Juno500

I feel like this article contradicts its own point. Denying that the representation of women in games is due to sexism, and then saying that it's because society views women in an overly positive light doesn't make sense because that would still be a sexist view. If you implicitly think that women are less capable of evil or more pure, then it is an attitude you hold on the basis of their gender. It's still sexist, doesn't matter whether the view is positive or negative.

So even if that article's thesis is correct (which I don't agree with), it only ends up supporting the idea that video games have a problem with sexism, which it seems to want to debunk.

There's also a few strawmen in there that miss the point.

I thought this article here did a good job of explaining why the Arkham City example is better handled:

http://www.thegia.com/2014/11/03/all-due-respect-press-f-for-farce/

They call her a professional victim looking for attention, and then give her this attention she is supposedly desperate for.

Really, she could have just been another Kickstarter success story that we all eventually forgot about, but everything being thrown at her turned her into a icon of the industry.

I live 5-10 minutes from that school. Unbelievable. This is a pretty small town, completely unremarkable. Crazy to imagine anything like this happening here.

They aren't a charity, they are a for-profit company, they say so as much here.

What happens is that IF their product makes a profit, they donate a portion of those profits to charity. This is not the same as being a charity.

Wanting video games to be considered art has basically been an attempt to validate the time we spend with video games. Growing up while playing games as kids, parents/teachers/politicians/adults in general have been telling us we have been wasting our time. Having games recognized as art is a way to rebuke that claim and justify our time and money invested into the hobby, not just to others but also to ourselves.

But the thing is, feminist critique doesn't really make games look good, and making games look good was the whole point of the "games as art" stuff. Gamers didn't fully understand what it was they were asking for, so now many of them are upset.

This is part of a trend I've noticed- many women have said that they previously opposed feminism until they started getting into the industry and experienced the prejudice first hand. I can recall both Jenn Frank and Maddy Myers talking about this.

For what it's worth I thank you for talking about this, and would also like to say I'm impressed with everything you've stood up to not just in the last week or so, but in your entire time in the industry. I hope the situation gets better for you as soon as possible.

I fully agree there are problems with the games media, but I believe GG has been barking up the wrong tree. I think that Journos relationships with AAA publishers is a much bigger deal. Hell, as the years have gone on and on, I've paid less and less attention to gaming sites (including GB) because it's hard not to get cynical about that entire process.

But that doesn't mean I think there are problems absolutely everywhere. It doesn't mean I believe that a bunch of writers talking about the supposed "death of the gamer" constitutes some sort of conspiracy. I also don't think discussion of topics like feminism and LGBT issues is a bad thing. Yes, there are problems. But lately, many people seem to be focusing on the wrong ones.

I can't believe people think it's collusion when lots of writers decide to write about a subject that everybody is talking about.

It is the job of writers to write about the things people are talking about. This is not collusion, this is people doing what they are paid to do.

That's not really unusual. When one article comes out making a statement, it's not uncommon for other writers to respond to that article with their own thoughts. It's just what writers do, they write about things that people are talking about.

Like, a while back, Chris Kohler wrote an article proclaiming that Final Fantasy was dead, and Jeremy Parish and other members of USGamer all wrote their own thoughts on the subject.

Also, many of the people who wrote the articles were not on the GJP list.