Lerina

Very well said. The FF videos could be part of a useful discussion of the specific examples but several people seem to think they are an attack on games that they like (hint: they aren't; no, they just aren't) and react with hostile, idiotic responses that don't make a credible attempt to argue the points they disagree with. The video responses to the FF videos are beyond ridiculous - one ad hominem (err, ad feminem?) fallacy rant after another ("AS is a lying liar and no one should listen to anything she says!!!!111oneone!!!"). There are several videos from people who haven't watched (or haven't understood) the FF videos, things like "Haha, I can play a female character in legends of whatever 12, checkmate Anita Sarkeesian!!!111oneone(two!!)!!!" My problem with the FF videos (and I'm a woman saying this) is that she has openly admitted that she hasn't played all of the games she reviews. She trusts what she is told by her husband/partners, and does not do the research HERSELF. I wouldn't object to her trying to make a case that supports her personal views of gaming if she were the one actually playing the games to look at their content and treatment of men and women. I don't say what is or isn't good about PoE, because I'm not playing it. While my husband plays it and I listen to the story, I can enjoy that, however, I wouldn't dream of offering a review of the game in any way shape or form, as I haven't played it myself. How can I objectively say that the mechanics are good or bad if I've never touched them? Similarly, how can someone say that women are mistreated in games if they're not playing the games they're upset about? It's the same thing to me. If you aren't the one studying a subject, you can still have an opinion on that subject, but more often than not, your opinion will be flawed in that you took your main points from other people with their biases and personal feelings heavily mixed in to what facts they may be willing to give, and that's being optimistic. In the worst case scenarios, taking your "research" from other peoples' opinions ends up with you just repeating flat out lies, since they're so invested in their causes that they can't even be honest with themselves.

There was a backer epitaph with a limerick on it about a man who killed himself after learning that he'd slept with another man. No mention of transphobia, or if the bedded man was a cross-dresser, a streetwalker, or even a guy hired to get revenge on "Firedorn" (the one who committed suicide), due to Firedorn's habit of sleeping with many women. Moral crusaders took it at the worst possible face value, and pressured Oblivion to change it. Here's where it gets muddy: The backer, Firedorn himself, said that Oblivion came to him admitting that they'd missed properly vetting his limerick, and asked if he would work with them to create a new one. He did, and personally, I think it's funnier than the original, because it makes light of the "outrage culture" that caused the original to be removed. (Quote from TotalBiscuit's Twitter.) However, both moral crusaders and gamers still have issues with it A: Being in at all or B: Being changed even with the backer's assistance. Moral crusaders think Obsidian is scum, and some gamers think Obsidian caved. Hopefully, that clears up the known facts about the "issue" for you. I'm not getting into the emotional, because that would just exhaust me, and I have French bread pizza to make.

To those people who think that Sawyer or Obsidian should make some sort of "statement" dealing with this new butthurt: No, they shouldn't. That's what got them into hot water in the first place with the epitaph. If anything, the big thing Sawyer should have learned from this is to keep his fingers to himself on Twitter when these situations come up, until and unless the publicity team think there's something worth saying about it. If he'd kept his trigger-fingers to himself, the epitaph would have blown over in a few days when the morality police realized Obsidian didn't care about them. Now, full disclosure, I don't play PoE myself, but my husband does, and I've been enjoying listening to it. (It's not my kind of game, but I can enjoy the story, even if I don't want to play through the mechanics, what a shock, right?!) He hasn't gotten to the quest mentioned here yet, but now I'm looking forward to when he does, so we can see for ourselves what it's like. Hell, we had a ball with him trying to play a psycho last night, because he died horribly trying to slaughter the starting caravan, just to see if it could be done. (It was VERY funny, he failed miserably.) As for protecting children in video games, my thoughts on that, being from a military family, are thus: Why should children receive special status in games that they don't have in real life? Kids in real life can be killed during wars, by crazy people, or flat out by accidents or illness. Honestly, the fact that they're invincible in games crosses a bit into uncanny valley for me, because for heaven's sake, they NEVER leave, die, or grow up. Does that not strike anyone else as just a little bit weird?