BruceVC

Nonek did you read Alans post earlier? If not I recommend you do, it may change your opinion on this matter

Was expecting more from you than that. Why do you think it is dumb? Malc if you want insight on this matter read Alan's post, that's something that looks at this whole development holistically and logically But why is that video dumb IMO. Lets see... He uses constant profanity to make his point. He is obviously pandering to people who think the word f***k is cool and clever He offers no new insight into this matter and just regurgitates the same argument we have heard over and over again from people opposed to any understanding around what equality means in gaming He makes blanket generalizations about gaming journalists and how much he detests them for not doing there job ( funny thing is before this Zoe incident I didn't think people like him cared much about gaming journalists...now people are so disappointed with there lack of integrity) And he does what many people do when they intentionally choose to misunderstand the meaning of the word " gamers". I get why people do this, it gives a good excuse to vent and demonstrate outrage against these "evil feminists that are undermining our way of life" I can give more reasons but this is just what I remember

I don't take any offense to an article such as Leigh Alexander's reference to "gamers" (and the quotes is significant) because I know she's not talking about me. She's not talking about a lot of people that do play video games. Plenty of people are against games with more diversity. I've seen them on BioWare's boards. I've seen them on this board. I see them on Youtube. I see them on twitter. The issue here is, as Bruce points out, there's a very loud group that is very, very particular about the title of "Gamer." I literally had an exchange today on Twitter with some asshat that got defensive because I commented that I didn't care if someone that loved Candy Crush or other casual games self-identified as a gamer, and in fact welcomed it. What I got was some exceptionally narrow retort about how it waters down the term and is (his words) "I wouldn't buy a steak from someone who see's beef flavored noodles on the same level as prime rib." For him, the application of the term "Gamer" bestows some level of cultural capital and he is adamantly against those that do not fit his particularly definition applying the term to themselves. There's a group of people that are very, very resistant towards outside influences that it resembles the proto-fascism that existed in Munich 1918. That is, if outsiders join the group and try to assimilate, their credibility is questioned ("Fake geek gamer girls"). If they come in with their own ideas, then they are alien and ruining the purity of gaming as it is. Both cases rely on some mythical, idyllic concept of purity that I question ever actually existed. But they are loud and can be militant. I see it on BioWare's message boards all the time. Heck, with some of the announcements we've made it's all about the "corruption of the SP only experience" and attacking anyone that expresses an enthusiasm or interest in the idea of DAI having multiplayer. The very idea that not only are we deviating from What Gaming is All About™ but that other people have the incredulity to actually support this? Oh my god the sanctity of SP gaming is being eroded and I need to call to arms my brethren to ensure that this doesn't happen! I identify as a gamer. I have no issues with anyone that games, regardless of what they play, identifying as a gamer. I like casual games because I know that some of those casual gamers will end up playing games that I like. And hey, when I'm waiting in a doctor's office it's nice to play something simple that I can stop at any time and not care. There's a symbiosis here that I have no issues with. I like gaming. I like gamers. I want more people to become gamers. But, to me, it was pretty clear whom the media was referring to when they said "gamers" and the particular identity that an insular, don't come into my club group of individuals are. I can't really estimate how many of these people there are... but in my own anecdotal interactions they do appear to be well represented in a lot of online discourse. From videos that go off all about how "why can't we make games that heterosexuals like" (we can) and all sorts of other bizarre points of view that I frankly didn't glean from any of Anita's videos but other people are insistent that she is saying in them. For me, someone like Anita comes across as a pretty tame critique of what I do (and I have literally worked on games she has called out). Basically "Hey guys, you tend to use a rather narrow range of tropes a lot of the time, and those tropes are kind of sketchy towards women... how about we mix it up a bit?" But that certainly isn't the impression a lot of other people get. This isn't even touching on the people that tweet me (or just come right onto the forum) to tell us (and others) how we aren't interested in "just making fun games" anymore and are more interested in pushing a PC agenda or whatever. And it happens all the time. Like almost any topic, the extremists get over represented, and I see someone like Leigh pointing the gun at the "Gamers" who are extremist and insular. The over representation they have IS bad for the image of gamers to the rest of the world. So I can understand the articles as being an explicit distancing from those extremist through alienating dialogue and so forth. The idea of stating to people "these people do not represent us." Whether or not alienating is better than "taking back the term" is up for debate. I lean more towards trying to be more proactive as a relative moderate to add my voice to those other moderates. Though if non-extremists don't join me, I suppose it'll end up being futile. As for this all being about corruption in games journalism and whatnot. Honestly I'm skeptical. There's plenty of ammunition against games journalism already out there, and the arguments that many people make are rooted in aspects that are completely irrelevant to gaming journalism and instead founded upon the idea of discrediting someone like Zoe or Anita in the hopes that the well will be poisoned and people will find them irrelevant and no longer listen. Every time someone mentions that Zoe considers cheating to be rape, they are making an argument that is irrelevant towards game journalism. They're making a personal attack on her character to undermine her character. Zoe sounds like she could be a pretty awful person, but that is pretty irrelevant. And I have no real issue with places like Reddit and the likes shutting down the discussion because (as I know by helping out on BioWare's forums) the idea that people would ONLY discuss the relevant bits and NOT start going into her personal stuff is nil. Unfortunately for those that wanted to discuss the corruption, their reddit forums for discussing were undermined by those that just couldn't wait to stick it to Zoe. And those existed. The idea that Zoe is already polarizing among some, in particular 4chan, isn't new. With the Wizardchan controversy the seeds of animosity were already sown. All it took was an upset ex-boyfriend to deploy the narrative that they wanted to see, and they ran with it. Confirmation bias is easy to manifest, and hardly unique to 4chan or anyone else really. Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable thing and the idea of hearing things that already support our views is pretty powerful and reaffirming. Factor in Anita, a figure that is already quite polarizing in the discussion (hi Chaz!), and you have a group of very outraged individuals that perceive two targets as not only painting gaming as some awful, misogynistic feeding zone (I do not get this impression, but c'est la vie) but that they appear to be profiting off of it as well. Damn skippy you're going to get some irrationally hateful individuals coming up out of that mess. As for her having sex with people. I think that that goes back to the problematic idea that some people have which makes sex a currency. So no, I don't consider it equivalent to giving someone like Grayson actual funds. People focus too much on the sex aspect and I agree with the notion that it's irrelevant and a complete non-sequitur. Unless your goal is to shame and discredit. But that's my 2 pennies on the subject and I'll return from whence I came! It's late so I probably didn't make any sense anyway! EDIT: I have no issues with Jim Sterling either, and he is frequently taking the company I work for to gears as well. I don't really consider him an extreme SJW, and agree with him that the term is overused (same with MRA as a pejorative). That said, in response to his criticism I don't threaten him or harass him online either! Hi Alan "waves" Excellent post, really good work. Great insights positioned in a way that is reasonable and isn't belligerent. I miss your insights on SJ matters. Hopefully you'll be posting more regularly but I imagine with DA:I imminent release you are quite busy on BSN

Nice...oh wait you probably talking about that awful feeling when you come down after being on Cocaine for 24/7

Guys does no one have a comment about this video? Ok fine, I don't like Jim Sterling. Is not his arguments, I just don't like him and he tends to have problem voicing his stance on internet medium since he leans towards short grandiose statements that can only be interpreted as support or condemnation. It may be that people just don't like him or his persona. Yeah I hear you, I just think in this case he makes some good points. But it can be hard to distinguish the person from the point, especially if you have bad opinion about someone

Do we think we could get a chucky doll who care about the importance of SJ issues? "Hi, I'm Chucky, and I'm your SJW to the end "

Not true, Ukraine in first place wanted to get out of Russia influence. Doubt that military intervention will make them sooo happy that they no longer gtfo from Russian influence - actually probably even more. Well to be fair there are definitely areas of population in Ukraine that would prefer to be part of Russia. But this still doesn't give Russia the legal right annex another country

If you see a random pretty person on the street or TV and you go, "Wow." Do you then flog yourself you don't know who they are as a person? No I don't flog myself. I often notice attractive women and even try to talk to them if they in a line at a supermarket. I also go to strip clubs and watch porn. But what does your comment about me noticing an attractive women have to do with the objectification of women in games? I'm saving this post and showing it to all your SJW friends, they will shun you and you will finally come to the Dark Side. I don't like certain definitions and labels. For example I don't see why I can't I go to strip clubs but also care about gender equality. I don't see how they are related ?

I'm going to address your points by numbered instead of bullet...points(is there something you're passively aggressive trying to get across by using bullet points instead of numbers? ) 1- I agree about representation of women in games but I don't see the problem to be misogyny so much as bad writing, which we have discussed before along with the matter of how production costs affect target demographic and the product. 2-With bloated production costs publishers tend to go after the biggest paying demographic, if you would remember when everyone seemed to be after the CoD demographic that's a good example. Meanwhile they are unwilling to commit the same capital towards other target because of the expected return, they couldn't simply roll back to lower cost because of technology and gamer's expectation. The big companies are going to be making less games in the coming years because of this, if you pay attention to game releases you can compare how the number has declined since 2009 to now were the were no major AAA releases this summer. They don't seem to have an intention of changing their strategy. 3- Feelings are very subjective and opinions vary from person to person, tolerance usually means that we agree to everyone having some basic rights even if they don't deserve them or misuse them. You can't legislate feelings (although I'm sure one of our resident lawyers will tell me of some instance or bring up Hate Crimes) so I would argue that they don't have merit since they can't be conductive towards anything other than themselves. 4- They have approached this matter with inflammatory rhetoric, it is no surprise that this starts flame wars. Had they quelled their burning zeal they could have voiced their concerns with care. Both sides seem to be stuck on name calling but the onus of the cause lies on feminism since they are trying to change the status quo and the failure to change the status quo lies with feminism because they are stuck name calling gamers. 4 years since the Tropes vs. Women and what are they still doing? So is really difficult to ascertain what side should the real feminist be; although in my opinion they should oppose those that have tainted their name, but the fact is that this is one of those issues where there are no moderates. Just the people who reasonably try to achieve their goal and those that foam at the mouth while typing. Because of the nature of it and how it has escalated it won't be solved until either gamers back down or game journalists. Gamers have numbers on their side. A special note about the usage of hate speech, while it has been on both sides of the fence the ultimate failure is because of the unwillingness of the moderate voices to sit down and debate. On any polarizing subject you will find extremists but in most subjects attention has been given to those that can voice their platform in an eloquent manner, i.e: the debates between Atheism and Religion on Creationism. None of the parties have made efforts toward such debate on an open forum, I find difficult to believe that there are no representatives in the gaming media that could have taken the opposing argument. I would speculate that it has more to do with feminists censoring dissenting arguments and hiring practices that were influenced by politics. After all, you can't go from having a heterogeneous community to an homogeneous one with out taking out a part of the population. Edit: News on Gamer Gate, Niche Gamer (a gaming journal) has tweeted a call for game developers to write anonymously their opinions about GamerGate. Hopefully, some brave souls will allow their names to be publicized but I see this more of an attempt from Niche Gamer to become the alternative to corrupt media. I'll respond in detail later to this. I am at a customer now and can only make quick comments

Guys does no one have a comment about this video?

If you see a random pretty person on the street or TV and you go, "Wow." Do you then flog yourself you don't know who they are as a person? No I don't flog myself. I often notice attractive women and even try to talk to them if they in a line at a supermarket. I also go to strip clubs and watch porn. But what does your comment about me noticing an attractive women have to do with the objectification of women in games?

Yes that's fine I can accept that Ukraine's borders have irrevocably changed. But that doesn't mean that Russians new objectives around carving up other parts of Ukraine will be acceptable

You right the West wont send troops to Ukraine, I've said that several times. But as I have also mentioned numerous times you don't necessarily need a military intervention to get a country to change its political course or military aspirations. They just need to continue with sanctions which they will. And finally yes Ukraine isn't part of NATO or the EU but this doesn't mean it hasn't become an important symbolic area where the West is making a stand against Russian hegemony in the region. So the West does care about Ukraine

This has real world relevance how? All throughout the 90's every sitcom diminished the importance of men for comedic purposes (e.g: Married with Children, Friends, The Drew Carey Show, Seinfeld, etc.. ) There was no outrage from men, there were still action movies and a diverse representation of men in different roles. The same is true for women, the media is there you just have too look for it; Anita did and apparently thought they were all misogynistic. There are also a lot of realistic portrayal of women that are being denied simply because it doesn't comfort to their value system, or are we expected to buy that all women are perfect and above fault (I'm reminded how some people defended Charlize Theron role in Monster just on the basis that she was a woman killing men) Also, how about objectification of men in female targeted media? If men take offense to it will the feminists readily agree to take it down because you know; they're about equality. Or will they just call them MRA. We had this discussion before and it always turn the same, because somehow you have found a way to believe in modern feminism and live on the real world without massive cognitive dissonance; kudos for that really. Myself, I don't recognize their value system based on the fact that women are oppressed just because there is content that's offensive to them. Specially since that offensive content has done less to color my attitudes toward women than real women have. I can't take seriously the childish wailing of women who instead of adapting to the world and finding the media that they like; which is there because there is always something for everyone. Instead they choose to try and turn society on its head because apparently there is something wrong with liking women for their bodies. Also, you really don't see how instead of a moderate rally for the creation of new media that better represents their values alongside the other kinds differs from the current voicing of the end of objectification and how all media should be inclusive and non offensive. (Even going so far as to begin the concept of triggers) I would also like you to consider the fact that their actions (the few that they've made) haven't been positive. As for the misogynistic 4chan, somehow even from the beginning of this whole thing (4 years or so ago) have managed to make the distinction between real feminist; which they taken to calling women's right activist and the new wave feminists. Even going as far as holding one as an example to the other of what they should be. As a whole I find any positive comment about this kind of feminism disingenuous, even if there are good people in there their actions as a group always leave a lot to be desired and as a said before; 4chan has done more in two weeks for the cause of women in gaming that feminist have done in 2 years. In the end is your actions that are the measure of your character and I've seen the character both parties and I find feminists to be lacking. I wish you could prove me wrong. As usual you make some good points in a reasonable way. So in response We need to separate radical feminism, which don't support, to campaigns around gender equality. I believe you acknowledge this already Even though most movies have reached a happy equilibrium around fair gender representation I don't think games have. But huge advancements have been made. But for example, and this doesn't apply to Indie developers as we discussed in the past, when a company of the size of Ubisoft doesn't have a female protagonist this is obviously a problem for a large part of the fanbase Yes I agree that new media can be a way to address the perception around gender inequality but why should companies like Activision or Ubisoft not take there share of responsibility around this expectation. They are after all making money from female fans? Don't these fans who are spending money also have a right to be fairly represented? I also don't believe women are oppressed by offensive comment, but they and others are offended. So this needs to be recognised as relevant Finally my issue is always the reaction from some of the detractors of Anita and the Zoe. Even if I don't agree with Anita and Zoe they don't deserve the vitriol and hate speech they receive. This is something that just seems to be ignored. People seem more concerned with what they say but they don't seem that concerned with comments directed towards them like " a good raping will sort them out " But you do make some good points

I assume you will be buying one of those wristbands? Its for a good cause after all, all proceeds of sales go to the "kill the gamer campaign " ....

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9695-Quit-Using-The-Term-Social-Justice-Warriors\ Guys I strongly recommend you watch this video. I normally don't support Jim Sterling but he articulates the situation nicely and makes some excellent points I also agree with him when he says certain people label anyone who has a different opinion than them a SJW. This is often an exaggeration of someone's view and I see it sometimes on these forums. In other words if I don't condemn Anita and Zoe " I must be a SJW" Anyway watch the video and tell me what you think

That video made me laugh Yeah he is no different to the radical feminists we see with his generalizations around this topic. Not a very helpful commentary. I have seen it all before

Amazing how easily he's winning over people with just words like that, something to be said for timing. So I guess whores in games are a thing of the past. Fair enough, you may be right. This could just be opportunistic But is it also so inconceivable that this is what he really believes and the Zoe\Anita incident just gave him a platform to voice it?

Sorry I am confused by one of your points. Why is it an issue to buy girls toys for your daughter? What is the objection to this?

I never understood, as it was never explained to me since I have a white privilege and all that why is it that sexual objectification is bad. I get that doing it to real people diminish their actual worth because humans are capable of much. But in escapism it does serve the purposes of a specific narrative, and if fiction is capable of actually influencing your core values and your sense of self then maybe we should be looking towards changing violent media. Still relevant point of how everyone seems to be ok with violence in video games because people can tell the difference between reality and fiction but apparently they can't when gender roles are involved. I still don't see all these complaints as anything more than an attempt to subvert a value system and replace it with another that's more favorable to them. Let me explain, objectification of genders is bad for exactly the reason you mentioned, it diminishes the role and relevance of a particular gender. The gender being objectified, and its normally women, are basically demeaned by being objectified. Its not a realistic portrayal of them. I hear you about the escapism aspect but we can still have escapism and entertainment without objectification of women. Also what people are expecting is not a system that is more favourable to them, but rather a system that isn't offensive to them, Big difference

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/01/saints-row-4-developer-says-anita-sarkeesian-is-right-in-latest-tropes-vs-women-in-videogames-video/ Interesting, I guess we really should start accepting that there is a problem with the objectification of women in games when the creative director of a game like Saints Row acknowledges it?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/02/gabriel-knight-interview-jane-jensen-on-the-revival-of-her-classic-adventure-game/ Some information about the new Gabriel Knight game, I never played the original game so this one will be a must for me

So you would support full contact competitive rugby between men and women?

He thinks he does and he has been able to do it in the past, like Georgia. But Ukraine is different. The West has drawn a line over Ukraine, not a military line. And sanctions will continue to be implemented and Russia will continue to be ostracized from the international community unless it stops interfering in Ukraine

Yes Volo, you clearly respect women. That's why you suggested that men and women compete directly against each other in sport, great respect there