alanschu

You fail to grasp the tenets of modern feminism, I'll help you. Women are perfect, if a woman has a flaw the fault lies with the Patriarchy. A woman can do anything a man does but does not need to do it or be capable of doing it and should regardless be considered equal. All men are rapists and oppressors, therefore men cannot be considered to suffer of anything a woman can because of their privilege. Are you getting the picture? Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. (Successful troll attempt though, since reading it literally pissed me off! \o/) Well here's a tip for you. The site is putting forward the idea that it is applied more commonly to girls for the same behaviour than boys would be considered leaders (a trait with more positive connotations). Glad I could clear that up for you. You're welcome to disagree with that assertion (as Oerwinde does in the post above this one).

Titanfallllllllllllllllll.

I finally had a chance to read the link a bit more thoroughly: Is it just me, or is this thread an entirely irrelevant semantic argument given that the link in the original post doesn't actually have anything to do with removing the word "bossy" from our vernacular, but to instead examine the context with which it is used when discerning similar behaviours between young boys and young girls and how one is considered a pejorative and to make us think about why that happens? I mean, I guess you can disagree with the thesis (which is what I think Amentep tried to do in post 16). I see "It is about the word" and how "we should treat the problem not the symptom" when, at least to me, the entire point of the website is that the use of the term bossy for young women that behave the same way as young boys who are instead called leaders. One term has a negative connotation, and the point of the website is to illustrate that disparity. For *some* reason, it's considered unappealing for a young girl to behave that way so we ascribe a negative word (whatever that word may be - I'm intentionally using the term "negative word" instead of "bossy" here). To me it seems pretty clear that the thesis is "young girls are treated differently than young men in these situations, and are looked down upon it for doing so." Not "lets remove bossy from our vocabular." Now, some of hinted that they disagree with this thesis outright (same Amentep post), though to be honest I'm so far removed from being a young child that I certainly cannot provide any anecdotes that would or would not support the idea that young girls were more likely to be called bossy and to deal with the stigma of having that label. Distilling away the "does this divide actually happen" I do ask, assuming this distinction is true, do people here feel it's a problem? If not, why not? Is asking this question truly "treating a symptom" or does (should?) it cause people to wonder WHY a campaign like this even starts up? I'm definitely in the latter.

My issue with GFWL was that it's actual online support features (for MP or whatever) typically gave me issues while Steam and Origin did not.

If you are only vaguely aware of USAPATRIOT, then you may be more qualified to speak about it that the people who voted it into law. http://books.google.com/books?id=Y_Ej_RA5Bf0C&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66#v=onepage&q&f=false That's some healthy lawmaking, right there. Unfortunately I have an aversion to anything associated with Michael Moore....

I have heard that the original builds of Dragon Age didn't actually have a dragon! (I think Uldred was the main villain) Though this is all looooooong before my time, so it's just hearsay at this point.

Actually I have to rethink my position. Seeing people come into this thread and take up defense against the various blasphemous opinions has actually become rather entertaining.

Jill's point was that the women ARE documented, and that our failure to educate on them is a problem with us now, now recording them back then. So this statement is actually in agreement with her, though your hostile tone seems to indicate that you think you're refuting her statement....

I remember some of my university professors bringing up the point that, in a lot of cases, the problem isn't only that women's contributions weren't included in the historical record, and more that we today often overlook those parts of the historical record that involve women's experiences. In other words, in many cases, we today, and not historians in the past, are the ones making women's contributions invisible. Fair enough. Occasionally I see the "famous women you probably haven't heard of but probably should have" posts that go around social media from time to time. Clearly their contributions are documented, but it's true that despite their contributions in similar fields such as physics/astronomy and the like, but male names are easier to recall (at least personally speaking).

Cool thanks.

Is part of this perspective also from the standpoint of him basically going "peace out, yo" and leaving the country? In other words, by doing that (with apparently a verbal resignation), you're suggesting that parliament has recourse to replace him since he effectively abandoned his post?

I do agree that Jack's romance has problematic elements for sure. But yeah, this forum is smaller with a bit of a leaning towards a game style/writing of a KOTOR 2 and whatnot. Gromnir is one of a few that speaks in character, just as a heads up.

Reading that, the defensive of gravity rush is the fairly typical "there's story reasons for her to have silly outfits" combined with some "it's just what her character likes to wear." I have seen people justify some of the even more extreme outfits of League of Legends with phrases like this. I still find both of those defenses problematic. Stating that she has magical powers that enable her to wear a particular type of clothing is still pretty hamfisted way to toss the character into a school girl outfit. Then to say "it's just the way the character likes to dress, who are we to say otherwise." But if the selection of that particular attire is arbitrary (i.e. chosen by a human being just because), it's not like that decision is made in a vacuum. It's important to still recognize that Kat isn't actually a real human being. Does wearing that outfit serve the character in any way? I find it a bit pedantic, because it's actually not really addressing the issues with the character's presentation and whether or not it's accurate, but rather attempting to discredit by poking holes in the statement. On a final note: I'm not sure the statement of a destroider is necessarily accurate. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/12/historically-authentic-sexism-in-fantasy-lets-unpack-that Food for thought, though it's difficult to confirm/deny how common the omission/irrelevance of women contributions in history was. First you need to believe that it's possible that that happened, and then also believe that it happened regularly enough to skew our perception of history.

I'm not sure I'd agree, especially given you picked Garrus and I don't recall feeling the same way (and extending into ME3, he's probably one of my favourite "friend characters" in a lot of gaming).

Playing "waiting for Titanfall"

I'm not sure if I could handle another game where I spend more time at the ammo crafting bench than anywhere else!!! (FONV) (This is a statement of endearment as I gobbled up that crafting aspect)

Right now... nothing. Because Titanfall soon!

You're presumably long gone, but I'm curious how you define alpha? We tend to define it as feature complete (all features we want to be in the game exist in some capacity) but I think other places apply the term earlier than we do.

Yeah that's sort of what I am expecting as well. I just preloaded and am good to go with a few friends of mine, so I can come back with my findings when I get a chance to play it.

So basically, Garriott should have paid himself less and Origin was still bankrupt? You are describing a company that saw mismanagement and are assuming "well it just needed to be a bit different and it would have been better" as though that's a relatively trivial thing to do. How many people sell their companies while they are growing hand over fist, mitigating any future earnings that they will ever get from that company ever again, only to continue working for that same company? If Garriott was interested in only in leeching the money and getting out with a big payday. Although I guess if he was still overpaid by EA.... You stated "most of the companies EA obtained and cannibalized were not in the position of be obtained or die" and then gave me a detailed recount of how Richard Garriott basically put the company in a position of "be obtained or die." It really seems like your beef is with Garriott for putting the company in that position, not with Electronic Arts. Even then, things like Britannia Manor were built before 1988, which is still several years before the purchase. I was around, though I was young (I remember the Square, Circle, and Triangle though I never saw anyone refer to them as ECA before... I always called them Electronic Arts and they were listed as Electronic Arts from the software wholesalers my Dad's computer company used and I remember when Origin Systems stopped existing and Ultima VII was now under Electronic Arts). I may be biased because I was a part of the "EA explosion" when they decided to start making console titles, which in 1991 and 1992 had become where they get the majority of their revenues. I never considered Origin to be larger than EA though, so I did some poking around and came across this article: http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/electronic-arts-inc-history/ It lists EA's revenue in 1991 as $131 million. In 1992 it was $175 million. It mentions during the buyout of Origin that Origin's revenues in 1992 were $121 million. Unfortunately I don't know what the cashflows/profits or anything like that were. So to be honest, they were a much larger studio in terms of revenues than I thought they were. The Escapist article also mentions that people like Chris Roberts also commanded a hefty salary as well, and while there may be huge hits it also points out that Garriott was of the mindset to not reuse any code from previous Ultima games going forward. The article also points out that a difference between them and a studio like Lucasarts, was that they decided what they wanted to do and then tried to make it work (including creating custom memory managers like the Voodoo memory system for Ultima VII), while Lucasarts would look at what was possible and would design around that. It doesn't come across as far fetched that the development process for Origin's games end up being higher by a non-trivial amount compared to a lot of other game developers at the time. Coupled with games mired in development hell, like Strike Commander (Over 1 million man hours), a perfect storm of badness happened and Origin had no money. But none of that is EA's fault, and to state that a bankrupt company was not in the position to be purchased is incorrect (regardless of how said company got into that state), while then excusing it as a "well if they had just done things differently" comes across more as moving the goalposts. How many companies would still be around today if they didn't have mismanagement and excessive spending on things that they didn't need, and had just done some things a little bit differently instead? It wouldn't be the first time that a creative person struggled with the actual economics of running a business, nor will it be the last (look at something like Broken Age, for example). Although I do find it interesting how often people will, for example, rail on EA for exploiting its employees while remaining blissfully unaware of how things were at a place like Origin or BioWare when they were still owned entirely by their founders. Origin was large, as was Westwood (I assume this is the one you mean for "at its prime?"). How big was Bullfrog really, prior to the EA buyout? At the time the only game I remember hearing of was Syndicate (and only because it had cool boxart), while it was easier to come up with Origin games. Maxis was a studio that basically went 4-5 years with not releasing anything of substance after SimCity 2000 before they were finally bought. Which ones were bought against their will? How much of it is "I really liked these companies" and how much of it is us believing "there's no way they could have been in financial problems" simply because we liked their games, their games were popular, but we had zero clue how things were actually being run behind the scenes?

Fringe elements are unfortunate because I find they tend to be overrepresented due to the nature of their extreme views. This goes for both sides (and for a lot more topics than just feminism). The extreme nature tends to have the effect of pushing me away from various perspectives, which probably isn't fair to the discussion as a whole. I have seen this too. The idea that unless you're a part of the group that is oppressed, you can never truly understand the challenges that that group faces. I'm not sure I agree with it, even if I concede that I'm likely ignorant to the challenges that a lot of groups may have by virtue of not being a part of said group. Saying that those are only "allies" I think is mostly a semantics thing. To me they're still pushing for similar goals. Most of my experience with people that identify as "feminists," however, are people that feel that there are, in general, unnecessary gender roles that compromise both men and women. Meaning that while they feel women, in general, are disadvantaged, they point out that there are circumstances where men get the shaft too. Some of it being places like jobs that are traditionally for women (i.e. nursing, clerical), as well as bigger issues such as the deference to the mother for child custody based on assumptions that the mother is innately better at child rearing.

My epic finale found here (Playlist included). Beware... I laugh *a lot* ^_^

Origin was outright bankrupt with the Garriott making payroll out of his own pocket, and completely unable to get a loan to finish Ultima VII due to the recession of the early 1990s. I also wouldn't even say with any sort of certainty (your word) that BioWare wasn't, nor Maxis, Bullfrog, nor even Westwood. It's impossible to state any of that with any certainty unless you were are privy to the thought process as to why a company was purchased.

It certainly is. I'm not sure if anyone thought otherwise. I think I actually prefer the first one for its pacing. I think TWD is interesting for exploring how you can leverage observer biases to allow you to use the same lines and have them deliver different meanings.

I think that this is a very difficult question to answer. Though to even attempt to answer it, I think, it needs to be presented as a possible problem (which is what I feel the study does). You'll get people that run with it one way or another. As for the validation of the "patriarchy," it's just one of those terms that also gets used in a variety of ways. The wiki definition of the term is pretty simple: "a social system in which males are the primary authority figures central to social organization, occupying roles of political leadership, moral authority, and control of property, and where fathers hold authority over women and children." Looked at in a historical context, I don't find it too much of a stretch to see that that was the reality in a lot of places. Titles tended to be passed down to men, men were the only ones that could vote/own property, and so forth. I think it's gotten a lot better and much less explicit. Studies like this one examine "are there still latent influences that come from that that in general can compromise women?" Figuring out specifically what those are, is pretty hard. But then you'll get some that I think go way too far, such as that one person linked not too long ago that considered any sort of vaginal sex to be rape and to be a way that men subjugate women, but that I feel is too extreme and undermines a lot of other feminist perspectives (specifically, sex positive feminism). I probably identify as a feminist now, although the irony of it is that I do so more because the extreme "MRA" types pushed me away from their perspective more than feminists drew me in (it all started with the Anita kickstarter for me, actually. Before that I didn't really give it much thought at all).