pattern of how this is common in games and used without note throughout many games and that the commonplace usage of it all is the overall problem. Not this specific instance right here. But the fact that there's so much of it to the point that it is a cliche/trope/device and becomes part of your overall view of what is normal in games. It's kind of a dry academic look at examples of repeating patterns in games that represent a problem with sexism. It's much more about the bigger picture than to pick at each instance cited. And the tone of it is not supposed to be man games are vile cesspits of misogyny. It's I like games, you like games, there's a pattern here that's kind of disturbing to me and to others. Why don't we try and be better about this. Not burn it all down, all games are now Gone Home.
Metro Last Light & Ground Zeroes are two games that immediately spring to mind that use rape.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
It's very often used as a shorthand for "these people are bad."
Which turns the victims, essentially, into props whose only purpose is to show how bad the villains are. But the thing is, in every example I can think of, the player already knows the villains are bad and has motivation to fight them. So the sexual assault is superfluous to the plot.
I would not characterize both targets as preachy hypocrites and publicity hounds.
To those railing against them, that's probably often what they are seen as. In other cases it tips over into the weird conspiracy illuminati end of things. But the more basic middle of the road participants I'd agree they're seen as Jack style threats to gaming. Which really how much of a threat was he actually? Instances of death threats and vitriol flung at Jack just helped his case just as much as people spewing hate at Sarkessian helps prove hers.
Oh, I'm definitely not saying that Thompson should have received any abuse, or that people didn't see him as more of a threat than he was. Just that the core idea, that Thompson was wrong, still seems to hold up.
The purported core ideas of this movement fall apart pretty quickly under inspection, but even if they WERE legitimate, sticking with the movement condones the harassment it is doing, either implicitly or, as in the post above by Kryhs, explicitly.
The actual core ideas as evidenced by the chatlogs and posts on 4chan are by no stretch of the imagination comparable to the motivation behind the resistance to Thompson.
Agreed. The 4chan think tank starting it up are not motivated in the same way. But the suckers who get roped into it along the way and who may form a larger percentage of the body count of people actively involved I think can be be compared to that. The trick 4chan pulled off is to make people believe that games are under attack both by the devs involved and by the game writers who wrote mean things about gamers.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
the other target's crime is being a woman who made a game
If that's what you guys think this is all about then this thread has been pretty pointless. I'm with Irond: no way would I ever condone or defend the harassment and abuse she, or any person, has gotten. However, there are plenty of people that legitimately hate her for a variety things. I personally think she's a giant asshole for the TFYC stuff, so in this instance I don't give even one shit about how she's being treated because I just don't care about her, and her gender has nothing to do with that. Don't be an asshole if you can't handle the fallout, no matter how shitty and unnecessary the fallout is.
(Emphasis mine)
What?
(And you should probably read a bit more into the TFYC thing if you think she was a giant asshole in that situation.)
I will summarise: These people, TFYC, have a shitty attitude to trans people.
Zoe finds out who the main guy is from a public facebook post and directs people to him to talk about shitty trans policy.
Attention drives lots of traffic to site.
Site crashes.
Both sides angry at one another.
Eventually apologize and forget about it. Nobody outside of feminist blogs gives a shit.
GamerGate starts, suddenly Zoe "doxxed" the guy (she didn't) and DDOS their site (she didn't). They have a quick redrawing of bad blood, 4chan donates to TFYC and ultimately doesn't appreciate any of the irony. In the end 4chan figures out that this isn't a good argument and has quietly dropped it in favor of other things to attack Zoe with.
I am happy to answer more specific questions with links and so on if you @me once I get back on my PC tomorrow.
the other target's crime is being a woman who made a game
If that's what you guys think this is all about then this thread has been pretty pointless. I'm with Irond: no way would I ever condone or defend the harassment and abuse she, or any person, has gotten. However, there are plenty of people that legitimately hate her for a variety things. I personally think she's a giant asshole for the TFYC stuff, so in this instance I don't give even one shit about how she's being treated because I just don't care about her, and her gender has nothing to do with that. Don't be an asshole if you can't handle the fallout, no matter how shitty and unnecessary the fallout is.
Now take those feelings and give them to some lonely goose who hasn't even touched a girl. No one except the most primitive of shits cares that she's just "a woman who made a game."
Except that GamerGate are operating under the banner of "ethics in journalism", which has nothing to do with Zoe Quinn or TFYC. It's why I said earlier that it's like talking about hot dogs and claiming you were taking about hamburgers the whole time. How can GamerGate claim that their movement is about ethical journalism when they're spending all their energy talking about Zoe Quinn?
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GumpyThere is alwaysa greater powerRegistered Userregular
I will summarise: These people, TFYC, have a shitty attitude to trans people.
What did that actually entail? Were they transphobic? I've heard a lot that they had a shit attitude towards trans* people but I've never actually seen the details go by
Look, we may be telling Heinz to kill itself, but our real problem is with the tomatoes themselves. Also the entire bun industry is corrupt, ruined by the soggy influence of ketchup supporters. Also here are some nude photos of ketchup. Also we found out that Heinz has connections with other condiments, so we're going to set John Kerry's house on fire.
Okay, some bad apples got control there for a while, but can we be serious for a second: a lot of people are legitimately upset about bun sogginess. Hotdog and hamburger lovers alike. Fuck those people who don't get that this is what it's always been about. Let's find their names and burn their houses down.
Whoopsie. Back on track now, ignore those outright idiots. I mean, the idiots on both sides. The DryBunGaters started it, sure, but calling the cops on those arsonists? Accusing them of being arsonists because they kept setting shit on fire? That's completely out of line. Both sides should be ashamed.
And can't we all admit that this dry bun issue absolutely needs to be addressed, now, finally? Because if you can agree to that, we can get together, overcome our differences, really look at what ketchup is saying, and then get online and terrorize some women for a couple of months. What do you say?
Metro Last Light & Ground Zeroes are two games that immediately spring to mind that use rape.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
It is not a topic that is used sensitively in almost every game that has it. Also, imagine being a rape victim and playing the game. Maybe not every person who has been through rape will react to it, but some will. And that is very likely to throw that person from playing that game ever again.
I will summarise: These people, TFYC, have a shitty attitude to trans people.
What did that actually entail? Were they transphobic? I've heard a lot that they had a shit attitude towards trans* people but I've never actually seen the details go by
I've seen reports that they wanted some sort of proof of surgery in order to be considered female for the purposes of their contest. It is worth noting that TFYC say this interpretation was based on a misreading, and the policy as it exists now has no mention of this.
Most of Quinn's complaints that I had seen seemed to be more centered around the structuring of it and the way that they were presenting themselves "supporting female game creators!!!" but were not giving women resources to make their own games, they instead were going to let women pitch to them, have some sort of voting contest, and then their team (of dudes) actually make the game, and the winning idea woman would get some small percentage of the revenue.
One of Anita's main points is that women rarely have agency in games, and instead are either victims, props, or prizes. Hero gets the girl. Rescue the princess. Damsel in distress. Look what the bad guy does to women and children. Oh hey bewbs.
Don't be an asshole if you can't handle the fallout, no matter how shitty and unnecessary the fallout is.
This is nonsense.
Should Phil Fish have told someone to commit suicide? Absolutely not. Can we reasonably label Phil Fish "kind of an asshole"? Yes, probably.
But you are saying that Phil Fish should have expected that being an asshole would result in his personal financial information being published on the internet which is ridiculous.
Like, it is really hard to take your condemnation of harassment seriously when you include a statement like this that is all but saying "well, they probably deserved it."
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
You know it seems to me that some folks are putting way too much energy in trying to prove that, with everything we've seen to the contrary, this whole situation wasn't just some thinly(and poorly) veiled attempted for some people to attack some people they didn't like.
I didn't even find about GamerGate until a week ago(and I found out about it because I saw the hashtag and was curious) and I managed to parse that out in like 10 minutes.
There are plenty of interactive exhibits in art and history museums that involve a video component. In the 9/11 museum, there is a virtual signboard where you can write a sentiment that shows up on a big projector screen, and all the sentiments everyone's written down occasionally pop up alongside yours. The Discovery Science Museum basically had Kinect exhibits. MoMa is finally getting in on the action with exhibits like Becoming Animal.
Are these works of art secretly games? Do games journalists have the expertise to review them alongside Madden or Kane and Lynch? Is Steam the most appropriate venue to distribute art, or could it be better served by institutions that are experts at delivering and presenting art?
Museums are not the primary deliverers/presenters of art, though. Historically significant art, perhaps. Most art is in people's homes.
Metro Last Light & Ground Zeroes are two games that immediately spring to mind that use rape.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
It's not off-limits but if you're going to choose to use it as a narrative device it better be in a meaningful and thoughtful way. The issue is that these tropes are a) overused and b) not used thoughtfully and sensitively.
I mean, people HAVE actually watched the Sarkeesian videos, right?
tsmvengy on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
One of Anita's main points is that women rarely have agency in games, and instead are either victims, props, or prizes. Hero gets the girl. Rescue the princess. Damsel in distress. Look what the bad guy does to women and children. Oh hey bewbs.
which, you know, is a reasonable criticism and gave me something to think about after watching that video
however
most video games are predicated on violence - in many, maybe most games, violence happens to most every character. if there are prominent female characters, violence can happen to them. it then seems like it's trying to have it both ways if this is then characterized as problematic "violence against women"
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I will summarise: These people, TFYC, have a shitty attitude to trans people.
What did that actually entail? Were they transphobic? I've heard a lot that they had a shit attitude towards trans* people but I've never actually seen the details go by
I honestly tried to find the original argument but everything I get on google is from reddit and similar talking about how TFYC helped GamerGate and various Zoe Quinn conspiracies. IIRC it was a debate about when a person can be considered transitioned for the purposes of being a woman (therefore being able to enter) and apparently a thoughtless comment from the guy who runs it about trans women. It was honestly a dead issue until GamerGate needed something to drive a controversy about Quinn and then dug it up.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
I don't think that Sarkeesian says, "Don't ever, ever use that!" That's not how her argument works. What she says is, "Look at this trope. Now think about what it implies, and especially what its prevalence - together with other tropes re: the depiction of women, and the relative scarcity of other depictions - implies in cultural and social terms. Also, think about there aren't better ways of achieving the same narrative goals without the problems that arguably accompany these tropes."
It's somewhat disingenuous to say "there aren't better ways to do this narratively" when we're talking about arguably the most heinous act a person can perform. Of course there aren't better ways to do "this".
It's meant to offend. It's meant to cause the viewer to recoil in horror.
What gets me is that critics will then focus on how offensive the rape scene is to women while simultaneously ignoring the fact that you're murdering hundreds/thousands of men throughout that same game.
I'm not trying to defend rape by any means, but I get a little apprehensive when a dialogue starts developing that certain narrative tropes are okay to use, while others are not.
One of Anita's main points is that women rarely have agency in games, and instead are either victims, props, or prizes. Hero gets the girl. Rescue the princess. Damsel in distress. Look what the bad guy does to women and children. Oh hey bewbs.
which, you know, is a reasonable criticism and gave me something to think about after watching that video
however
most video games are predicated on violence - in many, maybe most games, violence happens to most every character. if there are prominent female characters, violence can happen to them. it then seems like it's trying to have it both ways if this is then characterized as problematic "violence against women"
When I say Violence Against Women I’m primarily referring to images of women being victimized or when violence is specifically linked to a character’s gender or sexuality. Female characters who happen to be involved in violent or combat situations on relatively equal footing with their opponents are typically be exempt them(sic) from this category because they are usually not framed as victims.
When violence against women is used as a plot device to get the ball rolling, or to show how Awful and Bad the villain is, or suffer to further a male protagonist's development, that's when there's a problem.
One of Anita's main points is that women rarely have agency in games, and instead are either victims, props, or prizes. Hero gets the girl. Rescue the princess. Damsel in distress. Look what the bad guy does to women and children. Oh hey bewbs.
which, you know, is a reasonable criticism and gave me something to think about after watching that video
however
most video games are predicated on violence - in many, maybe most games, violence happens to most every character. if there are prominent female characters, violence can happen to them. it then seems like it's trying to have it both ways if this is then characterized as problematic "violence against women"
Much of it depends on presentation.
There's a difference between, say, beating the shit out of someone who seems to be normal or is capable of fighting back and beating the shit out of someone who goes out of their way to present themselves as weak and helpless.
Metro Last Light & Ground Zeroes are two games that immediately spring to mind that use rape.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
it's an extremely sensitive issue that needs to be handled with tact and respect for real-world rape victims
smattering it into your story to show how extreme and evil the bad guys are is neither tactful nor respectful. It's inconsiderate and moreover lazy storytelling
basically unless your story is about rape then it probably shouldn't feature rape.
Posts
i am not at all (zero!) defending the awful things that internet creeps have been saying and doing. doxxing and threatening are illegal and those turds should be thrown in jail. the kind of misogyny we're seeing from some of those groups is sickening.
but
i also remember gamers - and this site/ forum in particular - gleefully doing some of the exact same shit to jack thompson not all that long ago. people said awful shit about christians and what have you.
when tipper gore was running the PMRC the attacks on her were breathtakingly nasty and as ubiquitous as could be in a pre-internet world.
like, it's great that PA is these days so considerate of SJ perspectives, but it's worth remembering that in slightly different circumstances, we were the aggrieved hobbyists trying to stand strong against the preachy hypocrites and publicity hounds.
This reactionary #gamergate crow view folk who care about recent attacks, or women being intimidated, or the issues of misogyny, as those same outsiders getting offended by historically over exaggerated non-issues.
They need to wake up. Gamers are growing up, and we're sick of this crap.
Yet they profoundly keep claiming "There is no misogyny here".
Yeah. Mazes and Monsters is a great example of how ridiculous the whole thing about DnD got (it's a great movie to watch today with the hindsight we have now).
This is a problem and not a problem at the same time. Her argument actually doesn't care about context: Only patterns. Hence good games get thrown in like Dragon Age along with games that have terrible representation all over. It isn't to say "All of these are equivalent" but say "All of these use this in some way".
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/09/10/half-of-all-video-game-players-are-women-yet-only-ten-per-cent-of-all-designers-are-women-time-to-br/
Podcast
It mostly focuses around the #no1reasonwhy and the cultural changes that are occurring within the industry.
On one level, it is fairly superficial, on another level, it's a good primer of some of the issues for the wider non-gamer multi-generational audience.
It also fits in with her overall point that you can enjoy things that are good overall but have one or two problematic elements while still pointing those elements out. Within that framework the specific context in each game doesn't matter, because she's not making a statement about the game as a whole, just that one element. Yes you get to kill that noble in Dragon Age after his big moment of villainy, and yes in context a lot of nobles are scum towards elves and this is doing worldbuilding, but why does his big moment of villainy have to involve rape (both threatened and carried out, albeit offscreen for the latter)? Because it's easy shorthand to make him a Bad Guy, which is also why it shows up in so many other games, which is her point in that video.
These guys really aren't the best at running a public relations campaign are they?
sure and i think that's an important approach when it's actually done right. s✔ wrote at length in this thread about bayonetta and how it has problematic aspects but also some angles that are empowering or subversive to a patriarchal approach to games or whatever, and it's a great read and far more interesting, informative and context-sensitive than anything i've seen from sarkeesian.
sarkeesian's videos really proceed from the premise that gaming is rotten with misogyny and misogynistic tropes. and you had better already accept this premise when you watch her videos, because her examples are lazy and divorced from context. as aegeri mentioned above, this doesn't matter - they're just used to demonstrate a larger, ubiquitous pattern - but they only demonstrate this larger pattern if you already accept its existence and scope.
rapes are not a common element in video games. i can't think of a single example of it outside of the example you just mentioned in dragon age. it strains credulity a little to say that this constitutes a video game trope. now, you could maybe say it's a literary trope - sort of a lazy literary device maybe one step up from having the badguy kick a puppy or slaughter a child or whatever - but that's kind of broadening the focus
I would not characterize both targets as preachy hypocrites and publicity hounds.
Completely disagree. She goes out of her way several times to show other aspects of games. And "rotten with" is an extreme statement, it's certainly very frequent and that's why she does the videos.
And one certainly doen't have to accept the fact its frequent but if someone watches her videos and DOESN'T, then the person either being stubborn or actually didn't watch them all the way through.
Is it not ok to use rape to vilify a perpetrator, and garner sympathy for a victim? I realize that the very concept of rape implies submission and defenselessness of the victim, but does that make it completely off limits as a storytelling device?
If that's what you guys think this is all about then this thread has been pretty pointless. I'm with Irond: no way would I ever condone or defend the harassment and abuse she, or any person, has gotten. However, there are plenty of people that legitimately hate her for a variety things. I personally think she's a giant asshole for the TFYC stuff, so in this instance I don't give even one shit about how she's being treated because I just don't care about her, and her gender has nothing to do with that. Don't be an asshole if you can't handle the fallout, no matter how shitty and unnecessary the fallout is.
Now take those feelings and give them to some lonely goose who hasn't even touched a girl. No one except the most primitive of shits cares that she's just "a woman who made a game."
Ground Zeros even has it as an integral part of the games plot.
Dead Rising 3, Dead Island, Grand Theft Auto 5 has an exploit currently that let's you "rape" other characters, Fallout 3, Far Cry 3, The Darkness II and a bunch of other games also have rapes (either direct or implied). This is only off the top of my head as well.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The purported core ideas of this movement fall apart pretty quickly under inspection, but even if they WERE legitimate, sticking with the movement condones the harassment it is doing, either implicitly or, as in the post above by Kryhs, explicitly.
The actual core ideas as evidenced by the chatlogs and posts on 4chan are by no stretch of the imagination comparable to the motivation behind the resistance to Thompson.
What?
(And you should probably read a bit more into the TFYC thing if you think she was a giant asshole in that situation.)
It's very often used as a shorthand for "these people are bad."
Which turns the victims, essentially, into props whose only purpose is to show how bad the villains are. But the thing is, in every example I can think of, the player already knows the villains are bad and has motivation to fight them. So the sexual assault is superfluous to the plot.
Agreed. The 4chan think tank starting it up are not motivated in the same way. But the suckers who get roped into it along the way and who may form a larger percentage of the body count of people actively involved I think can be be compared to that. The trick 4chan pulled off is to make people believe that games are under attack both by the devs involved and by the game writers who wrote mean things about gamers.
Zoe finds out who the main guy is from a public facebook post and directs people to him to talk about shitty trans policy.
Attention drives lots of traffic to site.
Site crashes.
Both sides angry at one another.
Eventually apologize and forget about it. Nobody outside of feminist blogs gives a shit.
GamerGate starts, suddenly Zoe "doxxed" the guy (she didn't) and DDOS their site (she didn't). They have a quick redrawing of bad blood, 4chan donates to TFYC and ultimately doesn't appreciate any of the irony. In the end 4chan figures out that this isn't a good argument and has quietly dropped it in favor of other things to attack Zoe with.
I am happy to answer more specific questions with links and so on if you @me once I get back on my PC tomorrow.
Except that GamerGate are operating under the banner of "ethics in journalism", which has nothing to do with Zoe Quinn or TFYC. It's why I said earlier that it's like talking about hot dogs and claiming you were taking about hamburgers the whole time. How can GamerGate claim that their movement is about ethical journalism when they're spending all their energy talking about Zoe Quinn?
What did that actually entail? Were they transphobic? I've heard a lot that they had a shit attitude towards trans* people but I've never actually seen the details go by
Okay, some bad apples got control there for a while, but can we be serious for a second: a lot of people are legitimately upset about bun sogginess. Hotdog and hamburger lovers alike. Fuck those people who don't get that this is what it's always been about. Let's find their names and burn their houses down.
Whoopsie. Back on track now, ignore those outright idiots. I mean, the idiots on both sides. The DryBunGaters started it, sure, but calling the cops on those arsonists? Accusing them of being arsonists because they kept setting shit on fire? That's completely out of line. Both sides should be ashamed.
And can't we all admit that this dry bun issue absolutely needs to be addressed, now, finally? Because if you can agree to that, we can get together, overcome our differences, really look at what ketchup is saying, and then get online and terrorize some women for a couple of months. What do you say?
Most of Quinn's complaints that I had seen seemed to be more centered around the structuring of it and the way that they were presenting themselves "supporting female game creators!!!" but were not giving women resources to make their own games, they instead were going to let women pitch to them, have some sort of voting contest, and then their team (of dudes) actually make the game, and the winning idea woman would get some small percentage of the revenue.
This is nonsense.
Should Phil Fish have told someone to commit suicide? Absolutely not. Can we reasonably label Phil Fish "kind of an asshole"? Yes, probably.
But you are saying that Phil Fish should have expected that being an asshole would result in his personal financial information being published on the internet which is ridiculous.
Like, it is really hard to take your condemnation of harassment seriously when you include a statement like this that is all but saying "well, they probably deserved it."
My Steam
I didn't even find about GamerGate until a week ago(and I found out about it because I saw the hashtag and was curious) and I managed to parse that out in like 10 minutes.
Museums are not the primary deliverers/presenters of art, though. Historically significant art, perhaps. Most art is in people's homes.
It's not off-limits but if you're going to choose to use it as a narrative device it better be in a meaningful and thoughtful way. The issue is that these tropes are a) overused and b) not used thoughtfully and sensitively.
I mean, people HAVE actually watched the Sarkeesian videos, right?
which, you know, is a reasonable criticism and gave me something to think about after watching that video
however
most video games are predicated on violence - in many, maybe most games, violence happens to most every character. if there are prominent female characters, violence can happen to them. it then seems like it's trying to have it both ways if this is then characterized as problematic "violence against women"
I honestly tried to find the original argument but everything I get on google is from reddit and similar talking about how TFYC helped GamerGate and various Zoe Quinn conspiracies. IIRC it was a debate about when a person can be considered transitioned for the purposes of being a woman (therefore being able to enter) and apparently a thoughtless comment from the guy who runs it about trans women. It was honestly a dead issue until GamerGate needed something to drive a controversy about Quinn and then dug it up.
It's somewhat disingenuous to say "there aren't better ways to do this narratively" when we're talking about arguably the most heinous act a person can perform. Of course there aren't better ways to do "this".
It's meant to offend. It's meant to cause the viewer to recoil in horror.
What gets me is that critics will then focus on how offensive the rape scene is to women while simultaneously ignoring the fact that you're murdering hundreds/thousands of men throughout that same game.
I'm not trying to defend rape by any means, but I get a little apprehensive when a dialogue starts developing that certain narrative tropes are okay to use, while others are not.
She talks about this!
When violence against women is used as a plot device to get the ball rolling, or to show how Awful and Bad the villain is, or suffer to further a male protagonist's development, that's when there's a problem.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Much of it depends on presentation.
There's a difference between, say, beating the shit out of someone who seems to be normal or is capable of fighting back and beating the shit out of someone who goes out of their way to present themselves as weak and helpless.
it's an extremely sensitive issue that needs to be handled with tact and respect for real-world rape victims
smattering it into your story to show how extreme and evil the bad guys are is neither tactful nor respectful. It's inconsiderate and moreover lazy storytelling
basically unless your story is about rape then it probably shouldn't feature rape.
http://www.audioentropy.com/