That's two strikes.

Read again. He said that the reason that most protagonists are men is because the market is mostly men, which you restated. This is not the point that I disagreed with. You then added, on your own volition, that the reason the market skews male is because there have been more male protagonists. This is not arguing that market trends dictate the sex of the protagonists, this is arguing that market trends are dictated by the sex of protagonists. It is not so.

@brodehouse:

Oh no. Two strikes!? Get over yourself.

I asked you a question, mate, maybe you're not in a position to question anybody's reading comprehension. Why would a developer's decision about the gender or ethnicity of a protagonist be influenced by the demographics of their potential audience if they did not believe that their decision would have an impact on how their game would sell? I can see absolutely no other reason to believe that "most protagonists are men" is a direct consequence of the fact that "the market is mostly men".

And you're outta there.

For those keeping at track at home, the initial argument was;

Why are most gamers men? Because developers don't make any games with women protagonists.

And people wonder why I get frustrated.

So you're not going to explain why you believe that "most protagonists are men" logically follows from "the market is mostly men", despite the fact that you don't understand why there would be any relationship between the two?

Nah, mate, I don't think anybody actually cares.

Seriously dude, you need to read closer. This is the last time I'm going to do this before I have to assume that you're intentionally dissembling and pretending like you don't understand.

You two made arguments, one after another. The first argument was that game developers make male protagonists because the market is largely male. This point went without argument, because it's rational. This is the point you've been banging on about ever since, as if it was being argued. It is not. Do not argue this point anymore, because no one is disagreeing.

You then said, and I quote

Why are most gamers men? Because developers don't make any games with women protagonists.

Which is wrong. This is not an argument, this is a macro-level presumption with no basis in reality.

@brodehouse: I don't think I'm the one that needs to read closer, seeing as I've asked the same question three times and each time you seem to have missed it! Fourth time lucky maybe?

Why is the argument that "game developers make male protagonists because the market is largely male" rational? Why does the fact that the market for games is largely male lead to developers making games with male protagonists?

Oooh teacher teacher I can answer this one!

Money.

@brodehouse: Dude, even if you don't see my point there's no reason why you can't answer the fucking question.

@pcorb: Because it has nothing to do with my original argument. It's a red herring. Additionally, you are asking me to argue in the affirmative for a position you've already affirmed. You stated that your argument is rational in post 102. By post 106, you're asking me to explain why it's rational.

I don't know what's happening in this thread anymore, but it's HOT!

I know why I think it's rational. I do not think you disagree with the idea that it is rational. I want to know why you think it's rational. I don't understand how I can make this any clearer. If you still don't understand, please humour me. Please just answer the goddamn question.

Hot in a manly way though, right? You are not suggesting it's hot in a sexy way, and inferring the thread is female? Because if you are, we should have an argument about it that does not make any sense whatsoever. For ages.

@splodge: This thread, No longer about E3 no longer being about games, apparently.

Threads about E3 no longer being about games, no longer about E3 no longer being about games, apparently?

I think it's way too severe to assume that discussions of social factors and practices are mutually exclusive to games at a mechanical or experiential level. That and I think it's about time if only because it's entirely fair for people to call out this industry when they can. How people do it can and has been disagreeable and certainly taking a combative toward the industry can lead down a pretty universally defeatist road. However one cannot look at games, look at arguments against representation, and not at least understand how one could find plenty to go on. I think many women and minorities take it where they can, try to be reasonable, and ultimately keep it in the background as many do when they play games. I think what we're seeing is more of a critical mass to build upon past arguments and discussions to keep the contention around for much longer than was ever possible before.

I say the industry deserves no less given how slow going it's been sometimes and ultimately we at least stand to gain exposing angry and sad individuals who I don't think have contributed much positively to the culture.

Take the "tits" out of E3 and now no one cares.... XD

Let's look at what I actually said, what what I was replying to:

@spaceinsomniac said:

First part: "At worst, that makes the gender issue movement in gaming completely worthless."

Literally the only thing that the gender issue movement in gaming can agree on is that there should be more good female characters in video games, which I also happen to completely agree with, as do many others who reject the type of journalism going on at places like Polygon.

The problem comes with the fact that no one agrees with what "good female characters" means, which is a rather large issue for a movement.

Some people don't want violence against women, some don't want you to pull your punches when it comes to female characters being able to take the same abuse as any man. Some people want women to be violent, some don't. Some think female characters should only have feminine aspects to their character, and some want them to be as strong as any man. Some people are bothered by women that take a secondary role to a male protagonist, and others are not.

Your question was "A "movement" is completely worthless if not everybody within it agrees with each other 100% of the time?"

In this case, yes, because the only thing that the movement can agree upon is something that I already agree with, and I don't consider myself part of the movement.

Do you know what the gay marriage movement wants? Gay people to be able to get married. That is an example of a strong movement. No one is debating what "able to get married" means, and everyone is united in working towards a single and highly specific goal.

And now for the second part of my post.

"At best, it makes it extremely disingenuous to suggest that your opinion is anything but YOUR opinion, which happens every single time that someone assigns blame to someone else for not sharing their opinion."

Your question was "And who's blaming people for not sharing their opinion? I really don't know what you're on about here dude."

If I suggest that the most recent God of War game wasn't fun, that's an opinion. If I say this instead, that's no longer an opinion. It's a personal attack on someone's character because of my opinion, and that happens all the time these days with gaming journalism on the topics of gender and race.

Yeah, a movement which, by definition, has a concrete and unambiguous goal has more specific goals than a movement working towards subjective and ambiguous goals. Your point?

You know, the American Civil Rights movement had internal factions which disagreed about nonviolent vs violent protest, working with white people or working alone, about integration vs black nationalism, and many, many other topics. What a bunch of worthless shit the Civil Rights movement was, eh?

Well for one thing, he's just pointing out that he finds some stuff in a God of War game to have a terrible attitude towards women, which should be about as controversial as finding some parts of the sky to be white and fluffy. For another, if someone says they like David Duke's radio show, and I say they're a fan of racist shit, do they get to have a whinge about how I'm attacking their character?

@anwar: On average, about how many times in a week, Anwar, would you estimate you stop and think to yourself "Hmm. I wonder why prolific Giant Bomb forums poster brodehouse gets frustrated?"?

I once pondered it while making breakfast

And it makes me sad that people now seem to think that they should have as much influence over every decision as the individual artists do, and that if they don't bend over and succumb to their demands then they're being racist, sexist, etc. If somebody wants to make a game featuring a man, that's their prerogative. That's not sexism. If somebody wants to make a game specifically about a woman, go ahead, I'd like more games featuring and made by women, and more featuring and made by minorities. It would be an interesting change of perspectives and I actively seek out films that offer that. The solution isn't to crowbar people into a game, the story of which had most likely previously been built for a white male character, because that doesn't offer any different perspective. They're doing the same thing as the original character. The solution is to hire these people in creative roles and encourage games lead by minorities that offer a different perspective than what we're used to. Of course if the original game is an RPG, it would be ludicrous for them to not be offered as alternative characters to the default anyway, but I also find it ludicrous that people expect to be able to turn up and complain to studios and individual people, regardless of whether or not they are interested in the game, or the film, or the book, or the whatever, and have that complaint influence the art in any way. It's not meant to be universally loved. Some art is made by utterly detestable people, but even they offer unique insight into those people. That's another perspective too. We need more perspectives, rather than the same perspectives with different people replacing the old ones.

I am trying to figure out some way to get gaming news while totally avoiding these types of topics(race/sexism etc) but I don't think it's possible anymore, I almost feel like I have to hear it even though I don't want to.

I don't believe I have said anything about making people bend over or succumb to my demands and I haven't called anyone sexist or racist.

This is why I find this debate so frustrating. Instead of asking me to expand on my viewpoint or trying to actually be interested in what I have to say you have just sent me a big wodge of text where you decide my opinions and then proceed to tell me how wrong I am.

Well, you yourself didn't exactly ask anyone to expand on their viewpoints. You clumped them together, said you were sad (as if you have a moral highground) about their differing viewpoints, and assumed to know why people feel the way they do.

Nonviolent, working with white people, integration. Everything else is just more racism. The Civil Rights movement wasn't worthless, but the people arguing for more racism certainly were, and society pretty much has accepted that fact. Do you really think that one day there is going to be a commonly accepted template for a "good female character" and almost no one is going to disagree with that?

Your analogy is horrible, so I fixed it for you.

If David Duke hated white people and black people equally--just as Kratos hates everybody--and you said David Duke was racist, then yes I would consider you to be attacking his character. But David Duke is clearly a racist asshole, so that's obviously a hypothetical.

I wasn't attacking you, and none of that was even influenced by your post in any way. You said the thread made you sad for whatever reason and didn't expand on that, I replied, saying that something else about this argument makes me sad and chose to expand on it. None of it was aimed at you in particular, and I would be interested in your viewpoint so if you want to expand, carry on.

My artistic vision cannot possibly be fulfilled unless every character is a straight white male

I don't think that a "template" ever results in a good character. I hope that one day games will be capable of sophisticated storytelling with a diverse range of fully rounded characters, and I don't think it's unfathomable that one day we'll get there.

Also shit, I didn't realise Kratos was responsible for actually developing the God of War series and naming the achievements associated with it. I thought he was a fictional character, and that talking about him as if he was totally divorced from his creators' intentions would be really dumb. My bad.

Let's do a historical exercise.

I think I can confidently speak for many who participated during the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and 70s that one major group felt equality could only be achieved through a general separation between blacks and whites. Not every group within the movement shared in that view however.

See how I just asserted, accurately, a view that a large group of others did in fact hold, within a social movement that few would be able to argue was not successful to some degree? Social movements are always comprised of individuals with views both similar and different from each other, regardless of how successful or not the movement was. However, those differences and similarities are always to a matter of degrees, allowing larger groups to form, allowing one to state, largely accurately, that one entire group generally holds a certain set of opinions.

Personally, I think that the splintering of modern social movements, whether it be feminism, gay rights, etc, is actually quite healthy. Groups as large as, say, the LGBT communities, are too diverse to be properly represented by just one movement with only one set of ideologies.

The game is literally called "Mortal" "Kombat" implying that someone is going to die, it is and always has been a game about violently destroying your adversary and literally melting their face off.

I don't believe your ever going to play those games.

Ed Boon was born in the dark.

white knight clickbait SJW tumblr something

@evilsbane: You're right, of course, though I don't think the word "mortal" has anything to do with it.

Cry sexism and let slip the dogs of war.

I posted this elsewhere, but damn if it doesn't belong here in this topic:

I guess step four would be to spend a thousand or more words not actually making any real point and then accusing people of being stupid when they fail to "refute" you.

There are topics in the video game industry that need to be addressed, just like some topics that need to be addressed in other facets of society. The problem that we're running into is that these topics have been overlooked for so long that we're experiencing over saturation. There are many instances in which people have over reacted when these issues were address; some non-issues seemed to have been made into issues by people who are unreasonably sensitive.

Then, you have people stirring the pot just for the publicity. People want that recognition of spearheading issues just for the sake of fame or even monetary gain. In some cases, it's even hard to discern who is genuinely concerned and who is faking the funk.

You weren't attacking me and your post wasn't influenced by what I said - yet you chose to reply directly to me?

This thread makes me sad because, as I said, it is a real shame that the thought of equality makes so many people so scared and angry. I guess I know why it is - because people feel they are being personally attacked, and their thing (games) is being changed without their permission - maybe leaving them behind.

I don't understand why everyone wouldn't want to fight for equality because equality is something which makes games better for everyone. It makes it better for the people who make them because everyone gets the same oppourtunities and the same pay and it makes it better for us because we get more diverse stories, worlds and characters.

This thread makes me sad because I just see the same old arguments: criticism=censorship, Kotaku and Polygon are awful (really!?!), bloggers are rude. Everyone saying, they are not against equality there is just some special reason why it doesn't apply, isn't needed, shouldn't be talked about in that way, or isn't really equality anyway.

Drawn battlelines, closed minds, angry voices. I shouldn't have posted really. But i'm here now :)

In reference to your argument - are you saying that we shouldn't be allowed to call games out if we are disappointed in the way they portray characters, or in their lack of characters. For example the new Assassin's Creed - Are you saying it is wrong for someone to suggest that it might have been better to have at least one of the characters not be a white male?

I just don't buy this argument that criticism equals censorship. Good criticism (not name calling - that's not what I am arguing for) is essential for any artistic medium to progress. Criticism is either right or wrong, it is not wrong in itself to criticise. If I think something is sexist, racist or just plain stupid I should be able to say so. It is how healthy artistic communities work.

Sure it would be better if everyone could make their own game with whatever characters they like, and we can try and make the staff of developers as diverse as possible, but I, like many people have a day job - I don't want to make games. My contribution to the industry is as part of the community, offering my opinions on games. You want me to stop?

Can we collectively stop this shit right here? Like I can see where you're coming from with some of your arguments, but this whole hyperbolic SJW-parody thing where people start by saying perfectly reasonable requests like more gay or transgender characters in games, and then try to make the argument seem ridiculous by putting that alongside crazy requests nobody has every asked for; it's just the most lazy kind of argument, or joke, there is. You're not just completely misinterpreting the arguments of the other side, you're actually equating having gay characters to having one-legged Ugandan unicyle-riding characters in terms of "HOW CAN YOU EXPECT A DEVELOPER TO BE SO INCLUSIVE?" There's a lot of gay people. There's a lot of transgender people. Gay people get very little representation in this medium, trans people almost none. It's just such a baseless, senseless one-liner.

On an unrelated note, fuck "artistic vision" as a defense for having 90% of your cast be straight white men. I'm primarily a fiction writer and storyteller, and you know what I do when I look back over a story i've been working on an realise I just happened to make every single main character a straight white dude? I just change one of those things for characters it makes sense for. It honestly doesn't need to affect that much about the character in most cases, and it just avoids the boring monotony of only having characters that i've projected my own "group" onto (as many writers do).

@giantlizardking said:

That you, and people like you, seem to see absolutely no subjectivity to these issues is almost the entire problem.

Your OPINION on individual accusations of racism or sexism is no more or less valid than my opinion, but you honestly seem to believe that there is a objective right and wrong here. That's what I find sad. I'm not the one trying to shape the world into what I want it to be, thinking clearly I am right and everyone else is wrong. I'm not the one shaming Sony into rewording the name of a trophy in an M rated title.

You mentioned good criticism, not name calling, so I'd like to know if your opinion of what equals good criticism is anywhere near my own. Personally, as I've mentioned before, this is the way I feel gender issues should be handled:

Tell me how YOU personally feel, not how I personally should feel.

Tell me what YOU personally feel is offensive, not what IS offensive, and certainly not how "women" feel about any given topic, as if anyone can speak for an entire gender.

When it comes to social issues, don't insult game developers, or make assumptions or accusations regarding their character or intentions.

Understand the concept of subjectivity.

Don't conflate hateful trolls attacking women with anyone who doesn't share your opinion, or point to those hateful trolls and proclaim "see, this means I'm right!"

Work to get people to understand your opinion and get them on your side, rather than just attack people who currently disagree with you. Be persuasive, not just progressive.

Do not promote or support journalism that fails in these areas.

That's a whole lot of words just to say:

@spaceinsomniac: Its amazing that you ask me to sign up to all these conditions before I can discuss things with you and then proceed to break one of them 'When it comes to social issues, don't....... make assumptions or accusations regarding (their) character or intentions.' by making a massive assumption about me 'and people like me'- whoever they are, based on one small phrase you pick out of everything I have written.

Your 10 commandments seem great and I assume that you expect the same standards and have another set for people with who sit on the 'non-feminist' (for want of a better term) side of the argument.

I only have one commandment, 'From now on I am only going to discuss issues like this with people I feel actually want to listen and learn, can debate in a friendly and civil manner and can disagree respectfully.'

Hopefully I can stick to this...

It's almost as if a couple people did inflammatory pieces on the subject, got huge clicks and now every writer wants a piece of that gravy train. Is how I see it :)

Anyway, giantbomb isn't immune to bullshit, but for the most part it's about the games. Hope you like it here!

lol wow that quote is so wrong. read the Quran or the hadith for a REAL idea of what is said.

You literally said "Criticism is either right or wrong, it is not wrong in itself to criticise" I don't think that's making an assumption about you, when going by exactly what you said. It might be only one part of what you said, but nothing else of what you said changed the meaning of that part, and I even included the surround paragraph.

But I don't have another set of standards for anyone. Just as I don't want someone to tell me that I should be offended by something, I also don't want people telling others that they shouldn't be offended by something.

"I personally think they're going overboard with the violence in the new Mortal Kombat, so I won't be buying it" - Okay

"I really hope that they don't keep trying to top the level of violence in each Mortal Kombat, because the game is already too violent for me" - Okay

"I can't wait for the new Mortal Kombat. The violence doesn't bother me at all" - Okay

"No one should find the violence in Mortal Kombat offensive, it's just a game" - Not okay

"With all the real world violence that people suffer through, it's shameful that the developers of Mortal Kombat keep pushing the limits of violence in their games." - Not okay

"The developers of Mortal Kombat clearly don't care about the real world victims of violence, or they would not make a game that glorifies the pain and suffering of others" - Not okay

And you're defending Polygon, who are ABSOLUTELY telling people how they should think, so I don't believe that I'm mistaken when I infer that you consider these matters to be more objective than subjective. If I'm mistaken, feel free to let me know.

But honestly, I'm not making an assumption about your character or intentions--at least not from a negative standpoint--because wanting more diversity in video games certainly doesn't make you a bad person, and I believe you--and others like you--absolutely have the best of intentions. I just personally think you're going about it the wrong way.

See, this is why I keep coming back to Giant Bomb. I posted all that far from sober and you still gave me a good argument. I don't entirely agree with you, all the same it is awesome to see someone throw their weight at you without being rude about it.

I like you, sir, have a cute piggy: