Giantbomb is sexist for not putting Tomb Raider in GOTY

Like GTAV which jeff and Co really liked at release day and it was not even in the Top10? I am sorry but this article is absolute garbage. Healthy criticism is totally fine and great but this is just trying to play a men are sexist card. You know who did a much better Job at analyzing?

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/gender-equality-and-the-search-for-common-ground-1466692/#5

HA!.. oh you auto-correct.

Old Lara Croft > New Lara Croft

People have serious problems when it comes to Game of the Year things. Just because you liked something, doesn't mean everyone else loved it, and it especially doesn't mean that it's an objectively better product.

Guess I've seen it all with this site. First with Patrick, Giant Bomb is pandering to the feminists, and now Giant Bomb is a "boys-only" club. Goddamn, Carrie Gouskos needs to come and back and just make people shut up.

I just want to get in here before this blows up.

I think she makes some excellent points. I know a lot of people, women in particular, who enjoyed Tomb Raider more for providing them with the oppurtunity of playing as an empowered woman. It should be celebrated, and picking GOTY is all about celebrating what gaming has had to offer.

Now, Giant Bomb has always had a very consumer focused approach when it comes to covering games. Jeff himself has said that ge thinks that his job is to try to help people save money by telling them with games are good and which games are bad. They are not (at least not to a large extent) interested in putting games in a larger cultural context.

So yeah, I think it's true that Giant Bomb lacks a voice that can speak about games from other points of view than "is this fun and/or dumb enough", even if Patrick tries to raise some of those point on occasion. But Giant Bomb also has never claimed to be anything else than that.

And even if the staff they decided to start applying actual cultural criticism to game review, could they do it? Like Wu says, they are a bunch of heterosexual white able cis-duders who have spent years and years of thinking about games in a very narrow way (and they have become pretty damn good at it). Who knows, but it's not unlikely that they would be terrible at it.

So instead of lamenting that the GB crew might be set in their ways, we should probably look for new voices, voices that have the background and experience that enable them to talk about other parts of game criticism. But it will take time for those voices to gain strength,and in the mean time, games like Tomb Raider might not get the recognition they deserve

I thought this game was sexist because of torture porn and guidng Lara or something? Where have I beeeeeeeeeeeen D:

Why did I read all of that editorial? My brain is melting from the absurdity.

A self-professed game development professional spewed 20,000 words of Tumblr nonsense over the fact that Tomb Raider didn't make GB's top ten. They didn't find Tomb Raider quite as fun as the ten that they did pick. Grand Theft Auto V didn't make the site's top ten either. No one's going to blame the invisible hand of the patriarchy for that choice. They didn't find GTA V quite as good as the ten that they did pick.

I found it surprising that there was no room on their list for Saints Row IV, my second favorite game of the entire year. But as a functioning adult, I can accept that the GB staff have different opinions than I do, and have no need to write manifestos about those differences.

P.S. Brad is bad at games.

"No video-game site represents boys-only gaming more than Giant Bomb."

"...their consciousness on why games like 2013 Tomb Raider are important remains extremely low, as you might expect from a crowd of men sitting around discussing the games they love."

wrong.

Why are people getting mad about this article? She doesn't say Giant Bomb is sexist. In fact she praises the website. The Tomb Raider analysis she gives boils down to her opinion that Lara was a strong female character, which is a departure from her history and from the overarching video game culture in general (both true).

Then she argues that interactive entertainment is a male-dominated medium, and that it doesn't have to be that way. Why is any of this offensive or controversial?

@almostswedish: So you just want a woman, a homosexual, a transgender, a black person, an Asian, a Jew etc. for the Giantbomb crew for just for the sake of it?

Giantbomb is not the only site on the internet. And there are actually review sites that were made for these groups. Giantbomb is Giantbomb because of the harmony these people have and if later they will get new people on board they should not look for these people but rather people they can connect with. No matter their gender, race or sexuality.

@fatcat222:

"No video-game site represents boys-only gaming more than Giant Bomb."

"...their consciousness on why games like 2013 Tomb Raider are important remains extremely low, as you might expect from a crowd of men sitting around discussing the games they love."

That does not sound like praising Giantbomb.

Another year, another load of bullshit from feminists.

brad gave it a 4/5 so it was kinda weird hearing him dismiss it so offhand. maybe in retrospect he didn't enjoy it as much as he did.

@ripelivejam: Jeff gave GTAV a 5/5 and did not like it anymore either.

I enjoyed that article. I did not see it as a diss to giantbomb. It was lamenting the lack of diversity in the games industry and how said lack of diversity can leave some viewpoints not to be heard. The podcast was just an example and I think it is a fine one. She probably just listened to the podcast like the rest of us as a fan and that discussion sparked the article, thus why it is the example. No malicious intent.

I thought Tomb Raider was sexist because you could see one of Lara's bra straps?

@ripelivejam: I don't think its that weird that happens all the time at least with me. When its fresh in your mind you're really into it but once you are off playing another thing it doesn't seem quite as fantastic as it did before. That totally happened to me with DmC.

Thank you for bringing in the new year by making me feel a simmering, familiar sense of disappointment towards the internet.

Actually let me elaborate with my actual thoughts instead of just leaving a pithy comment. The reason this article is bullshit isn't because it's trying to do that whole feminism equality whatever whatever thing that people get raging hateboners for. It's because its argument is bullshit. Tomb Raider didn't get dismissed in GOTY discussions because it's a bunch of men in a room, it got dismissed because there were just straight up better games than it this year and, in the long run, Tomb Raider did nothing special. There was nothing surprising about it. It wasn't a bad game, it just wasn't the game to break the mold, and had there been any female voice in the room worth their salt regarding games, I'm sure they would have more or less shared that same opinion.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time that happened with the crew, like Brad and Far Cry 2, whom I specifically remember saying that the more he thought back to that game, the more he began to dislike it. Jeff has given many games 4 stars that he otherwise looks back on much less fondly than when it was first released, too -- Halo 4 and Borderlands 2 are two such examples. And then there's of course Ryan giving AC: Revelations & III 4 stars, both of which he ultimately considered to be weak entries in the series, and put forth his vote for ACIII as the most disappointing game of the year.

She is criticizing, not attacking. The wilful misreading of articles relating to these issues is astounding.

A lot of games got quickly dismissed in the GOTY discussions. Antichamber is not on the GOTY list; I don't see anyone standing up for "Ageless, Faceless, Gender-Neutral, Culturally Ambiguous Adventure Persons".

@darji: Diversity is hard because it can feel like unnatural filling of quotas, but all indications of science and society are that greater diversity leads to stronger, healthier, more harmonious lives for all.

I think the question is what Giant Bomb wants to be. They have evolved a ton as critics and players. The funny shit they do is almost never exclusionary or offensive--and that's hard to pull off. Look at every youtube player still using gay as an insult. Ryan, RIP, let "faggot" slip once and gave a heartfelt, meaningful apology for it. These are good guys.

And they are going deeper in their criticism and coverage. Patrick brings in people of all genders, sexualities, races and religions for interviews. I like the guest spots on the AM show. The crew have actively delved into major topics in the industry with care and respect this year. They have also expanded their game criticism to include issues of ethics, player agency, feelings, all that.

Rejecting GTA V for its antiquated, cynical world is a great thing, in my opinion. Doesn't mean that dismissing Tomb Raider off hand doesn't come off as strange. And it's something that would not happen with a more diverse staff focused on the fact of that game taking a sex-object character and making her human, surrounding her by an interesting, diverse cast, and still doing interesting things with gameplay. It's not required to put any game into any list, but some more discussion may have been nice.

Fact is, Giant Bomb is doing its best, and I think it can only improve. It's not bad to point out times where it falters, nor is it bad to point out where this author missed some context.

What's bad is the tone of rejection and anger over small mistakes or imperfect criticism. The message is what is important, not the human frailty of the messenger.

I like how she criticizes GB for not liking Tomb Raider and then goes on to explain that she more frequently hires female staff because she "clicks" better with them. Maybe games with male protagonists "click" better with guys and thus causes them to like a game more? You know, since they are rating games that they like, not ranking ranking them because of some social commentary within or any other metric that. This article is pretty dumb.

Or more likely it was that they don't care and Tomb Raider not being on the top 10 was more to do with it being a mediocre game than any gender/social issue.

@jimmyfenix:

Oh look, I can quote-mine too!

The journalists of Giant Bomb are immensely likable industry veterans, who are worth listening to and who have well-informed opinions. Former Gamespot editorial director Gerstmann started Giant Bomb in protest against commercial advertisers attempting to influence the score of 2007’s Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, a stand that gave him immense credibility as a game journalist.

and...

Jeff Gerstmann, Brad Shoemaker (...): I love your work. I respect you as journalists. And, if you’re mentioned in this piece, it’s because I like what you do enough to be reading you or listening to you in the first place.

Instead of looking for ways to be offended, try to comprehend what people are attempting to say when they're writing.

Off the top of my head I remember some comments about tomb raider from the crew:

Positive:

• Hard hitting combat
• It's fun to go back for collectibles
• High production values
• The bow is cool

Negative:

• The story is non sense
• The character of Lara jumps from scared and desparate to murdering killing machine in about 5 minutes
• Lara has trouble killing a deer to survive and complains constently about not wanting to kill things while murdering hundreds of dudes

Even taking into account a female perspective this game seems like poorly written contrived non sense.

@ripelivejam: It was an early-year release. Tomb Raider is a strong, fun game, but it's hardly impactful. I thought it was an amazing game too, but as the year moved along I found it slowly moving further and further down my GotY list until it fell off completely. I still think it's great and will defend its quality to anyone, but if I were asked about it in a GotY context I would dismiss it as well.

@fatcat222: So we should all agree that they left the game off the top 10 because of a gender/social issue? The more logical reason is that Brad didn't fight for it and the rest thought it was an okay game but paled in comparison with the rest of the games on the list.

Tomb Raider had some pretty awful character stereotypes, so I guess she's a racist and hates nerds.

By her definition, an all female podcast is as sexist as an all male one. I find the whole "oh they're men so they have innate sexism, they just aren't aware of it" idea to be completely disgusting. If females want fair representation, they can't just throw the other gender under the bus of gender stereotypes to make their point.

No she is attacking. Saying she is only hiring female staff or stuff like that:

Those life events inform my experiences and opinion. And, they inform my perspective on 2013 Tomb Raider. And, with respect, if you only have people voting on game of the year from a very singular opinion — generally white, straight and male — it’s missing so much information that it loses its validity.

She is discriminating these people opinions because of their race sexuality and gender. Something she also criticizes Giantbomb of.

Or how about the fact that she thinks that COD should have been in the GOTY discussion because it sells so well and also features women soldiers in MP for the first time. While totally dismissing the Last of US which features probably the best female protagonist in this Industry.

Look I really liked Tomb Raider but just include it because it has a female lead is just stupid. Jeff and CO said it all the time. This is their list. These are the games they did enjoy and if they did not enjoy Tomb Raider it is their right to do so.

Also their are tons of GOTY lists on the site one is from a black guy and more than one from women. So yeah. There are your different perspectives.

It's even more condescending when she implies that she likes them. As if she's rooting for them to just be less horrible people, because, you know, guys can't help but just being narrow minded by default. It's in their nature.

Meanwhile, she doesn't think that here own intentionally all female studio is lacking any perspective.

I get that you're just trying to stop people overreacting, which is always good. But that article is just one giant overreaction itself. Not worth defending.

the OP seems like flame bait. While I disagree with her if you read the whole thing she is not suggesting that giantbomb is sexist. She is just giving an opinion on how there a lot of guys in the game industry so they had less appeal for the game because they're guys so they wouldn't understand.

I think it's a lame argument but she doesnt say they're sexist.

You should probably read and comprehend before making accusations.

I agree that Tomb Raider didn't get its just dues in the deliberations but it has nothing to do with sexism as much as I think that last generation we had a franchise called Uncharted did almost every single thing that game did only with better characters. The story was forgettable, the action was OK but too frequent, and the characters were archetypal bored. I enjoyed the game a lot but it was nowhere near my top 10 games this year.

Also, stating Lara is some feminist idol is idiotic, at least in this case. Her character is not strong...she's near immortal and virtually indestructible. She has no interesting story besides the trope of "I've crashed on an island full of people who want to kill me." Tomb Raider was fun but the game didn't do anything to move the genre forward but it did potentially lay a groundwork for an actually original Tomb Raider game. How about a game where the developers didn't create a torture porn fun land and are trying to emotionally manipulate me into "caring" for this character?

@cornbredx : Which is an idiotic argument, honestly. Lara is, at best, a placeholder character in that game with no real substance beyond being a punching bag for 8-10 hours while you Uncharted around an island. Stating that TR didn't make it into anyone's top 10 because "Well, men" is a dumb argument and a way to bring up the cliche argument of "men wouldn't understand". This would be like saying Starhawk didn't wind up on someone's top 10 the year it came out because "you know, white people".

That article was perhaps the dumbest article I have read. Glad I kicked in 2014 by reading another idiotic feminism article that really missed the point entirely. Also, like @darji stated, she may want to ensure her own house is clean of shit before pointing out other people's alleged shitty houses.

It was really weird to see the game dismissed so easily, but calling it a historically important game is probably stretching a little. Games with women on staff as writers or programmers aren't non-existent even in cases where a game can come off as overtly male targeted.

I don't think the criticism that Giant Bomb doesn't feature a female voice is wrong, though, even if it doesn't necessarily need one. A woman on staff doesn't mean that Tomb Raider would have been treated better in the goty discussions, however, it would have probably been a more fair discussion if another perspective on it were represented.

It actually translates to; "the reason you feel the way you do is because you're a man". The reason why they didn't think of that game for the GOTY is not because they're sexist pigs; it's because they're men. They didn't form their opinions in a valid manner because they're men.

@cornbredx: I just think her argument is flawed, more than anything. Those quotes are weird ones to throw in there, and she doesn't put the discussion itself in context. They chose a GOTY that features an incredibly well written female protagonist, the third best game of the year features a female lead, the fourth game boils down to learning about and exploring the genesis of a lesbian relationship. It seems wrong not to acknowledge that stuff, when they're dismissal of Tomb Raider was because they didn't think the game stood out from a gameplay perspective, and the story was nonsense. Its picking and choosing to warp something into something completely different. And of course she doesn't mention Patrick who gets a lot of flack for putting himself out there to explore and give a voice to the people she's talking about it.

I'm fine with Giant Bomb doing what Giant Bomb does. But even if that wasn't the case, I don't see how you can read what I wrote as hiring "for the sake of it". I said that thay lacked voices that can speak about games from a different perspective. Heck, they hired Patrick because he was a news guy, didn't they? Did they hire him just for the sake of having a news guy, or having some one who could write news?

Similarly, I think it is always benefical to have someone who is actually knowledgable about e.g. gender issues when writing about the subject. Now I'm not saying that there aren't white hetero cis-duders who aren't sensitive to those topics, but they are certainly few and far between.

And of course there are other sites on the internet. But the point (or at least one of the points) the article was trying to make was that Tomb Raider didn't get recognition for what it did. Now, the thing about recognition is that size matters. An Academy Award is more prestigious than some local film festival, they are talked about more widely and have a greater cultural impact. Similarly, by not recognizing Tomb Raiders achievement, larger sites are maintaining the status quo of video game criticism.

And here's the thing about the status quo; it is not neutral. You can't not not take a stance on these issues. And when all major sites take the same stance, that video games are all about fun and not about politics (when in truth, all cultural products are political in some sense), then we have a problem.

She never critcizes Giant Bomb for discriminating. She highlights the lack of female voice within the industry:

As head of development at Giant Spacekat (GSK), it’s perfectly understandable why Giant Bomb has an all-male cast. I run what is, to my knowledge, the only full-time gamedev studio with all female employees. When I look to hire people, I look at people I know in the industry whose work I respect and with whom I click. More often than not, it is other women.

But the all-female staff of GSK is an extreme anomaly in the industry. Giant Bomb is, more or less, the norm. In the games press, you get a preponderance of a single opinion: white, male, and straight. There a few outliers here and there.

Nowhere does she say COD should've been included in GOTY discussions, she uses the issue of female characters and the discussion surrounding it in IGN and Podcast Unlocked to demonstrate that these discussions are lacking something by not having a wider range of perspectives present.

That is, after all, the entire point of the article:

Jeff Gerstmann, Brad Shoemaker, Colin Moriarty, Greg Miller, Damon Hatfield, Ryan McCaffery, and Marty Sliva: I love your work. I respect you as journalists. And, if you’re mentioned in this piece, it’s because I like what you do enough to be reading you or listening to you in the first place.

But as you consider the GOTY of 2013, try to keep that same spark of curiosity in your mind that Ryan Clements had in his Vanquish review: “Could this game use a few more badass girls?”

@almostswedish: I also think you are missing the main point that this comes from a woman who only hires females for her studio..... Where is the other perspective?

I am sorry But hiring a news guy s totally fine. Hiring a women, a black person, a transgender, a homosexual, a Jew or anything else just because you will see different view point is highly racist and sexist to me. To me people are all the same no matter their gender, Race or sexuality. Hiring people based on this would totally defeat this.

If they need a news person they should hire one no matter if he/she is white, black, Asian or whatever. What matters is that they connect.

If she thinks that's what people want, why not start her own girl gaming site like giant bomb?

To be fair, even Polygon's podcast is all straight white males. It's like that's the industry's target audience.

So what that article is about is basically "The Giant Bomb staff is wrong for not including Tomb Raider in their GotY list. But what would they know, they are all men after all."

Maybe they dismissed Tomb Raider because of the quality of the game.

Maybe.

I also like how she conveniently forgets everything Patrick has done in the name of speaking up on sexism issues in the industry.

Brad gave Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm a 5/5 so it was kind of wierd how he never mentioned it at all for any category for any reason. Except one point in one podcast where he said "Unlike Starcraft II HOTS DOTA 2 stuck with me because its a team sport."

Opinions change over time. The longer its been since a game came out the more cool your opinion on it will be. Also the more things that can happen that kick that game to the curb in your mind. For instance for me during Mass Effect 2's GOTY season it was overshadowed by the original Starcraft II WoL which did the Mass Effect Ship Hub thing only without elevators and walking.

Other games outshone that one to the extent that it's not really worth considering especially if you've already got loads of other games that are way way better on the list.

God dame the title of this thread is the best click baity title I seen in a while. Good job I guess at doing something terrible really well.

Is that website a bad knock off of polygon? The layout of that articles page looks exactly like a polygon article

Edit 1: Oh wait, is it a blog site? Okeedokey

Edit 2: Alright I read some of it. What the fuck....

Horrible article. She makes some relevant points, many of which I agree with, but why drag other publications through the mud? Not to mention the fact that the quote she pulled from GB had nothing to do with sexism, it had to do with them not liking the game. She portrayed other sites in a very negative light for very no point, and one little offhand comment about how she "loves and respects" their work doesn't make up for that.

@mclargepants: Ya, her argument is incredibly weak. I don't know who this person is, though, and getting up in arms about it is kind of silly to me. She doesn't make a good case for much of anything except that she wants to fuel an ongoing dispute that gets people riled up. It's pretty baseless, but she doesn't seem to have ill intent with Giantbomb so much as is using it to get people talking about her essay.

I'm sure it did give her a decent amount of hits, too.

PETA-style bullshit.

These people are just trying attach to someone else's name to push their agenda. The only way to win is to ignore them.

I liked Tomb Raider. It would have made my top 10. But then again I didn't play nearly as many games as the Bombers did, basically about 1 in 3 games I played this year make my top 10. For the Bombers it's much a much lower ratio and harder to make the list.