Exposing sexism in this generation

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Jeust

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#1  Edited By Jeust

Do you think exposing sexism in this console generation, has anything to do with last generation tap into the casual market and the expansion of mobile gaming widening the audience for video games, and bringing a new female audience to the market?

Sexism in the gaming market wasn't born this generation or the last, but I think discussion never happened in the 6th generation of consoles.

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StarvingGamer

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Not the casual market, just growing pains of a young medium as it struggles to mature, accelerated a thousandfold by the proliferation of social media.

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Jeust

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Not the casual market, just growing pains of a young medium as it struggles to mature, accelerated a thousandfold by the proliferation of social media.

But isn't that acceleration caused also by the expansion of the consumer market?

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EXTomar

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#4  Edited By EXTomar

@jeust:

It is possible that the "dynamics" have changed over the last generation. I wonder if it is more about "guys don't buy so much any more" more than "we want to sell to girls".

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Corvak

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Not so much the casual market, as its initial core audience growing older.

a lot of men who got into games (at least, mature games) in their teens have wives and daughters now, so they are less likely to shrug off sexist content.

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Evermoore

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To some degree, I think it is because of a larger interest in "societal issues" in general. With the internet having such a high adoption rate (and people seeming to use it now more than ever before) movements can spread really, really quickly. Spreading awareness about things isn't new, it's just easier now than ever.

The more divisive the argument, too, the more widespread it gets picked up on forums, twitter, articles, etc. What exacerbates this is that this is a pretty niche area of both interest and the internet. Step outside of the enthusiast videogame bubble and virtually no one even knows this argument exists. People actively searching for news stories might, but even then you'd have to go pretty deep.

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Jeust

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@extomar said:

@jeust:

It is possible that the "dynamics" have changed over the last generation. I wonder if it is more about "guys don't buy so much any more" more than "we want to sell to girls".

Yeah. I think most advocates of feminist changes are women, so it appears women are growing in the consumer base, and demanding change.

@corvak said:

Not so much the casual market, as its initial core audience growing older.

a lot of men who got into games (at least, mature games) in their teens have wives and daughters now, so they are less likely to shrug off sexist content.

Yeah, and those wifes and daughters have been introduced to video games.

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Mortuss_Zero

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#8  Edited By Mortuss_Zero

Well, I think a few people galzanized the many people who wanted to talk about this, so a dialogue really started. But some of those galvanizers didn't do it in the best way and ruffled the feathers of a lot of people who were largely comfortable with how things were, so those people started getting super pissy and offensive. Then a giant internet war broke out and everyone depressed me. Why can't we have games where women are awesome and kick ass and immature games where they don't at the same time? Not every game is made for the same audience, just like not every movie is for the same audience. You can enjoy something immature and childish without being a bad person. Especially when it's fiction.

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StarvingGamer

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#9  Edited By StarvingGamer

@jeust said:

@starvinggamer said:

Not the casual market, just growing pains of a young medium as it struggles to mature, accelerated a thousandfold by the proliferation of social media.

But isn't that acceleration caused also by the expansion of the consumer market?

Consumer market yes, hence growing pains. Not the casual market specifically, though.

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Jeust

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#10  Edited By Jeust

@starvinggamer said:

@jeust said:

@starvinggamer said:

Not the casual market, just growing pains of a young medium as it struggles to mature, accelerated a thousandfold by the proliferation of social media.

But isn't that acceleration caused also by the expansion of the consumer market?

Consumer market yes, hence growing pains. Not the casual market specifically, though.

But it also grew greatly, and expanded the consumer base.

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Nasar7

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#11  Edited By Nasar7

Most games journalism is based in California, and increasingly, New York City. In the post-objectivist era that most major gaming publications/websites operate in, writers need to distinguish themselves by saying something about the games they cover besides facts like frame rate, resolution, etc, tying back into cultural/art/social issues. Liberal writers write liberal articles. Not all segments of the gaming community agree with said viewpoints or simply dislike the politicalization of video games, making them feel underrepresented.

Well, I think a few people galzanized the many people who wanted to talk about this, so a dialogue really started. But some of those galvanizers didn't do it in the best way and ruffled the feathers of a lot of people who were largely comfortable with how things were, so those people started getting super pissy and offensive. Then a giant internet war broke out and everyone depressed me. Why can't we have games where women are awesome and kick ass and immature games where they don't at the same time? Not every game is made for the same audience, just like not every movie is for the same audience. You can enjoy something immature and childish without being a bad person. Especially when it's fiction.

I think the pseudo-intellectuals in the press annoy me more than the general public. They should know better. They should be professionals. They should know it's not a zero sum game. Like you said, there can be games with strong female characters (Portal) and there can be games where you save the damsel in distress (Mario). As if General Motors should stop making Corvettes just because some people don't like sports cars and would rather drive Priuses. It all comes off as a very childish, naive worldview and I can't take them seriously.

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deactivated-6050ef4074a17

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Part of what makes discussions of sexism/racism/homophobia in any medium so difficult (and so frustrating and arbitrary) is that what people perceive as sexist/misogynistic changes over time and is so contextual. People looking at Metal Gear Solid or Tomb Raider through a modern lens see base fanservice that has little critical value. "Ugh, look, Lara Croft's boobs are so big, this is pandering." "You have to find Meryl by the shape and wiggle of her butt? Gross; turning this person into an object is so disgusting." But its not so simple.

MGS and Tomb Raider showed strong, independent women who were comfortable in their femininity, and their sexuality was empowerment, not just fanservice, and stood far and above other game characters at the time. MGS may have sexualized its female characters in certain scenes, but they were also fiercely strong, well-written and realized female characters who were comfortable in themselves, and told Snake to fuck off when he was being a creep.

It reminds me of when people look at the skirts that old-school Star Trek women used to wear. "Ugh, well of course they would wear skirts since they're girls, how cheap." But then people forget that Star Trek was born from the 60s, right in the wave of the sexual revolution. Those skirts were seen as a way for women to dress openly and provocatively and still be smart, powerful, independent women, respected in their work place as equals. Who could use their own femininity without anyone telling them how to dress or act. People forget things like this because how we think sexism is changes over time.

And through cultures, too. Hatsune Miku may be inherently creepy to people like Jeff, but to the creators and the business folks behind her, she's really not meant to be that way. Plenty of people outside of the biz may have done weird stuff with her, but it's not the intent. She's taken deathly seriously by some people; her music legitimately celebrated and appreciated. But many people in our culture make no effort to understand the cultural differences. (Which, ironically, could be construed as mildly racist.)

Tomodachi Life, for instance, is accused of being homophobic by the Western-centric games press. An insult to gays everywhere! But it wasn't. It was made for a Japanese audience that had no real appetite for features like homosexual relationships, so they simply weren't included in the design. After the fact, it was brought to North America, and everyone was outraged that it didn't conform to our cultural standards. How dare the Japanese not abide by American sociopolitical standards! But of course they wouldn't; they're a completely different society. It was a bummer it wasn't included, but it wasn't meanspirited.

What makes discussions of these issues often so divisive is because these contextual factors are often through straight out the window, and the language is black and white. There are only absolutes, with no accounting for culture or time. It's very silly.

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StarvingGamer

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@jeust said:

@starvinggamer said:

@jeust said:

@starvinggamer said:

Not the casual market, just growing pains of a young medium as it struggles to mature, accelerated a thousandfold by the proliferation of social media.

But isn't that acceleration caused also by the expansion of the consumer market?

Consumer market yes, hence growing pains. Not the casual market specifically, though.

But it also grew greatly, and expanded the consumer base.

Sure, but I'd be surprised if there was a significant level of crossover. The type of people who got started playing Candy Crush probably aren't transitioning into Gears of War. If I had to guess, I'd imagine that it has more to do with the fact that girls who grew up playing games are turning into women who are playing/making games and that men who were playing/making games have become husbands and fathers.

That's just what I have observed from the people talking and they way they're talking. I don't have any statistics or anything.

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Jeust

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#14  Edited By Jeust

@jeust said:

@starvinggamer said:

@jeust said:

@starvinggamer said:

Not the casual market, just growing pains of a young medium as it struggles to mature, accelerated a thousandfold by the proliferation of social media.

But isn't that acceleration caused also by the expansion of the consumer market?

Consumer market yes, hence growing pains. Not the casual market specifically, though.

But it also grew greatly, and expanded the consumer base.

Sure, but I'd be surprised if there was a significant level of crossover. The type of people who got started playing Candy Crush probably aren't transitioning into Gears of War. If I had to guess, I'd imagine that it has more to do with the fact that girls who grew up playing games are turning into women who are playing/making games and that men who were playing/making games have become husbands and fathers.

That's just what I have observed from the people talking and they way they're talking. I don't have any statistics or anything.

My reasoning has as much proof as yours. I think women got more involved in gaming last generation and that is showing this generation. They got more in tune to what is happening in the market. :)

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bacongames

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Actually what's curious is that exactly what didn't happen. It seemed that whatever audience came into games via the Wii and now smart phones and tablets are very much sort of a neutral mass that has had little in the way of cultural influence on games outside of indirect demographic incentives. The latter idea mostly referring to games being made to explicitly address the likely larger female player base on mobile and Facebook. Otherwise it seems that the factors associated with their entry via mobile exclusively is mediating the relationship between them and their participation in any discussions.

I think the real base came from a combination of writers, more independent and vocal developers, and social media coming together to increase the frequency and intensity of such discussion. The internet is indeed an important factor but I believe it is acting as an exponential factor in exchange of information and therefore discussion and also conflict over it. Even this I think is partially only possible to move as fast as it has thanks to the independent scene both in its viability and ability to convene in local manners thanks to conventions and such. We already know how slow to move large company structures are and many decisions are arbitrary or in the minds of executives that it's better to play it safe rather than stir the pot. Independent devs both as vocal individuals and game makers themselves are less constrained in that specific sense.

And as someone already mentioned, there may be something to more and more people who played games for a long time starting families and also many young girls who grew up playing games in the past decade or two transitioning into making them or wanting to cover it. Just two days ago I was speaking with a young woman who is part of a 4 person team working Slash Dash who came out of the NYU Game Center. I asked her, since she was both a minor in the program and a CS major, what the demographics were like. She said there is a lot of good diversity in the NYU Game Center program which we agreed was promising and showed that in the design space, maybe a little less than the programming side, there are people of different backgrounds coming to the fore.

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@jeust said:

Yeah. I think most advocates of feminist changes are women, so it appears women are growing in the consumer base, and demanding change.

Yeah, and those wifes and daughters have been introduced to video games.

A weird result of all of the recent talk regarding sexism in games is that we've accepted a new narrative where girls have always been excluded if not incessantly harassed, and as a result have become totally ignorant of them. As if a girl trying to use a PS4 controller is like a guy trying to use an eyelash curler. Except... that's just not the case and never really has been.

Advertizing for games in the late 80s and ever since has been narrowly focused on young straight white males, but that doesn't mean girls didn't also play games. They certainly played less because there were less games made to appeal directly to them, but they still played. My GF and her sister grew up devouring all of the great Disney games on their genesis. She's better at Aladdin than I am, and that game is fucking hard. But to be clear, and this is the point, she doesn't even really like games in general. Kids of a certain age (we're both 30) just played games growing up. It's part of what you did with your friends. And with the handheld revolution starting with the GameBoy up 'till right now, more and more girls and women played. I knew multiple kids way back when who would get pissed that their GameBoy batteries were constantly dead because their moms would play Tetris non-stop.

So the notion that "those wifes and daughters have been introduced to video games", like an 80 year xenophobe being "introduced to sushi", as if some alien culture just landed and is experiencing a shocking human thing for the first time, just isn't really reality.

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#17 FinalDasa  Moderator

I think people are now growing up with video games and are expecting video games to mature with them.

It has very little about women coming in as players but more than players are looking for different experiences. No one wants to keep playing the games they played when they were 12.

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charlie_victor_bravo

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@jeust said:

Do you think exposing sexism in this console generation, has anything to do with last generation tap into the casual market and the expansion of mobile gaming widening the audience for video games, and bringing a new female audience to the market?

Sexism in the gaming market wasn't born this generation or the last, but I think discussion never happened in the 6th generation of consoles.

No, it has risen from social media pandering and trying to find a new ways to prove ones own righteousness to everyone else (also it brings more ad revenue).

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Gaff

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Counterpoint:

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monkeyking1969

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The discussion of sexism is in the culture, and because that discussion is happening in the wider culture there is of course spill over into the game industry. It could even be argued that in the tech industry there has been a slowness to add women in certain positions, or in fact there was an earlier time where women had more key positions and a huge backslide occurred where as the industry expanded the amount of women as a percentage decreased.

Roberta Williams (producer), Carol Shaw (programmer, designer), Dona Bailey (arcade game designer), Anne Westfall (programmer, company founder), Jane Jensen (writer, designer), Brenda Laurel (writer, designer), and Amy Briggs (creator, designer) were all in early to gaming industry. Yet, as gaming as industry got bigger new names were not added to that list as much; so early gains of women in the industry were overshadowed by a boom of mostly men working for (and with) mostly men.

The other issue for gaming is sexism is cropping up in all aspects from production, to product, to advertising, to sales. It is a multifront issue for the game industry unlike other industries. In insurance the sexism might be in the office, but the insurance policies, as a product, are not full of sexist imagery. Insurance commercials might be a lot of things but they don't often have women in bikinis having found Snoopy, a sock puppet, and a CGI lizard work better.

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tourgen

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Video games, the next front in the post-modern war on reason and enlightenment. Who would have guessed?

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GERALTITUDE

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We've been discussing sexism and racism in games since the inception of the medium, it just never made the headlines.

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TruthTellah

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#24  Edited By TruthTellah

I think the ever-expanding audience surrounding gaming has certainly helped energize efforts to improve and diversify gaming, but as @joshwent noted, this likely has more to do with people growing up and eventually feeling they can talk about these things more openly.

For the most part, everyone I know who cares about discussing sexism and diversity in games and the gaming community are people who have liked games their whole lives. Men and women. I've seen a lot of female fans feel like maybe it's okay to express themselves more, and I've seen men growing up and seeing that perhaps these things matter, as well.

I mean, I've loved games most of my life, and I've cared about issues like this. Yet, it has only felt like I could discuss them openly in the last few years. That's not because I didn't feel the same way or have similar concerns before now; it's more that gaming didn't feel like a welcome environment for such discussions. More prominent voices coming out and talking about their own concerns has helped me and others feel more comfortable with it. Stuff like this has been discussed privately since gaming began; it's just now actually getting real, enduring attention. Outlets and developers have been slowly realizing that many people who play games actually do care about these things and we appreciate them being discussed.

It's important that we not mistake recent changes as just new voices coming into gaming; women, minorities, and a diverse range of people have enjoyed games for a long time now. We have just seen a welcome shift with gaming feeling like it's the domain of a far wider audience. In the past, I often felt like only a few perspectives were being seen and the gamer identity felt detached from who I and others actually are, and recent efforts have been made to expand the range of what we can talk about and reclaim what it means to simply be someone that enjoys games.

So, while the ever-growing audience of casual gamers has had an impact, returning some of the mass appeal of the arcade era, a great deal of the social changes have come from a shift in the environment surrounding games, allowing it to feel more and more like a place that equally belongs to me as much as it belongs to you or anyone else. And I am increasingly grateful for that. :)

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PandaBear

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#25  Edited By PandaBear

I'm genuinely confused why you're breaking it down into console generations? I mean are games more sexist because Microsoft and Sony switched to x86 processors? Seriously... you could say over the last decade there's been a greater attempt to tell stories in different ways and that has lead to creative works that some would find offensive or whatever. But I mean saying the discussion didn't happen during the last (sixth) generation ... I mean what?

These new consoles are literally a year old, it's not like discussions about feminism and sexism started November 2013. Gamers (can I still say that?) are obsessed with breaking things down into managable chunks. There's grey areas here too.

Also this who casual market thing is odd. These are people too right. They have their owne established values and aren't fumbling their way onto expensive new consoles then turning around and saying 'These games are sexist!'. The vast majority of games don't post on forums or engage like this... in fact most just play games and that's it.

And frankly people should be more critical of the sources of these discussions. Games are absoluelty going through a cultural transition, but there's a lot of misplace chivalry going on too. And it's also possible to find Anita Sarkeesian's video ill-informed and poorly reasoned (not to mention featuring plagiarised works) and still think that sexism in games is an issue.

tl;dr Games have had sexism issues long before the launch of the Xbox One/PS4.

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Mortuss_Zero

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#26  Edited By Mortuss_Zero

@joshwent: And boy can I attest, I have no friggin clue how to use an eyelash curler.

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TruthTellah

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@joshwent: And boy can I attest, I have no friggin clue how to use an eyelash curler.

Trust me, no one does. They're monstrous little devices. ha.

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TruthTellah

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#29  Edited By TruthTellah

Also, if anyone is sincerely wondering why more people seem to be talking about this stuff these days, it's cool to just ask.

I mean, it's definitely not some big conspiracy or just dumb writers getting on a high horse all of a sudden. It's real people who enjoy games just like you and care about these kinds of things. Our different perspectives and feelings have a place in gaming, because we play games, too.

I can understand some confusion or even frustration at changes not being to your liking, as the way things were may feel more comfortable for you, but I personally quite appreciate gaming feeling more and more like a place we can consider and talk about these things. We're living in a great time in gaming, and I genuinely believe games and the community around them will be even better in the future thanks to many efforts being made today. :)

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maddman60620

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When you look at film, tv, music, books, all media.... issues like sexism, race, class, etc. are topic that are fair game when someone is being a critic of a story or anything really.... I think when it comes to videogames its always been there just not really a platform to discuss anything about it...... I think that the current and pass generation of people, not consoles, just don't handle anything well when anything is oppose to their personal preference pair that up with an age in tech-no-logic where you can leap before you look by yelling through text anonymously from the comfort of your own home with a wider audience..... from the most part games media or "journalism" has been pretty much been a big advertisement, back in the 80's as a kid stuff like Gamepro, Nintendo Power, etc looking back at it, where nothing more than ads to get me geeked for a game I'd bug my parents to get... fuel for the schoolyard fire for kids to argue over with was better Sega or Nintendo based on a score in a magazine..... Like movies the issue have always been there, just takes a while for people to gain an platform to talk about it....

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jerseyscum

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I blame social media. Twitter, Tumblr and clickbait culture has allowed any 3rd rate blogger or outrage troll to gain an audience and be actually taken seriously.

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Einhert

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#32  Edited By Einhert

I pose a question

Could it not be considered sexist if you cannot identify with a character just because of their sexuality?

I see the point being raised that there is not enough main female characters in games these days so that is sexist but is it not sexist in of itself if females cannot identify with a character just because they are male?

I really loved Tomb Raider and totally identified and understood everything Lara was going through.

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President_Barackbar

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Also, if anyone is sincerely wondering why more people seem to be talking about this stuff these days, it's cool to just ask.

I mean, it's definitely not some big conspiracy or just dumb writers getting on a high horse all of a sudden. It's real people who enjoy games just like you and care about these kinds of things. Our different perspectives and feelings have a place in gaming, because we play games, too.

I can understand some confusion or even frustration at changes not being to your liking, as the way things were may feel more comfortable for you, but I personally quite appreciate gaming feeling more and more like a place we can consider and talk about these things. We're living in a great time in gaming, and I genuinely believe games and the community around them will be even better in the future thanks to many efforts being made today. :)

I think its more that people like myself don't feel that the "conversation" is much of one. One of the reasons I generally despise atheism discussions on the internet (like the infamous subreddit /r/atheism) is that they feel like gigantic echo chambers. Very few people on the aforementioned subreddit seem interested in doing things like discussing the merits of belief vs. atheism and how they can coexist in society, but more about having discussions about how any person of belief is a deluded idiot who doesn't have a rational thought in their head. The sexism and gaming debate feels largely the same, its not about discussing representation of women in games or in the industry and examining what the root causes are (like gaming being characterized initially as something only sad lonely virgin males did or women generally not being encouraged to go into STEM fields) but rather about how games are sexist because they are made for and by gross misogynists who want to keep women out of their boy's club because vaginas are icky or some such nonsense. It seems to me like a far more reasonable course of action is to go after the root causes of why women aren't represented, which is because there aren't a lot of women in games, which has to do with the perceptions of STEM fields. As the old saying goes, you catch a lot more flies with honey rather than vinegar, and it seems like all we get from games press is vinegar about how hateful and sexist gamers and game makers are.

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TruthTellah

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@truthtellah said:

Also, if anyone is sincerely wondering why more people seem to be talking about this stuff these days, it's cool to just ask.

I mean, it's definitely not some big conspiracy or just dumb writers getting on a high horse all of a sudden. It's real people who enjoy games just like you and care about these kinds of things. Our different perspectives and feelings have a place in gaming, because we play games, too.

I can understand some confusion or even frustration at changes not being to your liking, as the way things were may feel more comfortable for you, but I personally quite appreciate gaming feeling more and more like a place we can consider and talk about these things. We're living in a great time in gaming, and I genuinely believe games and the community around them will be even better in the future thanks to many efforts being made today. :)

I think its more that people like myself don't feel that the "conversation" is much of one. One of the reasons I generally despise atheism discussions on the internet (like the infamous subreddit /r/atheism) is that they feel like gigantic echo chambers. Very few people on the aforementioned subreddit seem interested in doing things like discussing the merits of belief vs. atheism and how they can coexist in society, but more about having discussions about how any person of belief is a deluded idiot who doesn't have a rational thought in their head. The sexism and gaming debate feels largely the same, its not about discussing representation of women in games or in the industry and examining what the root causes are (like gaming being characterized initially as something only sad lonely virgin males did or women generally not being encouraged to go into STEM fields) but rather about how games are sexist because they are made for and by gross misogynists who want to keep women out of their boy's club because vaginas are icky or some such nonsense. It seems to me like a far more reasonable course of action is to go after the root causes of why women aren't represented, which is because there aren't a lot of women in games, which has to do with the perceptions of STEM fields. As the old saying goes, you catch a lot more flies with honey rather than vinegar, and it seems like all we get from games press is vinegar about how hateful and sexist gamers and game makers are.

See, I hear people say this a decent bit, but that isn't what I've seen over the years. A lot of times, when people do try to have a conversation, you just get people telling them to be quiet, let games be fun, and stop ruining gaming. And when you object to that, people say we can't even have the conversation because it's obviously broken and doesn't serve anything.

So, it's a lot of people messing up efforts to discuss things and then pointing to the failure of those discussions as a sign of it being something we shouldn't discuss. Kind of like how many US Republicans against the Affordable Care Act said it was unnecessary, then when it was passed, they said it was just harmful, then they made efforts to defund it and keep it from being implemented, and finally, they pointed to the failures in implementation which they helped cause as a sign that the law is a failure. People regularly putting obstacles to us having decent discussions on difficult topics then later come back and say, "Well, look how bad discussions have gone in the past."

I'm here. A lot of fellow duders care about the same stuff I and others care about. And we're not going away. I know I'm interested in talking about these things, and even if you don't agree that our concerns are valid or ideas are the best thing for gaming, that doesn't mean it's a conversation to avoid. I think the "gaming needs more women" as a solution to the problems in gaming fits with the narrative that changes have only been coming because of new people coming in, but that's simply not the case.

While more women in gaming can be helpful and more people coming into gaming has had an impact, they aren't the sole or even primary reasons we have seen a change as of late in what can be addressed in the gaming community. It's primarily attention finally being given to the concerns that have been here for years and the many people who play games and feel their perspectives matter just as much as those the industry has pandered to for years.

Gaming used to feel like it mainly belonged to a subset of people that play games, but more and more, people have realized that gaming can belong to all of us. And it's okay to speak up and share our feelings on things. We should feel we can all be safe and have fun in the gaming community. That isn't the case for many, and so, people are naturally letting their voices be heard.

I want to actually have decent conversations on these topics, as hopefully illustrated by my years here on Giant Bomb. People seem to generally regard me as a nice enough fellow. I don't think I'm out to get anyone. I just care about what I care about, and I'm here to talk about everything surrounding gaming. That's true of me and many, many people here and all throughout the gaming community. If you perceive problems in how we discuss difficult topics, help lead by example and improve our discussions. Threads on difficult topics don't have to devolve after a page or two. Just mentioning women in regards to a game shouldn't mean a thread will have to be locked eventually. We should be able to talk about these things here and elsewhere, and considering I still talk about them here, I obviously believe we can.

A lot of people have been trying to scare me off for years, even on a cool place like Giant Bomb, but I'm not going to be deterred. I like having fun, and I enjoy discussion around every part of gaming. Yet another snide mockery or random comment telling me to fuck off or don't bother with caring about any of this or even a PM saying how someone is gonna rape me in the night for crossing them are not going to get me to just stop talking about what I want to talk about.

I think we can talk about all of this on Giant Bomb. Sexism, diversity, prejudice, you name it. The sky's the limit. And while likely imperfect in countless ways, discussion can and should be had. This stuff matters to me and many other gamers, and it's not going away any time soon. If you're interested in decent discussion, we absolutely can have it, and no amount of doubts are going to keep folks like me from trying.

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A lot of these issues are sensationalized, the way these issues are exploited by journalists speaks more to how the art of productive conversation has been exchanged for Jerry Springer style chair throwing. A moderated agitation designed to create as much rage and instability as possible. We will be fine though, a storm can only last so long.

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@truthtellah: I'm not exactly sure if you read what I wrote, because I don't believe I ever said anything to the effect of "we need to stop talking about it." In fact, I don't feel like most of what you wrote has much to do with what I said at all. My argument at its core is that I believe that people who play games and the games press really need to come together and decide what the conversation is. Are we discussing how we can get more representation in games, or are we discussing how games are mostly sexist and perpetuate sexist ideals? I'm interested in the first one, not so much in the second because the question is loaded, and as a man anything I say is most likely going to be shouted down as contributing to sexism in games. I don't also deny that it is important, unfortunately, to tell a small extreme portion of the internet that their presence (and death threats) are unwelcome in the discussion.

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@truthtellah: I'm not exactly sure if you read what I wrote, because I don't believe I ever said anything to the effect of "we need to stop talking about it." In fact, I don't feel like most of what you wrote has much to do with what I said at all. My argument at its core is that I believe that people who play games and the games press really need to come together and decide what the conversation is. Are we discussing how we can get more representation in games, or are we discussing how games are mostly sexist and perpetuate sexist ideals? I'm interested in the first one, not so much in the second because the question is loaded, and as a man anything I say is most likely going to be shouted down as contributing to sexism in games. I don't also deny that it is important, unfortunately, to tell a small extreme portion of the internet that their presence (and death threats) are unwelcome in the discussion.

I think we've already been having that conversation for years, and the answer seems to be a resounding: that and more. We're gonna talk about representation in games and every kind of potential problem in games. That's what I mean. It isn't about what is allowed or agreed upon anymore. It's a wider variety of people feeling they can express themselves on every aspect of games.

If you want to have everyone agree on what will be talked about, that's not really the point. We shouldn't have to all agree on what will be talked about, because obviously, we all like to talk about different things. At the moment, a lot of people want to talk about their feelings regarding women and diversity in gaming, and that's going to happen. If you want to discuss that, too, you're free to join in. It's why we're here on Giant Bomb in a forum to discuss things. And if you want to talk about something else, you can do that, too. I'm sure there's already another Destiny thread while I typed this. heh.

If someone is concerned about how a game depicts black people or another person wonders about the issues surrounding brothels in games, they should be able to bring it up, and you can join in to talking about it if you want. As long as you aren't mocking them or pressuring them to be quiet, things can get along fine. I don't see why they can't. I've seen countless threads get out of hand when women or difficult subjects are brought up, and I've seen a lot of ignorance and callousness at times, as well. But threads keep being made and comments continue to be written, because they're things people in the gaming community want to discuss.

And since I and so many others are still here despite difficulties over time, we obviously still believe Giant Bomb can be a place for such topics. If you feel that way, too, then there's no issue. You don't have to talk about this stuff if you don't want to; I know it can be a real drag. But if you do, you're always welcome to talk to me and the great many people who enjoy games just like you do. :)

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@marokai said:

Part of what makes discussions of sexism/racism/homophobia in any medium so difficult (and so frustrating and arbitrary) is that what people perceive as sexist/misogynistic changes over time and is so contextual. People looking at Metal Gear Solid or Tomb Raider through a modern lens see base fanservice that has little critical value. "Ugh, look, Lara Croft's boobs are so big, this is pandering." "You have to find Meryl by the shape and wiggle of her butt? Gross; turning this person into an object is so disgusting." But its not so simple.

MGS and Tomb Raider showed strong, independent women who were comfortable in their femininity, and their sexuality was empowerment, not just fanservice, and stood far and above other game characters at the time. MGS may have sexualized its female characters in certain scenes, but they were also fiercely strong, well-written and realized female characters who were comfortable in themselves, and told Snake to fuck off when he was being a creep.

It reminds me of when people look at the skirts that old-school Star Trek women used to wear. "Ugh, well of course they would wear skirts since they're girls, how cheap." But then people forget that Star Trek was born from the 60s, right in the wave of the sexual revolution. Those skirts were seen as a way for women to dress openly and provocatively and still be smart, powerful, independent women, respected in their work place as equals. Who could use their own femininity without anyone telling them how to dress or act. People forget things like this because how we think sexism is changes over time.

And through cultures, too. Hatsune Miku may be inherently creepy to people like Jeff, but to the creators and the business folks behind her, she's really not meant to be that way. Plenty of people outside of the biz may have done weird stuff with her, but it's not the intent. She's taken deathly seriously by some people; her music legitimately celebrated and appreciated. But many people in our culture make no effort to understand the cultural differences. (Which, ironically, could be construed as mildly racist.)

Tomodachi Life, for instance, is accused of being homophobic by the Western-centric games press. An insult to gays everywhere! But it wasn't. It was made for a Japanese audience that had no real appetite for features like homosexual relationships, so they simply weren't included in the design. After the fact, it was brought to North America, and everyone was outraged that it didn't conform to our cultural standards. How dare the Japanese not abide by American sociopolitical standards! But of course they wouldn't; they're a completely different society. It was a bummer it wasn't included, but it wasn't meanspirited.

What makes discussions of these issues often so divisive is because these contextual factors are often through straight out the window, and the language is black and white. There are only absolutes, with no accounting for culture or time. It's very silly.

If this were in an open forum at a local city hall I'd stand up and applaud.

Well said, duder.

QFT =)

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audioBusting

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No. Women and people of minorities have been playing video games since its inception. There is a larger audience in general now, male and female, white and otherwise. The growing audience is not just getting more "casual girl gamers", as some would call them. It's pretty sad to see people accusing women who have worked in the industry for decades to be a part of this "new age gamers". The increasing awareness of issues of prejudice out of video games might be a factor as well.

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#40  Edited By Slag

@jeust:

I'm sure the widening reach of videogames only helps bring more women into the fold as "gamers" but I don't think that's the primary cause or anything specific to women. I do think the mobile market has been much savvier in realizing that women are a massive untapped gaming market and has done a much better job of trying to cultivate them as customers than the AAA console market has.

But the bottom line you are just noticing the discussion now. That's the primary difference, this has been going on for decades. The difference today is twitter and other social media platforms make it so much easier for all people to express their opinion and be heard (and unfortunately harass and threaten people too), and also in some ways make it harder to avoid as well. If you didn't like the state of games in 1995, I suppose you could throw up a geocities page about it. Or years later a Livejournal etc. But few if anybody would likely ever read it compared to the tools we have today. The fact that more people speak up and are being heard is emboldening others to do the same. It's a lot easier to say you aren't happy with this or this aspect about games if you know you can find support.

There has been dedicated female gamers ever since gaming's inception, I don't blame them one bit for being pissed that the industry has basically ignored them for decades whether it be through marketing, game design or hiring.

@marokai said:

Part of what makes discussions of sexism/racism/homophobia in any medium so difficult (and so frustrating and arbitrary) is that what people perceive as sexist/misogynistic changes over time and is so contextual. People looking at Metal Gear Solid or Tomb Raider through a modern lens see base fanservice that has little critical value. "Ugh, look, Lara Croft's boobs are so big, this is pandering." "You have to find Meryl by the shape and wiggle of her butt? Gross; turning this person into an object is so disgusting." But its not so simple.

MGS and Tomb Raider showed strong, independent women who were comfortable in their femininity, and their sexuality was empowerment, not just fanservice, and stood far and above other game characters at the time. MGS may have sexualized its female characters in certain scenes, but they were also fiercely strong, well-written and realized female characters who were comfortable in themselves, and told Snake to fuck off when he was being a creep.

I think you made some great points as you often do, but that part about Tomb Raider is a bit off the mark according to how I remember it going down with that game. Calling PS1 era Lara Croft a well written & realized empowered female character is a bit of a stretch. Buffy the Vampire Slayer she was not.

While as you pointed nothing is purely binary, the old Lara Croft in my estimation was roughly something like ~75% fan service/ ~25% empowerment at best. Yes she kicked butt on screen; killed so many animals I think PETA considered a protest about the game (no joke) and had some grand old puzzle platforming ledge grabbing adventures, That wasn't what the discussion of the day was ever about when it came to Tomb Raider to my recollection.

Lara Croft was deliberately hyper-sexualized by her all male creators at Core Design (after an accidental slip of the hand by her original character artist Toby Gard) as a brazen fan service marketing ploy to help sell their game to teen boys from conception. Her creation was not like Samus's or Chun Li's (I don't know what Kojima's goals were with Meryl's), it was very calculated, they've never made any secret of that. Frankly whatever you think of the morals of that decision, it was a brilliant business move as history has shown. The NES generation reaching adolescence, the rarity of female protagonists in games at that time, the third person perspective and the hardware tech of the day made it perfect timing. Empowerment was an afterthought at best in the early games and there were quite a few feminists and frankly just mainstream media in general outraged by her portrayal in the mid-late 90's. I remember seeing the controversy grab large headlines in stodgy mainstream news media outlets like USA Today & CBS Evening News. If memory serves it was their preferred video game moral outrage du jour right after after Mortal Kombat & Doom is too violent became stale. Games were no longer just trying young boys into violent thugs, they were also being turned into perverts if you believed the nightly news.

It was bad enough Gard quit Core after the first game in protest because he strongly disliked the way the Lara Croft Character was being promoted as a sex symbol by Core's & Eidos's management with all the magazine spreads, TV ads etc (He had notably different aspirations for the character than the rest of his team seemed to). I don't think a creator would do that if the character was truly being depicted as empowered.

Her evolution into something more positive and empowered was a welcome change that came later.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/03/01/ign-presents-the-history-of-tomb-raider?page=1

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@truthtellah

See, I hear people say this a decent bit, but that isn't what I've seen over the years. A lot of times, when people do try to have a conversation, you just get people telling them to be quiet, let games be fun, and stop ruining gaming. And when you object to that, people say we can't even have the conversation because it's obviously broken and doesn't serve anything.

There's always going to be morons, people who don't want to have serious discussion. That's true of both sides of any debate.

And then there are people who are just legitimately stupid.

Loading Video...

Is the current model of trying to address people who don't want to talk, or worse, making those people out to be the entirety of the opposition (as the "gamers are dead" people have effectively done)? Is that the best way to effect legitimate change, or indeed anything other than increased anger and resentment from otherwise sympathetic people?

Messages and discourse can only happen with willing parties, and the dipshits who try to derail conversation need to have the ban hammer put on their asses.

And we all need to come to an agreement that Twitter isn't the place for intellectual discussion of any sort.

Loading Video...

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The reason supposed sexism in games is a hot button topic right now has nothing to do with games, their actual content, gaming culture, or any growth in the market. It has everything to do with the modern internet allowing people who want to make those criticisms find an audience.

To suggest that the majority of games have sexist content is to ignore the breadth and depth of games that have been released over the decades. To say that maybe some games have sexist content is to state an obvious fact that will never, ever change. People will create what they want to create and people will continue to critique it, sometimes in baseless ways and sometimes rationally. It is the right of everyone to be critical and express their own views. Lately though it seems like prominent critics covering the issue of what they perceive as sexism and/or misogyny have an expectation that the creators should listen to them. Ultimately, a creator has as much right to ignore criticism as the critic has to express it.

Also, statistics that show the the demographics of woman playing games have risen suddenly are inherently flawed because those demographics have been incomplete for many years. They used to only ever include people playing "core games". There has been a massive contingent of girls and women playing games on the PC and internet for a solid 15 years. Those statistics were never collected.

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I feel like exposing sexism, in anything, is ultimately good because it can make developers, creators, artists, writers, storytellers all think more about what they're ultimately creating, and how to better convey whatever they want to say.

But, sometimes it blows back and can feel like people are looking for it in places it doesn't exist and lead to debates that are misinformed and just misfire. It's happened a couple times with comic books. I thought, for example, that the outrage over Catwoman using Batman in the same form that James Bond would use a Bond girl was a good thing, and a pro-feminist thing (essentially, Catwoman was the person in power, using Batman to make herself feel better. She was using him). Yet...somehow, I have no fucking clue except that maybe most people didn't read the thing, that somehow wound up pissing people off because she was somehow being used? The outrage on that made no sense to me, and there are a hundred other cases where that argument would have been valid with a comic book story. But, the one that seemed to spark outrage was misplaced for me.

Metal Gear Solid has gotten flack lately, but I'm willing to let things slide because of where that series comes from. People seem to forget that Hideo Kojima is a 51 year old man that was born and raised in Japan. Aside from there being a cultural gap, there's also an age gap. So, context matters to me as well.

So, context is important to me. But, exposing cases of sexism is still something that I think is important.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MxqSwzFy5w

brief video on sexism in video games

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#45  Edited By Kevaina

People have made a lot of great points so far, but I would just like to add that I think the culture that we are growing up in is changing, such that it allows for more girls to not only have games purchased for them at a young age, but to have them identify as gamers and to openly engage with the video gaming community than previous generations. For example, when I was a young girl (and I am only just turning 25 now so that shows you how rapidly things can change), it was not cool to tell other kids (especially girls) that you liked playing video games. Not that it was necessarily the coolest thing in the world for a boy to like video games, but it definitely felt more isolating as a girl, because it just wasn't something that you were supposed to be into. After being called weird, a tomboy, and whatever else for so long, I kept my love of playing video games to myself. Looking at how children are growing up now, at least from my experience, it seems that there is a lot less stigma attached to having a girl openly play video games and talk about it with other people. Although it could be argued that this is relegated mainly to "casual" gaming, such as Nintendo and social media games, I still think it is opening the door for more people (men and women alike) to discuss how they view gender and sexism in video games overall, and what it means to be inclusive and diverse. It's really unfortunate how hateful and extreme the discussion about sexism and gender in video games appears to be, but it's a discussion worth having regardless, and I hope it continues to influence the way that video games are expanding and changing, because I think a lot of good has come out of it.

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#46  Edited By geirr

Video games are under extra scrutiny since everyone can, and more and more do play them. If I hear about a horribly racist/sexist/garbage game I, and friends, instantly want to play it due to our own morbid curiousity. If it's a movie or a book I, and friends I've talked to, really couldn't care less since that's always been the case for those mediums - even though we love movies and books. Maybe it's just me and my circles though but no one I know wants to sit down for hours with a really bad book.

So I'd say yes, since the diversity of people playing games is increasing, so should the topics of the players as well. Hopefully through those topics, though turbulent at times, there will be education happening and eventually some form of understanding. All new ideas had to go through turmoil and even actual wars before becoming common place.

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@jeust said:

Do you think exposing sexism in this console generation, has anything to do with last generation tap into the casual market and the expansion of mobile gaming widening the audience for video games, and bringing a new female audience to the market?

Sexism in the gaming market wasn't born this generation or the last, but I think discussion never happened in the 6th generation of consoles.

1. Loaded question.

2. The wave of gibberish talking folks is the result of non-STEM gibberish teaching university and college programs.

Let's get back to talking about video games.

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#50  Edited By scarycrayons

I just wish people would be more open-minded and less restrictive, and wish that everybody remembers that:

- Sexy characters isn't a sign of sexism.
- Everything needs to be taken in the context that it is presented.
- Just because one person finds the female body gross or creepy doesn't mean that it's "problematic and troublesome." (I honestly think there's a lot of homophobic tendencies going around from some women, where they are repulsed by seeing other women wearing anything less than a full body outfit.)
- Playing a video game does not contribute to "rape culture."
- Comedy is about subverting expectations to surprise people, and have the surprise make people laugh at its absurdity, not subverting expectations because you think it should be normal.

Diversity in games is always a good thing! There should be games of all kinds, and I totally welcome different approaches to game design and visual design.

I'm just tired of people trying to claim that games that are totally fine are 'wrong and bad' and that the creators are scum for making them. It's frustrating to hear things like "Super Mario Bros is about the ball game of patriarchy where the princess is a reward and it contributes to rape culture, Miyamoto frequently shows his misogynistic nature" and so many people think it's a totally valid point.

It isn't. It really, really isn't.

(It's also frustrating being a girl, and have people assume I'm a 'gross neckbeard MRA' or whatever whenever I try to explain this to people online. That's a good case of actual sexism, as opposed to Mario trying to restore power to the Princess so she can rule over the kingdom again.)