@DazzHardy said:

It kind of saddens me that people think that not talking about these things is the best way to get them to stop. Simply ignoring the problems won't make them go away. This is one of those cases were it needs to be talked about often enough and as publicly as possible so that people understand why it's not a great idea to do dumb stuff like this. When it's been talked to death, that's when I think we'll start seeing it not come up so often, and thus not need to be spoken of so much.

No one is ignoring the problem. Yes there is sexcism yes there is sexcism regarding both genders. And yes there is certainly sexism in every media which includes games as well. But this has nothing to do with it. Not one thing on this statue is objectifying woman. It is just a tool used by extreme fems and nothing more.

It's not as if there are bigger stories in the videogame industry right now. Let's talk about this statue some more. I'm glad they hired on a REAL journalist.

@rangers517 said:

@Kill: @Kill said:

When Patrick first joined Giant Bomb, he repeatedly said in his articles that he would not talk about his personal political beliefs as he did not feel they were necessary in his writing. As time went on, he started to plug his favourite political podcasts, put his liberal slant on news stories which did not require it, dropped his political opinions on the Bombcast when they wasn't asked for, and now he is actively seeking out some kind of validation for his own moral slant in the form of this article.

Look, I love Giant Bomb and I think Patrick is a great writer. However, this is nothing more than a "ha, told you so" to the community and an ego stroking by a man who believes only his political views should be noted on this site. He could at least have sought out a more balanced view of the situation. After the first three women said largely the same thing and no other viewpoint was represented, I could not help but picture that characteristic Patrick smirk behind all this.

I know this is a ramble, but I feel the other Giant Bomb guys do a great job of concealing their political ideologies. I have no idea who Brad, Jeff, Ryan or Vinny vote for. I could certainly guess, but it definitely isn't as clear as the liberal, Democrat voting, Reddit-reading klaxon of Klepek and his incessant need to spin gaming news a particular way. I find it distasteful, even if I agree with him on issues like this. It's a bit gross on a site which was founded on being impartial and fun.

Just my tl;dr opinion.

Agreed 100%. The other guys tried to keep it a light and fun video game site. No idea why Klepek thinks his views and opinions are so important that he needs to constantly share them with us.

Patrick definitely needs to back away from his articles, but this is a good start.

Here we go again. Patrick trying to be a knight in shining armor for women everywhere. Why aren't there any responses from women who didn't have a problem with the statue?

I can't believe the amount of ridiculous comments on this article. This isn't something you would find on Kotaku, this is a legitimate article that focuses on the wider context of the statue and what it represents. It isn't just a stupid, harmless marketing incident. It's part of a consistent tone that emanates from the games industry and culture.

Stop blathering about militant feminism like 14 year old children.

HAY GUYS LETS FIND OUT WHAT FEMINISTS THINK OF A STATUE OF A PAIR OF BLOODY BOOBS

Seriously, just stop. Patrick, you're in touch with your feminine side. We get it. I know you're going to shake your head and lament about the state of the comments section on the internet while you pat yourself on the back for being Mr. Smartypants, but this is article really lame. Sex is used to sell basically every product in the world other than Polident. Get used to it because it isn't going to stop. That lame Dead Island statue thing was stupid because it was a stupid thing, not because it was a symbol of male chauvinism in a male dominated industry.

You are going to continue to see shit like this because hot people are still the single most effective way of selling products. You're going to continue to see sexy college ladies in bikinis and cowboy hats on beer commercials and you are going to continue to see hot ex NFL players wearing just a towel hawking Old Spice because it has been determined that a lot of women buy their husband's/boyfriend's toiletries.

So just stop.

@Qlanth said:

It baffles me that even when a bunch of women deep in the gaming industry (how can you get any more hardcore into games than that?) say "Yes this is problematic" people still insist it isn't. At what point does reason and logic fail a person so much that they are looking straight at the source and keep stamping their feet and turning their head screaming "No no no I still don't see it no no no!" At what point do the rest of us see these people and realize that their actions are just as dangerous as the one they are denying happened?

If we can successfully craft and environment that is caustic to sexism and misogyny (and homophobia and transphobia and racism and etc) then, at the very least, we can drive the people pushing it forward to duck down and avoid being vocal. I for one would like to continue having hobby that isn't immediately thought of as a cultural cesspool.

You have made a misstep here.

Reason and logic are not based on offense. Neither is sexism, or racism. Because something offends you does not logically comport with it qualifying as an attack on whatever social group you happen to belong to merely on the grounds of your offense. That a women is offended at this statue does not of itself mean it is sexist against women. Sexism requires that the statue make a general statement against a social group, and this statue in particular is a little too low in expressive quality to do so. On the grounds of "it says that all women are pieces of meat for your pleasure" is as logically unsound as is saying "it says that all men do not exist". On the grounds of "it states all women should be thin and have large breasts" is as illogical as saying "it states all women should be white and apparently American".

Just want to pop in and thank Patrick for being a journalist in a medium that doesn't have many of them, and get out before the insanity makes me even more angry.

Screw the haters Patrick, your a damn cool guy who's damn good at getting the scoop.

Pro tip: If reading these articles pisses you off, don't read them.

There was a lot of mansplaination last time, about how this was totally not sexual in any way and/or at all pandering to a certain audience. It was gross then, it's gross now.

Forget everything else, consider it from this perspective:

Deep Silver has at some point made the decision that you, their potential customers, are so idiotic, easily led, horny, cheap and narrow-minded, that a fucking pair of plastic tits could make you buy their game at a premium price. Is that how you want your demographic to be represented?

@JoshyLee: Holy shit you're right! how could I have been so blind! Patrick is clearly the antichrist! Your well voiced and detailed reasoning behind Patrick's fiendish deeds and overall shitty journalistic abilities have been heard. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways and horros of -The Klepek-, I was almost a fan of Giant Bomb for a minute there.

Something something torso something something boobs something som... wait, boobs?

@asantosbr: what is wrong with you?

Videogames!

@Kill said:

When Patrick first joined Giant Bomb, he repeatedly said in his articles that he would not talk about his personal political beliefs as he did not feel they were necessary in his writing. As time went on, he started to plug his favourite political podcasts, put his liberal slant on news stories which did not require it, dropped his political opinions on the Bombcast when they wasn't asked for, and now he is actively seeking out some kind of validation for his own moral slant in the form of this article.

Look, I love Giant Bomb and I think Patrick is a great writer. However, this is nothing more than a "ha, told you so" to the community and an ego stroking by a man who believes only his political views should be noted on this site. He could at least have sought out a more balanced view of the situation. After the first three women said largely the same thing and no other viewpoint was represented, I could not help but picture that characteristic Patrick smirk behind all this.

I know this is a ramble, but I feel the other Giant Bomb guys do a great job of concealing their political ideologies. I have no idea who Brad, Jeff, Ryan or Vinny vote for. I could certainly guess, but it definitely isn't as clear as the liberal, Democrat voting, Reddit-reading klaxon of Klepek and his incessant need to spin gaming news a particular way. I find it distasteful, even if I agree with him on issues like this. It's a bit gross on a site which was founded on being impartial and fun.

Just my tl;dr opinion.

Agreed.

@Qlanth: Because men haven't been victims of sexual objectification, disenfranchisement, subjugation, and societal neglect for hundreds of years.

You're right, it's been tens of thousands of years. You just don't see it because men don't have a vagina so you don't give a crap.

@Milkman said:

@Darji

@DazzHardy said:

It kind of saddens me that people think that not talking about these things is the best way to get them to stop. Simply ignoring the problems won't make them go away. This is one of those cases were it needs to be talked about often enough and as publicly as possible so that people understand why it's not a great idea to do dumb stuff like this. When it's been talked to death, that's when I think we'll start seeing it not come up so often, and thus not need to be spoken of so much.

No one is ignoring the problem. Yes there is sexcism yes there is sexcism regarding both genders. And yes there is certainly sexism in every media which includes games as well. But this has nothing to do with it. Not one thing on this statue is objectifying woman. It is just a tool used by extreme fems and nothing more.

I see eight women who disagree with you. What does that tell you? Are they all "extreme fems?"

I do not know them personally. So what if these are eight woman? Where are these eight woman who do not think like this. . My friend for example is a female gamer and she does not think it is sexist in any form. Marcus Bears wife thinks it is stupid but not sexist. Do you reeally think that these eight woman represents the whole opinion of the gaming world?

This article is extremely one sided and that is the main issue here.

@rangers517 said:

@Kill: @Kill said:

When Patrick first joined Giant Bomb, he repeatedly said in his articles that he would not talk about his personal political beliefs as he did not feel they were necessary in his writing. As time went on, he started to plug his favourite political podcasts, put his liberal slant on news stories which did not require it, dropped his political opinions on the Bombcast when they wasn't asked for, and now he is actively seeking out some kind of validation for his own moral slant in the form of this article.

Look, I love Giant Bomb and I think Patrick is a great writer. However, this is nothing more than a "ha, told you so" to the community and an ego stroking by a man who believes only his political views should be noted on this site. He could at least have sought out a more balanced view of the situation. After the first three women said largely the same thing and no other viewpoint was represented, I could not help but picture that characteristic Patrick smirk behind all this.

I know this is a ramble, but I feel the other Giant Bomb guys do a great job of concealing their political ideologies. I have no idea who Brad, Jeff, Ryan or Vinny vote for. I could certainly guess, but it definitely isn't as clear as the liberal, Democrat voting, Reddit-reading klaxon of Klepek and his incessant need to spin gaming news a particular way. I find it distasteful, even if I agree with him on issues like this. It's a bit gross on a site which was founded on being impartial and fun.

Just my tl;dr opinion.

Agreed 100%. The other guys tried to keep it a light and fun video game site. No idea why Klepek thinks his views and opinions are so important that he needs to constantly share them with us.

Patrick definitely needs to back away from his articles, but this is a good start.

@SniperXan:

And I think this is pretty sad cause there could be a good discussion wethere this is sexist or not. I for example don't think it's sexist but I'm sure as hell not gonna argue about it here cause I really don't want to be on the same "side" as the "women are taking over the world and sexism is not a real thing" crowd here. But arguing against it makes me feel like I am, so I don't even start.

@RoyCampbell said:

This just screams "I needed justification for my outrage so I gathered up a handful of women's responses and regurgitated it on my LiveJour- I mean Giantbomb's front page."

You're a huge piece of shit of a person. Sorry.

i think marcus beer had a pretty ok view on it. skip to 4:14

@Incapability said:

Pro tip: If reading these articles pisses you off, don't read them.

There was a lot of mansplaination last time, about how this was totally not sexual in any way and/or at all pandering to a certain audience. It was gross then, it's gross now.

Forget everything else, consider it from this perspective:

Deep Silver has at some point made the decision that you, their potential customers, are so idiotic, easily led, horny, cheap and narrow-minded, that a fucking pair of plastic tits could make you buy their game at a premium price. Is that how you want your demographic to be represented?

If it's not representative, people won't buy it. If it is, why do you care and deny them the right.

Also, saying "mansplanations" is insulting and a cop-out, used to make something you disagree with invalid. As are all the other insults jam packed into your post.

@quantumjustice said:

Just want to pop in and thank Patrick for being a journalist in a medium that doesn't have many of them, and get out before the insanity makes me even more angry.

Screw the haters Patrick, your a damn cool guy who's damn good at getting the scoop.

This article was good but it could be hugely improved and in an obvious way, especially on a piddly issue. But that exact kind of reporting is what makes reporting on a piddle issue interesting and not insipid.

As far as the latter goes, this is hardly a scoop and the nickname is almost ironic with how much of a slowpoke Patrick is at reporting the news. I almost never get my news fresh from Giant Bomb.

Vanessa Hunter has said everything that needed to be said on the matter really, and it's the exact same thing that I mentioned in the previous thread about this. It's literally putting forward a headless, legless, armless corpse with two perfect breasts - effectively removing any resemblance to a woman - to market to what Deep Silver thinks is their fanbase: a collection of necrophilia-worshipping, classic 'nerds' who are so repressed and feel that women are 'against' them, that they want a representation of the perfect woman. This is not the case, this was never the case, and the fact that they go so far as to attempt to absolve themselves of all blame is shocking and stupid to an extent I can't quite fathom.

Not only is this fucking disgusting, but it paints a pretty grim picture of what Deep Silver actually think of their fans, and the industry in general. I fail to see the reason behind the backlash against the outrage, seeing as the outrage is justified. If you don't feel offended, grand, nobody is saying you should and is attempting to shame you into thinking otherwise, what they are saying is that you should understand how it makes other people feel, and take into account how it represents and affects the position women in general, instead of saying 'it doesn't offend me, why does it offend you?' or what essentially equates to: 'I didn't read the article, but I'll leave an uninformed anti-feminism comment because being progressive is dumb'. As for the guys trying to use the old: 'what if it was a man's corpse?' crap...just go away, go back to your sandbox and don't pull the girl's pigtails just because you think they get special treatment over toys. Christ.

@OriginalGman: That's not offensive because Patrick didn't tell us to be offended.

@heatDrive88 said:

@RoyCampbell said:

This just screams "I needed justification for my outrage so I gathered up a handful of women's responses and regurgitated it on my LiveJour- I mean Giantbomb's front page."

You're a huge piece of shit of a person. Sorry.

That's a very angry and not at all nice thing to say.

Virtually anyone who visits this site probably thinks that's the dumbest fucking thing ever put out as promo material. Are you trying to impart some kind of lesson to someone? Deliver it to the completely fucked up marketing and PR team who let it exist. Who is this written for? All these articles you write are completely incongruous with the tone of the rest of the website, and serve no other purpose than to drive clicks from confused idiots who disagree with your common sense opinions for some reason. Go write this stuff freelance for Kotaku or something. This kind of click bait is not what GiantBomb is about.

"why is patrick being all political by respecting women" i'm sorry the comments some people on here make are hilarious

This article is completely one-sided, but hey that's Patrick's prerogative, I'm not complaining. People should chill the fuck out.

That said, I would've liked to read some counter arguments.

@posh said:

"why is patrick being all political by respecting women" i'm sorry the comments some people on here make are hilarious

Um............... um.......... no.

@crcruz3: you realize that commenting on misogyny is not a political view, right? Do you need the definition of political?

@quantumjustice said:

Just want to pop in and thank Patrick for being a journalist in a medium that doesn't have many of them, and get out before the insanity makes me even more angry.

Screw the haters Patrick, your a damn cool guy who's damn good at getting the scoop.

Rhianna Pratchett pointed out the one thing that really bugs me about that statue and thats the fact the breasts are perfectly round and have zero damage to them. Why didn't they do a zombified skull? Or if they had their hearts set on a torso, couldn't they have made it have a shirt on or something and have the whole thing zombified instead of having this set of perfect breasts in the middle for all to see. Or made it male and this would have never been an issue to begin with.

Human evolution has stalled.

Gamers are worthless trash

@quantumjustice said:

Just want to pop in and thank Patrick for being a journalist in a medium that doesn't have many of them, and get out before the insanity makes me even more angry.

Screw the haters Patrick, your a damn cool guy who's damn good at getting the scoop.

I can't agree with this more.

It would be nice to see contrasting view points. I'm male and find the statue distasteful, but I'm not outraged. We see all kinds of dumb video game merch, so it's all noise to me now.

@SniperXan said:

@quantumjustice said:

Just want to pop in and thank Patrick for being a journalist in a medium that doesn't have many of them, and get out before the insanity makes me even more angry.

Screw the haters Patrick, your a damn cool guy who's damn good at getting the scoop.

@TopCat88 said:

It is a shallow attempt to sell more copies of their game to boys. I agree that it's daft. It is not sexist. Sexist is hating women, not hiring or promoting a woman because of gender or giving a woman a lower salary. A collectible statue of a woman (dismembered, naked, alive, dead or otherwise) isn't sexist. It is distasteful.

No matter how to you put it, "not hiring or promoting a woman because of gender or giving a woman a lower salary", it's sexist and hateful. You see sexism is a social phenomenon based on hate towards women, either explicit or implied. It doesn't matter. Not hiring a woman, "because she's a woman", it's exactly that.

Now, just saying "it's distasteful" is the kind of word juggling we don't need. The attempt to reduce the complexity and gravity of things doesn't help anyone. This case is layered with several things that make it a bad PR stunt: the statue is sexist (again, implicitly or explicitly, it doesn't matter), it's distasteful, and it's a cry for attention. These three points of view don't exclude each other.

It's a stupid collector's edition bundle of a 2 year old game that no one was going to buy. I don't look at that torso and think, "fuck yeah looking at that sexy piece of bloody torso makes me want to go objectify women".

I think, "Wow what a stupid and juvenile marketing ploy, I bet that won't sell anything".

I am more than 100% sure that every person who saw that torso immediately thought the same thing I did.

You are all quite literally making a mountain out of a molehill. No one should of even given this bundle or whatever it is a second thought.

The funny thing is this thing is never going to stop happening. As long as their is a porn industry and sexy ladies make money, there will be sex in advertising. But as we all know, it's only sexist when men do it.

@2HeadedNinja: One part it was a joke. Two part to say Gaben is just a stupid meme some people are sick off.

@RoyCampbell said:

This just screams "I needed justification for my outrage so I gathered up a handful of women's responses and regurgitated it on my LiveJour- I mean Giantbomb's front page."

You're a huge piece of shit of a person. Sorry.

@RobbleWobble said:

Human evolution has stalled.

@pinochet said:

Gamers are worthless trash

Both very measured, necessary comments, that bring value to the comments section.

/s

@Milkman said:

@InsidiousTuna

Klepek's closing statement from a previous article on games industry sexism is exceptionally relevant.

"I’m a guy, I’ve never had to deal with any of these problems. But I’m willing to admit where there’s smoke, there’s probably fire, and listening is helpful, informative. If you don’t want to listen, you don’t have to. No one is forcing you. Just stop shouting down others who want to."

New strategy for these comments. Instead of going back and forth with people who make the same arguments over and over again, (by the way, I'm seeing a lot of familiar names from the other articles trying to shout down the sexism discussion again...very interesting, maybe that should tell us something) I'm going to point out all the posts that I agree with and make great points. Like this one!

Here's a significant problem.

When one side presents an argument that states that there is sexism in the industry, another side will make a counter-argument based on the evidence shown within the original argument (if there is any). These arguments range in quality, but there are many that rely on the logical presentation of reason and evidence to unravel spurious claims made by the original.

At this point, rather than logically identify and examine the counter-argument, the original makes such claims as "they're trying to shout me down" and "you don't have to read it if you don't like it". In this method, they completely bypass logic and prey upon red herrings; that of 'I have a right to my opinion' being irrelevant to the actual discussion at hand, or that of the very act of disagreeing in some way is a denial of free speech. Both are clear logical fallacies, and should be immediately identified as such.

Bravo to @PatrickKelpek for not letting this fall by the wayside and following up with a well put together piece. I'm still confused by people who didn't see this as an issue. Let's say that you don't fall into the category of people who found it offensive. Even then what about the PR debacle this is for gaming in general. Thankfully this didn't end up on Fox News or CNN like so many other missteps (real or perceived) in the gaming industry.

@Dookysharpgun said:

Vanessa Hunter has said everything that needed to be said on the matter really, and it's the exact same thing that I mentioned in the previous thread about this. It's literally putting forward a headless, legless, armless corpse with two perfect breasts - effectively removing any resemblance to a woman - to market to what Deep Silver thinks is their fanbase: a collection of necrophilia-worshipping, classic 'nerds' who are so repressed and feel that women are 'against' them, that they want a representation of the perfect woman. This is not the case, this was never the case, and the fact that they go so far as to attempt to absolve themselves of all blame is shocking and stupid to an extent I can't quite fathom.

Not only is this fucking disgusting, but it paints a pretty grim picture of what Deep Silver actually think of their fans, and the industry in general. I fail to see the reason behind the backlash against the outrage, seeing as the outrage is justified. If you don't feel offended, grand, nobody is saying you should and is attempting to shame you into thinking otherwise, what they are saying is that you should understand how it makes other people feel, and take into account how it represents and affects the position women in general, instead of saying 'it doesn't offend me, why does it offend you?' or what essentially equates to: 'I didn't read the article, but I'll leave an uninformed anti-feminism comment because being progressive is dumb'. As for the guys trying to use the old: 'what if it was a man's corpse?' crap...just go away, go back to your sandbox and don't pull the girl's pigtails just because you think they get special treatment over toys. Christ.

You have serious issues my friend. People who have bought this would not haven been classic "nerds" what ever that is. It would have been horror and expoitation fans. That is exactly what these kind of movies with zombies and gore movie represented back in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

@Keres: Have you paid much attention to the Republican "forced transvaginal ultrasounds for all sluts and while we're at it let's redefine rape" Party lately?

No I haven't. I'm not getting into Democrat/Republican arguments. It bores me.

@Milkman said:

@Darji

@DazzHardy said:

It kind of saddens me that people think that not talking about these things is the best way to get them to stop. Simply ignoring the problems won't make them go away. This is one of those cases were it needs to be talked about often enough and as publicly as possible so that people understand why it's not a great idea to do dumb stuff like this. When it's been talked to death, that's when I think we'll start seeing it not come up so often, and thus not need to be spoken of so much.

No one is ignoring the problem. Yes there is sexcism yes there is sexcism regarding both genders. And yes there is certainly sexism in every media which includes games as well. But this has nothing to do with it. Not one thing on this statue is objectifying woman. It is just a tool used by extreme fems and nothing more.

I see eight women who disagree with you. What does that tell you? Are they all "extreme fems?"

I do not know them personally. So what if these are eight woman? Where are these eight woman who do not think like this. . My friend for example is a female gamer and she does not think it is sexist in any form. Marcus Bears wife thinks it is stupid but not sexist. Do you reeally think that these eight woman represents the whole opinion of the gaming world?

This article is extremely one sided and that is the main issue here.

Wait, so half the women writing here were complaining about the breasts look like implants... so does that mean it would have been ok if they were more naturalistic looking ones...?

@Abendlaender: Yeah I wish the internet could stop being the internet for a moment so we could have a real honest grown-up talk about all this because it really is something that should be discussed. It's ripe for real debate and analisis. Just probably not on the internet where the neckbeards need their boobie dolls...

@Xeirus said:

@BlastProcessing said:

At least Patrick didn't quote himself this time. Still, this progressive, Kotaku-esque clickbait shit needs to stop, It's a horrible statue made in bad taste, nothing to cry about.

I'm guessing you're a guy, who hasn't delt with sexism. You shouldn't dismiss things you have no experience with.

Well if I wanna learn more about the topic, I'd much prefer having articles that tackle both sides of the coin, and aren't sensationalist.

Why isn't there at least one argument that's from the other side of the statue debacle in this article? I'm sure myself and others would like to hear from the other side as well.