Lobst

Hey, misogynists! Articles like this play you all for the chumps you are, while sensible folks with reasonable opinions watch the number of comments grow and think wonderful thoughts about how many hits the site is getting as a direct result of you having horrible ideas about the way you think the world is supposed to work. This progressive little gaming site is a beautiful flower, and you're the fertilizer that makes it grow!

With any luck, one or two of you might see that your peers in this debate are caustic assholes and come around to a way of thinking where you listen to women's voices instead of immediately shutting them out. This cycle will continue until the Men's Rights Activist movement is reduced to a smoking crater filled with fedoras.

Hey Dave and Alexis, blocking the sexist assholes that pop up in the comments section of articles like these is the reason we need an Ignore button. Thanks!

I agree that institutional sexism needs to be addressed in this industry, and this hashtag is a great way of bringing it to people's attention. With more attention to female designers we can hopefully put an end to the trend of making every game appeal directly to dudebros in their twenties.

I don't agree that Dead Or Alive is representative of this sexism, though! It clearly markets itself as a conveyance device for huge swinging tits first and a game second, and that has a place in our culture just as much as, say, Baywatch did. It's far less insidious than the thong-armor in modern RPGs and breast physics in Guitar Hero, because straight women at least have a reason to play those games.

Counterpoint: Jet Set Radio is still amazing regardless of the Giant Bomb staff's consensus-via-osmosis, and has no right to be lumped in with Killer Instinct (which was bad when it was new).

Preordered a Deluxe version; can't wait! Not once in the past has a Nintendo console let me down at full price.

(I didn't get a Virtual Boy.)

I don't think Atlus needs to be boycotted because of this, but it did weird me out how for all the talk of queer identities in Persona 4 the only representations we see of them are the twisted stereotypes Kanji and Naoto have of gays and transgenderedness.

Like, Kanji's shadow-self is supposed to be a version of him that embraces what society thinks a guy who likes sewing should be into -- so, he's a flaming promiscuous lispy gay guy. Naoto's shadow-self is about her wanting to be respected in a male-dominated profession, so the prospect of changing her sex to such an end comes across as mad science to her. These depictions make sense in the context of the story, -but- it comes at the expense of caricaturizing two very real human conditions with no counterweight to make it seem like it's not just a bunch of sheltered Japanese guys "othering" homosexuality and gender identity disorder.

This isn't to say that they should've included gay or TG social-links in Persona 4, of course! Just add in a couple of lines of dialogue that address the situation. After Yosuke describes shadow-Kanji and his bad, bad bathhouse as "sick" Chie could smack him upside the head for being an idiot, and they'd talk about what they plan to do if this turns out to be a real part of Kanji's sexuality. Yukiko could ask Naoto if she thinks she's a guy on the inside -- maybe even preeemptively offer support -- and Naoto could reply with "no, I can see how you would think that, but that's not it at all." These are minor changes, but they would go a long way -- and they don't impact the message of the story in the least! Everyone walks away happy, unless you're one of those weird guys who dislikes it when minorities are treated with respect!

I hope this apology causes a few members of the "it's just a word! words can't hurt!" crowd to abandon Giant Bomb for a website that's more comfortable with their devil-may-care hate speech.

(it's IGN)

Thanks for this, Ryan! The mistake itself still isn't okay, but you and the rest of the staff are handling it about the best way you can. Thanks for continuing to make this a site I can be proud to contribute to.

Alex, this writeup is great. I'm in no position to demand anything, but more stuff like this would be wonderful. :D

The terms "Extended Cut" and "clarification" worry me for reasons other people have probably stated, but I'll reserve judgment until I hear exactly what they end up doing.

Kudos to BioWare on this being free, at least. Since they're apparently decided not to completely rewrite the ending, here's hoping they'll at least make it less like middle-school arthouse nonsense -- and remove the "buy our DLC!" screen from the post-Stargazer scene, jesus christ.