Zoraptor

Pretty sure I read that article when it was linked by RPS (Sunday Papers?, or someone in the comments maybe). I don't really have much in the way of rebuttal to it since I actually agree with a lot of its basic premise and the points it makes. But imo two other things have to be acknowledged- marketers aren't infallible, there are plenty of failures in the gaming industry to prove that; but also that if marketers are so good that they can sell ice to latitudinally advantaged ethnic groupings then if there were a way to market games effectively to both men and women then there would be such games, as they'd be a licence to print money. As it stands you tend to have identifiably 'male' games and identifiably 'female' games too, as the article notes, and they do tend towards being dissimilar games in immiscible genres, there's no sensible way to have 'Farmville of Duty' or 'The Grand Theft Sims' or 'DooMMysT' and appeal to both markets. Personally I don't really want 'CoD' or 'Dragon Crown', I want an in depth and rewarding gaming experience gained from challenging and engaging gameplay, an equally engaging story (if appropriate) with 3 dimensional characters and a consistent and well though out visual style. But I am reticent about making any implication that people who do like them do so due to marketing. It isn't just that I don't think it's true- I think that most CoD players genuinely do like it- but also that I think it's not a constructive position even if it were true. Telling someone they only like something because it's been marketed to them or because they're a walking stereotype will just annoy them and come across as preachy sanctimony, and Activision or whoever won't have a Road to Damascus moment while their game is a licence to print money. Plus of course, even if 'Dragon Crown' got more realistically proportioned women it'd only be treating the symptom if they're still just demure window dressing as opposed to alluring window dressing.

Omar was 'oh right, the gay hitman guy' for ages when I watched the Wire, and he's about as distinctive as it's possible to get. It's just a personal thing how long it takes characters and programmes to click, and indeed whether they ever do.

That doesn't depend on that all, you may disagree with the conclusion of publishers that their games will have a primarily male audience and thus adding on top of that more content targetted at them is in their interests, but it doesn't rely on the potential gaming market as a whole, just games on an individual basis. The existence of Saints Row IV doesn't stop the next Sims or Animal Crossing game from existing. It results in bad games when a developer decides to target the broadest audience, the lowest common denominator, that's how certain developers do things but the developers that make good games don't. If there's a potential market publishers will exploit it, Bejeweled and The Sims show that, it doesn't require other games to be changed, it doesn't need to effect the existing industry, developers, and franchises. A new potential market should begin and grow alongside the existing market. Yep. There are computer games targeted at women primarily, if you tried to alter them to make them appeal (equally) to men as well you run the risk of alienating your target without achieving your aim, the same is true in reverse. It's like turning Robocop into a romantic comedy to try and attract women. Most women won't like it, and the previous target audience will go "what the asterisks?!?!?" at best. Same if you take some romantic comedy and try to turn it into an action extravaganza. A nice broad set of discrete choices in products works fine, and there's nothing wrong with targeting a specific audience- in principle, at least, and assuming it isn't a really obnoxious or dangerous niche. The question as to whether the prevalence of such directed entertainment reflects underlying reality or is a result of self reinforcing bias is a good one, but like many good questions there is no way of answering it with any certainty. There's a plethora of reasons for products, especially games, to fail and isolating which is the reason is problematic. Given that there is a lot of targeting in most entertainment forms (less maybe in music) it does suggest that that is the most successful strategy on an economic level. Niche products catering to smaller targets do occur, but most often at a premium (eg cable TV, Matrix games too, arguably), and they often fail.

I'm not sure about chicken/ egg. There are inherencies, for want of a better word, where certain things appeal more to men (in general) than women (in general) or vice versa. If there were a magic formula to appeal to both equally then it would be used, but as it is you often end up appealing to neither or less overall, rather than more.

I'd like to try it but my computer is apparently now below the min specs for even retro releases.

There is differentiation though between a 'blank slate' protagonist and playing a pre-determined character. You can't easily have Mikaela Thorton as an option because AP is specifically written with the set male protagonist in mind, not a blank slate one- if it were written with a female protagonist or option for both in mind then it would inevitably have to be written differently. Same if you allowed Lars Croft: Tomb Raider. And for certain games you're using someone else's creation too, as with Geralt. I'd play as Triss if it were an option or she had her own game, but I'd still have to concede that most would want to play as Geralt. Ideally games would make allowances for both sexes being playable with a realistic amount of variance, but most of the time dialogue for a male/ female choice RPG is identical except for the pronouns, romances potentially and maybe some flavour. And there is a (completely understandable) tendency in those games towards defining the character, whether male or female, by their role- Warden, Knight Commander, The Sheperd; as a way of channelling decisions into set categories. If you don't make the differences significant enough- ie the female option plays exactly or almost exactly like the male except for appearance- you risk trivialising the whole thing, basically what the initial complaint was. If you do make them significantly different it'll cost. I do have sympathy for women who are interested in gaming who dislike being forced to play males most of the time, certainly more than I'd have for someone complaining about it not being Lars Croft. But that is what happens if you're a minority/ niche grouping, you don't get as much targeting as the mainstream.

Well, I can't say I didn't know you'd have a problem admitting you were wrong. Still, the haiku analogy was intentionally amusing.

Seems they're also suing the United Kingdom for unauthorised usage. This will no doubt hit Britain hard as they already have to pay Paradox a royalty every time someone uses the 'your Majesty' address to Liz.

You don't speak Volo? And I thought there was a secret club house for those with interesting mannerisms somewhere out in the aether of the internet. You've got a rationale for the description, any character that you can accurately describe with just a few words. Oh, it's subjective for sure, most things are and I've seen people who think the average Bethesda cardboard cut out is deep and well characterised- I'd likely disagree with them but I leave it to other people to decide where they personally draw the line. You brought up PST and Chris Avellone, and tried to use that to nitpick my wording when near the entirety of PST was about subverting expectations from first impressions- the chaste succubus, the evil angel, the anarchist machine etc. Caricatures never transcend their initial impression nor are anything other than cliche and stereotype- that's a FACT, a fact and indeed their definition. There is a distinction between first impression and character development for a reason.

Well, it is actually suspended. Though I agree it shouldn't even be considered for a trademark at all except as part of a full title. So not only are they patent trademark trolling, they're doing so with a suspended, applied for only trademark? What we need is for EA to have made a game using Candy or Saga, since they were the ones who ultimately crushed Langdell's trolling spree.

Oh please, appearance is less important in a character than in a caricature, FACT, because a character has other aspects than appearance. You don't even seem aware that you're saying the same thing I am when citing Okku. And first impression is different from overreaching character development, also FACT. It's an aspect of it, but of course when it comes to caricature there's nothing else but that first impression as that's what a caricature is, hence the distinction. So, you now know the difference between a character and a caricature as well as the difference between Richter and Mercalli.

Bethesda? Mere amateurs. That's more like Tim Langdell of Edge fame.

Yeah Grommy, in a discussion about the stereotypical physical attractiveness tropes a visual hook like Okku is clearly relevant, seeing as, er, he's a Big Gay Rainbow Bear? fanservice for furries? And of course if you're dealing with stereotypical physical attractiveness or even just physical appearance being the critical factor then any other factor intruding makes it 'less important' by definition. Meh, I simply do not view Kaelyn as an albino half angel or Gann as a monochrome half hag or Kreia as an old crone or Okku as a rainbow bear, or Shodan as a computer avatar for that matter; that's just a physical/ visual description and if that's all there is then the character is ultimately forgettable and ultimately a failure as a character. It does give the first impression, as does the voice, and the first impression is very important in establishing initial interest. But if that's all there is to the character then they have to ultimately be a caricature- anybody you can describe completely with one or two words or a mere physical description is a caricature, by definition. Chris A certainly does not disagree with what I've said at all, at worst it's a parallel point and I'd tend to say it actually reinforces my point. It was also made in terms of video games being a visual medium so art design issues being important.

You can write an enormous amount on this subject but the while issue boils down to two things, imo. Firstly, women and men are different. But then, so is this man from that man or this woman from that woman. Given that there are a lot of women run and women focussed media that 'promote' the same sort of body image as used in many video games suggests that the 'problem' is not just with one form of recreation, nor with one sex imposing its views on the other. And that tends to make the generalisations used far weaker since there's always a counterexample. Ultimately though, the problem is one of Character vs Caricature. If you're dealing primarily with developing a character then the physical appearance of that character tends to be less important whether male or female. If you're dealing in caricature then "oooooh, sexy laydeee!" getting written on the whiteboard is par for the course, much as "beefcake McActionCliche" or "haha comedic sidekick so funny" might be used. The video game industry is not shallow because it has lots of big bristol bits, a cornucopia of charlies or a munificence of mammaries, that's just a symptom. The video game industry is shallow because, as with most entertainment shallow sells easily while complicated (and good, of course) is actually difficult and risky and hence less economic. Simply making women more realistically proportioned will not transform a game from shallow into deep and it's very unlikely to do much for the kind of person who gets 'damaged' (very distinctly opposed to offended) by that sort of thing either because there's massive amounts of other such 'damaging' stuff around, they're unlikely to be playing such games anyway, and the root problem is a lack of self confidence and self acceptance that cannot be papered over by removing a symptom. I kind of have a foot in each camp. I'll happily choose female characters for my RPGs because I find them more pleasant to look at than male ones (and my femshep was so hawt she melted my video card) but I also prefer more realistic proportions, find things like the boobie cards in TWitcher cringe inducing and my favourite female characters are so not for their sexy appearance.

r00fles! I specifically picked the conflicts in which great powers fought each other- and the ones which set up WW1. As it turned out it was, but I don't have any particular problem admitting such things. Paschendaele, though less well known here than Gallipoli was actually considerably worse and was utterly pointless. Nah, the thing I find really disappointing about the Gallipoli/ Dardanelles campaign is that it could have worked, with better co-ordination and leadership. Some of the landings were utter bloodbaths but some went off perfectly and when pressed home with flair, good sense and commitment successes were had. Realistically, Gallipoli failed primarily when the first naval only attack signalled intentions and needed a combined attack from the start. But even after that if pressed home with elan the OE could easily have lost most or all its European possessions, which would almost certainly mean no Bulgaria for the CP at the very least, their capital potentially within artillery range and a host of other advantages. Specifically on the Russians though, they performed well and were well led in the Caucasus. A significant consistent allied presence in the European OE means most likely no Kemal to stiffen the line and fewer troops there. Really? The only one I can think of in WW2 that resulted in a stalemate for even medium term was Italy, and even there it was an amphibious attack that knocked Italy out of the war. Torch/ Sicily/ D-Day were all massive and relatively quick successes, and Dieppe, the one unqualified failure, was also by far the smallest scale and most ambitious- and that isn't even counting the Pacific ones. Plus of course the Allies could afford being pinned down far more than the Germans given the manpower disparities.

Yeah, may not have been you linking it, it was a while ago. My main reasons for disagreeing are based largely on a disagreement with point 1. Something like the Gallipoli campaign could have worked and could have knocked the Ottomans out of the war early, freeing up all the Russian troops in the Caucasus and opening up the Balkans and A-H, but it required careful planning (which it got to a large extent) and execution by competent, aggressive and committed leaders, which it didn't in almost all cases. What it did get was a hopelessly optimistic naval only first try followed up by a ground invasion that lacked imagination and which missed multiple opportunities to achieve pretty much anything due to overly conservative, passive and unimaginative leadership. What successes were gained were not followed up on*. The general idea was decent enough, and the allies should have used their naval superiority in the Med and even North Sea to far better effect than they did- more Zeebrugge type raids, landings in the Levant or south Turkey. But they did little to nothing with any imagination afterwards, it was like if in WW2 the Dieppe Raid meant no Torch, no Sicily, no Italy, no D-Day. Also, for all that the allies were clearly winning by late 1918 the death knell for Imperial Germany was the naval blockade which ultimately broke A-H and them. *Call me a rabid nationalist if you want, but William Malone should have been the man who shortened WW1 by two years, Mustafa Kemal certainly thought so.

Don't let me stop you, I was just clarifying what the limitations of my position was, ie that I'll happily concede that there are differences in things like demographics and population size so you don't need to go through all that in detail.

You don't need that level of detail, the assertion was not that Saudi and Iran are directly equivalent, more that they're similar in a geopolitical sense. If I were asserting that they were equivalent I wouldn't have noted any differences between them. I won't continue since whatever I say will will naturally slant to my stated position- else it wouldn't be my position in the first place- though I probably will add something later to rebut/ clarify any points I see as contentious. (NB, don't know if it's a repost from somewhere/ written previous, but you've still got Ahmedinajad as being the Iranian President above).

Wals- I read that link last time you (? iirc) posted it, albeit I only realised where I recognised it from part way through. It is an interesting read but needless to say I don't agree with its analysis. Let me know where that was used so I can criticise it too. Oby has been noticeably absent the last few days. Yep. Well, apart from the Crimean War. And the Austro-Italian War. And the Austro-German War. And the Franco Prussian War. And the first Balkan War. And the Second Balkan War. And various other Balkan wars, and.... The stability from the CoV was always illusory and temporary, as all such things are. Realistically its peace lasted only a few decades, followed by an armed truce for forty further years much as the League of Nations and Versailles was effectively a truce for twenty years. There is a certain irony in citing the CoV also, given why its vision ultimately failed. Ironically, it collapsed primarily due to nationalism and its effects on the balance of power. Once two of the Great Powers had decayed badly and there were upstarts looking for new spoils it could never last, since it relied on everyone with power (basically) having a balance of what they wanted and what they did not want their enemies to have- for its stability. Eh? We're to blame the Germans unequivocally but one sentence later that's part (your emphasis) of the story? Nobody has dealt with the origins of WW1 here as that really is stretching relevance and is even more pointlessly contentious than anything else that has been said. FWIW I have no problem with why the UK joined WW1 and there's really no way to blame them for it starting except in being too successful, it's mainly the leadership quality (and if I'm completely honest, it's frequent bad effects on my countrymen specifically) and the post war conduct I have problems with. Maybe, just maybe, that's all you're hearing because you have little interest in listening. You're always going to dislike this sort of discussion because you are a British Nationalist (er, meant in the nice way, not the Nick Griffin way) so there will inevitably be a lot of stuff you don't agree with. And let's be frank, the 'CoV giving a century of peace' is both a very binary and very arguable point in and of itself.

I have to challenge your comment around the British sacrifice in WW1 being uninspired.. So maybe you can explain why the British performed so badly in WW1 as opposed to other countries? I never said the sacrifices were uninspired, just the military conduct. The average soldier on all sides performed well in extremely unpleasant situations. For Britain, so did their designers for planes and tanks- though ironically, not ships, given their propensity for going boom at inconvenient moments. But the military conduct of pretty much every country in WW1 was uninspired- mainly because you can only do what your leadership allows and most countries' leaderships decided that what was best was a ruinous waste of millions of people's lives. It was, ironically, different on the eastern front due to the sheer size of it. Not a huge amount directly, but if there are to be accusations of Russians covering up their incompetence or whatever it is fair to compare that to what other countries do. If Gove- and as minister in charge of Ed he at least theoretically has the power to- wants WW1 turned into some sort of stirring tale of patriotism as brave Tommy Chums fight for honour and righteousness then that is air brushing the conduct and reality of the war. And that is similar to what the Russians have supposedly done with WW2. Considering how many people seem to hold to the 'Russian human wave attacks, commissars at rear to shoot retreaters' for WW2 it certainly does also bear reminding that that was, basically, the tactic on the western front for 3+ years from eminently 'humanistic' and enlightened countries.

Eh, I dunno. Most of the war memorials here are effectively maintained by volunteers (some by local councils), with only one being a state memorial so far as I am aware. I don't think that makes any practical difference to how they're thought of, and I'm pretty sure most of the soviet war memorials were directly state funded. Immediately after the war there may have been some attempts to bury issues especially given Stalin, but then again it was only a week or so ago we had a certain British minister complaining about people being taught that the Brit leadership in WW1 was incompetent and that being 'unpatriotic', so it's hardly a disease solely limited to Russians given that British military conduct in WW1 was... uninspired at very best, in the vast majority of cases.

Meh, I have little practical problem with the BBC, it isn't like RT doesn't go the exact other way with their coverage- but the beeb's anti-russian stance is about as obvious. Not much change since Ivan Grozny there. But, if you had the same article, minus comments, and it wasn't known to be Russian the immediate presumption would not be some sort of conspiracy to cover things up, indeed the Russians are actively proud of their contribution to winning WW2 and there's barely a hamlet without some sort of war memorial, same as every village here has a 'lest we forget' to the poor chaps we sent over to fertilise random fields in Belgium/ Egypt/ Crete/ Turkey/ Italy etc. Every once in a while we get some moron complain about the Turks not doing enough about collecting out war dead and it's utterly embarrassing and actively makes me cringe. You simply cannot dig up and catalogue everyone from Gallipoli and it's... quarter of a million dead, in a tiny area of static warfare, not multiple millions in an area greater than the size of the entire WW1 Ottoman Empire, almost all of which was actively fought over in fluid battles. If I hear that there are bodies in furrows with trees growing through them my immediate thought is that they took what shelter they could- a sensible military precaution- and that any seeds near their bodies grow faster due to the improved nutrients. I also think that returning them to forest is about the best thing that can be done, practically, and if there's any moral qualm about that then there has to be about the western practices of farming over battlefields (note, I don't have a problem with either, dead is dead either way). What exactly the practical alternatives were for the Russians I'm not quite sure, and that is papered over in the article in favour of a call to emotion. And I really wish they hadn't done that because it cheapens the whole thing unnecessarily. So yes, I had a rather bad reaction to that element of the article.

There are a metric asteriskload of war dead still unburied in Belgium, France and Turkey (eg you can barely go anywhere on the Gallipoli battlefields without finding/ seeing bones) yet somehow that is not a sign of the inhumanity of those countries- indeed many of the battlefields are regularly ploughed in Belgium and France. And the war dead from those battles was... half the total Russian war dead from WW2? if you include every single Empire, French and German casualty from every front? 25 million Russians dead in WW2, wasn't it? Over an area the size of the entirety of Western Europe plus a bit. I mean, I understand that the BBC Russian service has an axe to grind with respect to the British policy of demonising Russia, and they're concerned their money will be further cut if they don't follow it but if I see a line of trees in a depression, in an old battlefield I see a bunch of people who were sheltering from fire, and then provided nutrients for trees. I don't see some conspiracy of uncaring brutality just because it fits my preconceptions, something I'm very glad about. I'm a right cynic, but if there's one thing the Russians have always done well it is remembering their war dead even if it isn't always practical to honour them as we may try to. Still, very nice that they're getting buried. (Personally, I'd rather stay in the forest)

You left out the plagues of locusts, waves of pestilence and Justin Bieber/ Celine Dion duets from your Signs of the Apocalypse- plus the rather less apocalyptic talks which have been held. And no, you cannot spin them being the biggest arms purchaser into a weakness and Iran's lack of access into a strength. Thank goodness the Syrian rebels aren't being armed by the west, their self sufficiency is sure to carry the day against the arms the government is getting from Russia etc etc. I'd love to see some social progress and reforms in the ME, but that is not the stability that Saudi Arabia brings to the table. Especially now in the wake of the "Arab spring", which was viewed as dangerous instability (but opportunity) by their King, reinforcing his convictions even further as he helped topple Morsi (hope/ change!) Gaddafi (++hope/ change!!) and trying to do so to Assad (instability!!!, but still potentially hope/ change if only the Russkies and Assad would get with the program). That plus their continued reach toward Islamic extremists since, well, forever basically via funding/training/arming/indoctrination not just in the ME, their arming, massive petroleum market manipulation program via OPEC, involvement in the recent Syria conflict, UN impotency, and Saudi's ramp up in their toxic rhetoric such as saying they'd help the Israelis bomb Iran without any mandate. It again leaves me with the question of what kind of generally beneficial stability you envision here, unless you just wanted to make the obvious point that "stability isn't necessarily bad", or just looking for ways to diminish the issue because of some anti "persain" bias?

I'm not saying that every person in the SS Legions was bad, just that the legions themselves were. It's easy to say that they were not involved in war crimes- and it is, more or less, accurate to say so- but then they were commissioned well after most of the potential war crimes in their areas had already been committed, they tended to serve in their own regions after the German high tide mark so did not have the opportunities to do much (more) Random Russian Removal. If the Legions had been formed as the Germans arrived I have no doubt at all that they would have committed the same crimes the various ad hoc/ police/ collaborator/ militia groups- or German SS formations did- but they were formed far later, and largely from those groups. I'll happily concede that 'bad' organisations have some 'good' people in them. But, the presence of good people does not transform a bad organisation into good any more than the presence of bad people in a good organisation makes it bad. Frankly, the reason the Legions got special treatment after the war was Realpolitik. They were a convenient stick to beat the soviets with. Rather a lot of Germans got soft treatment from both sides for similar reasons.