Calax

Could we not do the strawmanning? It's not like there is no other way to notify the player that within the game world, blowing a prostitute's brains out after paying her for services rendered, is rightfully considered to be ****ed up, without making women unkillable. I mean, being willing to draw the kind of heat such murders would logically incur, for what's basically pocket change, should be the equivalent of walking around with "I'M MENTALLY UNSTABLE AND HAVE ZERO CAPACITY FOR LONG-TERM THINKING" written on your forehead, and even purely from a verisimilitude standpoint, every questgiver NPC should treat you accordingly. Here's the crux of it. They do... it's why you get a wanted level in the game for killing people. And you obviously haven't played the game we're discussing.

This is such a weird argument. It's like, I'm a med student, it's obviously desirable for me to be able to connect the different subjects I am taught into a coherent whole that is more than the sum of its part, yet I'm pretty sure I'd be thrown out from the cytology exam if I started to ruminate about the finer points of intracellular signaling, despite the fact that the two are very much connected, because that's not what the focus of the subject is about. I'm not sure I can explain it more coherently than that. (I'm even less sure it makes sense for people who don't know what my cytology courses are about and how they relate to intracellular signalling.) Actually It'd be more like you, as a med student, being confused by what you're supposed to do during a physical exam. It's the very core of what you're doing (checking the human body to make sure it's operating correctly) but instead you're to heavily specialized in Immuno-response diseases to tell me to "Turn your head and cough" and know wtf you're looking for. And I think nothing illustrates her point more succintly than you honestly arguing that people being used as c*ck repositories, then shot in the head in order to save the player a trivial sum of money is a more positive portrayal, because they're "valued for their sexuality", than male antagonists being killed. Really? My objectification of a series of bits and bytes that is configured into a female figure is worse because I view the female as having more value for it's sexual aspects rather than the male who I just wander around and shoot randomly? Although I value the strictly-male police force more because when I kill them I get a gun and ammo (and if there were female officers I'd value them higher than their sex-woker compatriots because the 100 bucks for a hooker in GTA V is kinda small change when a machine gun costs 10k)! Being more serious, my point was that we objectify men and women in games. Women are objectified sexually in a number of them, mostly as eye candy (such as the Watch_dogs sex auction). However male characters are objectified not as objects to be lusted after, but as objects to be hated and killed. Seriously, Women get looked at, guys just get shot and killed. Por Exemple

Well the series is titled Tropes Vs. Women in video games, and while the way our society trivializes violence against men is deserving of being discussed as well, it's clearly not the focus of the project. (Actually the - around these parts, much-maligned - phrase "toxic masculinity" refers, among other things, to the underlying societal assumptions feeding these attitudes.) Btw. I don't appreciate your wild assumptions regarding my character and goals, and since I'm refraining from calling you, say, a vile misogynist scumbag who only wants to oppress and rape women, I'd be grateful if you extended the same courtesy of not strawmanning based on lazy outgroup stereotypes to me. It's titled tropes vs women, but the producer is called "FEMINIST frequency" and as I understand it, part of feminism is attempting to gain equity with men correct? As to the actual focus of the project. It makes for a very simple and easy video series for a woman to create if you're just cherry picking your examples while not providing the context of those examples, or how this particular example is worse for women over men. In GTA V you can kill hookers and get money... You can also kill any person on the street and they drop a wad of cash. That was part of my argument, that her examples aren't unique or special to women in many of the cases. ESPECIALLY the cases of violence. In these situations it's probably worse for men because at least women are valued for their sexuality. Men are just obstacles to go through, usually via machine guns. The other part of it was that her examples could also be entirely fictional, and/or she cherry picks the facts to suit her narrative that "Strong independant women are shoved down so male characters can do everything!"

Some of them. Incidentally, I think focusing on the Hitman: Absolution video to the exclusion of all else is really great at reaffirming one's confirmation bias(es) (wink wink), but less great at initiating actual dialogue about the points raised throughout the entire series. I focused on that because I haven't watched the things in a long long time and that was the major one I remember from when I did hear about it last year. The entire bit she's talking about things you CAN do as if the developers are directly encouraging you to do everything you can in a game, and acting as if things like killing hookers are incentiveized to a large degree. In her first videos (where she talks about damsels in distress) she creates a narrative that is pure "plug and play" where her model is so generalized that it strips out the larger context of ANY relationship. If your partner performs oral sex upon you or vis versa, the recipient has become the object because they've been acted upon, and therefore oral sex is inherently bad! In all fairness, that's not inherently self-contradictory. One can have a problem with punishment for killing other people than the target being trivial, including the punishment for killing prostitutes. My point was that she doesn't mention that the punishment for death/arrest/whatever is the exact same for killing a hooker as compared to some random joe on the street. She instead leaves it nebulous enough that her audience could easily infer that this arrest/player death being cheap is ONLY in the context of the sex worker, rather than the larger context that this is a game and people want to have fun, and adding in a lengthy trial process plus jail time, plus all the various other damages of performing these actions within the real world would incur, probably doesn't make for a good game. Honestly, it's a strange sort of Equality that killing sex workers etc incurs the same penalties as killing anyone else. She has images from Watch_Dogs in her series, but IIRC when she discusses the game she creates a straw man of her particular point (women as objects) rather than actually talking about the SIGNIFICANT ways that Watch_Dogs is incredibly sexist and demeaning to women. The scene she talks about is of a Sex Slave auction (yeah, that's in the game, go figure) where the entire point is that these girls are objects because Sex Slavery Is Bad . She doesn't talk about how the female characters in the game are used as props to drive the story, and at one point "stuffed into the fridge". Another point that I've made before (in this thread I think) and that Liana K talks about is that she trivializes the violence against men within these same games. In most games, you will mow down the male population of a small city, but barely ever kill one woman. Somehow this isn't seen as sexist, it's just the way things are but people like you Aluminum and Bruce aren't going to say "HEY! That's not fair! We want women to be killed at the same rates as men!" because you don't want Equality. Instead you want women to have all the social, economic, and political benefits of being men, while enjoying none of the drawbacks from being expected to simply smile and take it when your female partner decides to come after you with an iron because "Women can't abuse guys".

It's... not a particularly great article, I think. But it does have some valid points. I'm not sure there's interest for a detailed paragraph-by-paragraph recitation of my thoughts about it, but do correct me if I'm wrong. You realize that's part 1 of five right? This is the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time. Except that it's true. Her examples are cherry picked out of context, and usually wildly unsupported by the actual game. For example she declares that players are encouraged to participate in the objectification of women, simply because you can control where your character looks, while saying that it's not as bad in other media because you're seeing what somebody else wants you to see. The best example of this is the discussion on Hitman Absolution where... well just watch the 22 minutes on "Women as background decoration" at about 20 minutes to see people doing things that are not exactly what most gamers do (to say the least). She also gets upset that the punishments are 'trivial' for killing hookers... Even though it's the exact same response to killing any other person within the game world. I think that sums up the disconnect between her and reality quite well.

... it's right below the youtube link.

Do we need to talk about Anita's failings again? Like where she talked about how Hitman (one of them) rewarded the player for assaulting and abusing women in a strip joint's back area... (When the actual mission/game penalizes you for hurting civilians and you can easily slip past them). Or she breaks down all relationships to subject/object bull****, but only applies this to male/female relationships. Also she uses StarFox Adventures to say "SEE!? They don't want strong female characters" while talking about it's development (Stating that the game starred only a female fox who was pushed aside to set Fox McCloud as the lead... while using footage from a trailer that included the old male protagonist that was reworked into Fox McCloud). Anita attempts to say "I'm an academic" but none of her work is done remotely close to an academic format (with citations of her sources/examples so people can check her work) and most of her arguments are built around people not knowing the medium so they just accept her word for it. Also Found dis / http://metaleater.com/video-games/feature/why-feminist-frequency-almost-made-me-quit-writing-about-video-games-part-1Part 1 of 5 of an essay on why Feminist Frequency almost made another feminist quit writing about games. On the larger topic of Feminism, she makes the point that Anita is probably creating more enemies for the movement than converts.

They did a whole panel a while ago where they talked about the process of the game.

Assassins Creed has just announced it's new iteration, Syndicate set in victorian London.

I am confused by your confusement. In the poster that was thrown in the thread, Faith from Mirrors Edge is taking a side. IIRC, EA had Anita Sarkeesian as a creative consultant on how to remodel Faith in Mirror's Edge 2. How did you feel about that on personal level? Do you think Anita is justified in this case or do you think her intentions are misplaced? I realize it's not directed at me, but honestly they should have picked another woman to do it. Anita just screams that they're trying to capitalize on a PR stunt, and a lot of Anita's work is honestly misleading at best. Bring Jane Austen back from the dead, or pick somebody from the industry who feels that there is sexism in the workplace. Not some random outsider who's only known because her views are... controversial to say the least.

Seems a bit strange that GG would have any women as a mascot considering how the movement feels about women and treats them ? Except that the majority of the GG group want not some wierd "give me my ass and titties!" thing, but rather they want a gaming media that's not built around enforced storylines from the editors, and a media that gives reviews etc based on their relationship with the companies that they're discussing rather than content of the product. One of the reasons this discussion keeps continuing is because people keep finding different ways that the entire journalistic enterprise is linked together to push stories that the companies (be they the makers of the game, or the journalistic company that is doing an article) wants to push (see: Gamers are Dead for example). The sexism aspect of this is used by the Anti-gamersGate people to deliberately cloud over the first issue, and they're separate issues, linked only because of the nature that all of this came to pass.

Its important to have a functional and well funded army...what if ISIS invades the USA through Mexico, this should concern all Americans immensely Well another bill mentioned in the email I got from Mrs Earnst, they're pushing the bill to force the President to allow congress to approve or veto any deals with Iran... and to arm and train the Kurds in Iraq to combat Isis (Or any closely related successor group.) Well I can understand the reasoning behind training the Kurds, they are pro-Western and seem really prepared to engage with ISIS. They just need training and resources But the Iran bill worries because what if after all the hard word that Obama does to ensure a peaceful settlement with Iran gets undermined by the next USA president who could be Republican? I don't think that the bill would pass constitutional muster, you can't tie an executives hand in that way and expect the government to operate on an international stage with treaties etc.

Its important to have a functional and well funded army...what if ISIS invades the USA through Mexico, this should concern all Americans immensely Well another bill mentioned in the email I got from Mrs Earnst, they're pushing the bill to force the President to allow congress to approve or veto any deals with Iran... and to arm and train the Kurds in Iraq to combat Isis (Or any closely related successor group.)

Things I learned today from my senators newsletter to my school email. The Senate passed a balanced budget resolution that basically cuts social programs up the wazoo (Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps lose 4.2 trillion dollars in 10 years) while boosting military spending (651 Billion in the budget for the guns in 2021). Only two republicans to vote against this were Cruz and Paul who said it didn't cut hard enough.

I am confused by your confusement. In the poster that was thrown in the thread, Faith from Mirrors Edge is taking a side.

Depending on who you ask, all their exes live in texas, and at least one of their Exes is Jesus. Athough it's pronounced Hay-Zues.

I'm very confused, how can characters be pro/against anything?

What're you trying to say here? That I never watched Xfiles? Also, it's hilarious how this show is all about the FBI... even though the show is basically a spy thriller rather than a cops show.

I don't know why, but something in this thread reminded me of a story I saw in one of those "10th grade Reader's" that schools have/had. The basic story premise was that Everyone in this ideal world was equal... but not by making people smarter or stronger etc. But instead by dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. The strong had to wear bags that were equal in weight to the difference between their lifting power and "normal" peoples. Those with 20/20 vision had to wear glasses that would blur things to the "normal" vision level. Everyone who didn't have the attention span of a gnat would have hearing aids... that'd fire off a very loud sound every 8 seconds to make sure they'd lose their concentration. The story shows this with a mother and father whose son was missing... then while the husband (who's smart, strong, and clear sighted) steps into the bathroom for 5 minutes and the son pops up on tv. The Son was the Ubermench to the point he was wearing tons of scrap metal, his glasses were 3 inches thick, and his hearing aid was actually a headphones set. On live television he stripped everything off giving a speech about how we should be who we were born to be and the guy ended up flying and stuff.... then the cops showed up and shot him. His mom cries for about two seconds before her husband gets back... and totally forgets that her son was just shot on live tv.

Just started watching Blacklist after seeing James Spader in Age of Ultron. I'm only in the first few episodes but some of the contortions they go through to ensure that the show stays in "DC" is kinda hilarious. Also, why is the other FBI officer ALWAYS wrong? I mean I understand he's there to be a foil to Spader's character, but if you have somebody be ALWAYS wrong in a work of fiction, you end up making that character look like a complete useless fool.

Never underestimate the arrogance and malfeasance of professional politicians and bureaucrats. Prezbident Obongo himself has openly declared his contempt for our founding documents and considers them roadblocks and obstacles to be overcome. Ruth "Buzzy" Ginsberg and others on the Supreme Court have expressed similar sentiments. They're nothing but Ruling Class vermin and are not to be trusted. So... Where has Obama "openly declared" this?

Well one of those things I heard about the whole situation was that Quinn had put in something along the lines of "donations and/or a portion of sales will go towards Depression research" and when the particular charity mentioned was asked they responded there had been no donations from the game, and the note disappeared.

Which assumes they'd be allowed to without the Republican party constantly finding random stuff to fight over rather than allowing the gun control to get through. And that the states don't take things into their own hands.

Found via twitter.

Part of the problem is that the characters being created today are kinda "one story" if they're left open for future stories they can tend to be to generic, and if they're a one story character who's brought back, they can be brought back significantly different. Bane is probably the best example, his debut was literally breaking batman psycologically and physically, but since then he's become sort of a generic "Super Strength" hero in most other potrayals (admittedly I don't read batman that much). Another part of the problem is having somebody who can go toe to toe with Superman/Thor, but still be vulnerable.