biggest_loser

@hubrisranger: I wish it was some elaborate prank. How did they keep this a secret for close to a week?

@nettacki:

"While that may be true, nothing I've seen from her has shown that she's made an effort to listen to what they've said to her, negative or no. I mean, do you think she saw the video posted by KiteTales or one of her own backers and attempted to answer criticism seriously by herself? Far as I know, not really."

First of all, why does this woman have to justify herself to you? You don't know what she has been watching and frankly, its none of your damn business whether she's been listening to these replies or not. She could have videos in the future responding to reply videos.

"It's not even a personal attack. I didn't call her a bitch, or wish that she's dead, or threaten to rape her. I never attacked the woman herself, just her inability (or unwillingness) to answer to criticism in a reasonable, level-headed, and balanced way, Youtube or no Youtube. If even one of her backers has acknowledged the way she responded (read: didn't respond) to criticism, why can't you?"

You could have referred to her unwillingness to reply, without making it personal by calling her a coward. Time to fess up I say! I'm not going to attack her for not responding because she doesn't owe anyone anything. If she doesn't want to reply to some of the loonies out there she doesn't have to. That's her choice.

@nettacki:

"That's the proper way of responding to critics, not blocking any and all criticism from everyone, no matter how legit, and going "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" like Anita did.

By the way, this information I got? It was from this video from one of her very own backers that realized what I just said."

I think you're relying on exaggeration so that you have an excuse to call her a coward. Did she tell people not to make other videos responding to her stuff? No. To respond to maybe one or two thoughtful comments on Youtube you would have to wade through the cesspit of sexist, hateful remarks that people are allowed to get away with. Its not a fair trade off is it? Ebert wasn't making Youtube videos, where comments are limited to a few characters either. How deep a response are you expecting in just 500 characters? Its about six sentences against twenty minutes worth of information. If you want to reply to her and be a ohhh a scholarly critic of her work! well write a blog or something. No one is stopping you. Stop trying to find a reason to personally attack her and get out there and write a proper rebuttal to her work soldier!!

@nettacki: "Seriously, how can you explain her inability to properly accept criticism by virtue of completely disabling the ratings and comments section of her video? To me, that's an act of cowardice, not an attempt at responsible moderation."

Do you really believe that? What are you expecting? Some of the things people have said to her are horrible - she's already been sent death threats. Youtube's idea of "criticism" is to call someone a f***ot.

Patrick you owe it to yourself to play Thief: Deadly Shadows. Its a magnificent game on the whole, not just because of the Cradle level. I hope you enjoy it. Have you played the first games too?!

"We've let our awfuls become our default image. Angry commenters, forum trolls, and thoughtless haters are stealing our narrative and feeding into this resentful and fearful perception people have of what games are all about."

Have a look at this very community. The chauvinist things people on this site were saying about feminism and sexism in general were beyond comprehension. Rarely has a comments section been so misinformed. There was actually someone who said that gaming should remain male dominated and they were glad it was like that...

I'm only mentioning this because as a gamer I'm sick of reading articles and all the responses are part of this "us against them" mentality. Its so boring and childish. But then those same people think that gaming should be regarded as a medium of artistic merit. Well here's some news: art is criticised and read and misinterpreted regularly.

The amount of self-entitlement does no favours for an industry that deems itself now as "mature". Just go onto the GTA forums and read the comments about the recent delay. You might want to lie down afterwards. Games aren't just for kids anymore so they shouldn't be censored! Well stop acting like it then.

Build a bridge gamers. And not the virtual kind!

@JoshyLee said:

@Hailinel said:

@JasonR86 said:

@ptys said:

Giant Bomb really need to hire a female editor...

Oh God I would love to see the forums after that. They would fucking lose their shit.

It would be one hell of a sight to see.

I don't think people would mind. The issue isn't that we hate women. (even though you would like it to be as it would make us seem like terrible people) The issue is that Patrick is exploiting the idea of feminism so that people will pay attention to him. If he reported the fucking news no one would mind. But Alex is doing that. Patrick is trying to get page view through sensationalist bullshit.

Exploiting the idea of feminism...how is he doing that? Has ever mentioned the ideology of feminism? No he just found the statue tasteless and didn't understand how it was allowed to pass. And how is this sensational at all? He just asked people within the industry for their perspective. It has nothing to do with feminism.

@Binman88 said:

there was a time when women were portrayed as the dumb house wife in ads who had to crawl on their knees for men. Just remember that.

Crazy. The implication that things are being "evened up" makes it ok? You might want to clarify what you mean here. If it was bad then, it's bad now.

He's complaining that all ads now make men look stupid. I never said anything about it now being evened up and that its okay. I'm just pointing out that both genders have at different times been subjected to ridicule, meaning that it is futile to suggest that there is one specific gender being pushed. Th focus changes all the time.

@Missacre said:

@CastleD said:

If some of you guys think the fuss over this statue is overblown, you have to start realizing that in society the only time something really matters is when it affects women. It doesn't matter if its as trivial as a statue, or life and death issues. For example, males commit suicide at a rate of 4 to 1 over females. Guess what, nobody cares (and that's just one example of many).

Also, there's nothing brave and bold about Patrick Klepeck writing this article or his female friendly stance on these issues. Our entire media is feminist. Now, a journalist who criticizes aspects of feminism, even the slightest, that takes brass balls, because you risk ostracizing yourself or even losing your job. So you guys should stop congratulating Klepeck as if he's some type of trailblazer. This article is as mainstream and safe as it gets. I get the sense that he likes to "troll", whether it be his fellow male gamers who he looks down upon, or jukeboxes.

It's presented as if females are usually silenced, so we're giving them a voice finally. Meanwhile, our entire media is female-centric (like HuffPo for example), and issues affecting women are discussed all day, every day, not to mention our government and schools who care mostly about women. As a man, I'm more annoyed by commercials on television that treat men as total morons and women as SuperSassySmart who have to "tolerate" the male moron, than this statue, even though I personally don't like it and think it's grotesque.

Video games are one of last forms of media that doesn't cater and pander to women, and that won't do. That's one reason you see a backlash from guys when this subject comes up.

Final politically incorrect note: one reason the video game industry has been male dominated is because males have always been more interested in video games than females. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but from my observation its' mostly natural and not a social construct. It's not because men are evil misogynists, feel "threatened" by women, or any other phantom reasons. Misogyny exists of course, as does misandry, but it's overblown. Most men love women, want to be near women, enjoy working with them, and like doing things for women. I do.

Oh god, this. This so much. You sir, I want to shake your hand. Finally, someone who sees the light and isn't randomly spouting feminazi propaganda in a feeble attempt to get laid. I totally agree with you, video games are one of the last things that are male-dominated, and I'll admit, I like it that way.

The reason all these feminists are bitching about how "sexist" and "misogynistic" video games are, is because this is what's getting more attention these days. If something else was in the media day in and day out, they would leave us alone. They just move on from fad to fad, and video games happens to be the most recent one. Sadly, though, with everyone apparently on their side, it seems as if video games are going to start changing, and for what? They're gonna leave the games industry in disrepair because they wanted games catered specifically to them for one or two years. By then, no one's gonna want to play games anymore, because feminists were bitching every step of the way.

I just hope people who are truly passionate about games holds on and waits for this feminist cancer to pass us by, hopefully by then, they haven't done too much damage to the industry.

I think you're both way off the mark here. Video games are no longer male dominated. That mentality has to end. Its gone beyond the basement. Games are now being made for everyone. It is something gamers have to come to terms with. More and more women and girls are playing games. This has nothing to do with feminists and feminism. That's just a dirty word blokes on the internet like to throw around like mud. A lot of female gamers wouldn't consider themselves feminists. A lot of them just want to invest in female characters that aren't scantily clad sex objects. Not only is wanting gaming to be "male-dominated" weird its also extremely male chauvinistic and essentially sexist. I'm calling that out to you as a bloke. If you think this is going to go away, I think you need to get out of the basement and realise gaming is expanding. Its not just for the lads anymore.

As for you friend: there was a time when women were portrayed as the dumb house wife in ads who had to crawl on their knees for men. Just remember that. That whole thing about the media being entirely female orientated is bull considering the number of male talk show hosts and anchors. How many female game reviewers are there? Do you have any examples of journalists losing their job for criticising feminism? That's still part of the media. If men love women so much why does this bloke think gaming should be male orientated and that feminism is a cancer? I think thats a disgusting, juvenile attitude.

@Tebbit said:

In the last thread I said that I wasn't offended by the statue because it was clearly so over the top, overly-sexualized and crude that to be offended would be like being disliking Nazis and therefore being incredibly offended at how 'Allo 'Allo portrays them in a comical, friendly light.

Sexism is disgusting, yes. This statue is gross, yes. But I feel like we as a people are already fucking aware of that. We know this is not how to treat women, we know that sexualized gore is ugly and unappealing, we know that women are equal to men - even if some areas of life are still male-dominated (CEO's, video-game journalists, etc) we know that this is not how it should be, and that it should change.

So when someone gets up on their soap-box and says "I have to make a stand here: Guys, this dismembered female torso is disgusting", my initial reaction is: No shit.

No shit.

Unfortunately, for a lot of people (myself included until I actually thought about it), this develops into "It's not really that bad, because I know that I treat women equally to men", then to "it's not really that bad", and finally:

"Patrick, you're full of shit, you're getting up in arms about nothing. Quit being so pretentious".

It's a lose-lose situation. You can't say "It's not that bad. I don't enjoy or get any satisfaction from that torso", because in internet-land that translates to "so you hate women, then?".

Nor can you say "I find this offensive because it portrays women in a light that I think is disgusting", because that translates to "I shed a tear every time a women has to walk home unattended. These delicate flowers must be protected at all costs".

I think that most people are inherently both of these arguments, because we are all reasonable human beings that neither see women as pieces of meat, nor feel the need to protect them from obscene marketing campaigns.

We know what that torso represents. But raising arms against it just grants it more discussion than it deserves.

Flag and move on. Don't feed the troll.

You say 'we know' and 'no shit its disgusting'. The reason why articles like this are posted and we have people from the industry commenting is because there are obviously a lot of games who DONT know or don't understand why this is wrong. Go through these comments man. There are a bunch of people saying "I don't see anything wrong with it".