aluminiumtrioxid

I don't really follow. Stuff doesn't get created in a vacuum. Creators will have cultural biases. Why is it wrong to point out these biases?

And there you go. A perfect example of a liberal / relativist switcheroo in action. The kids see marriage all around them. Heaven forfend, some of their parents might even be married! At that point in time gay marriage was (a) rare and (b) not even legal in many countries. Of course the status quo is political (and as Marx insists) everything is political. And so you can safely compare marriage to a plunger or a goldfish. All that is solid melts into air. And you are trusted with tender minds? So if a game depicts stuff in accordance with your worldview, it's just the way things should be, but if others complain that it doesn't fit their worldview, they're horrible political people?

...Well that sounds counter-productive. "This game needs publicity or it tanks, but I hate it, so I will give it bad publicity to make it tank!" is not exactly sound logic.

When the media can all coordinate reviews to reflect negatively on a product because they didn't have an appropriate female character you start precedence for it in the future. Next will be violence, racism, etc until games are as bland as the modern cinema. You don't have to lay this on the table with percentages. They never have to flat out say, "you need a major woman character that isn't objectified and is strong." If they did then people would call foul. They just dump on the game in the review, and it will hurt sales. It is much more subtle that way, but censorship in its own way. I'm sorry, but I have incredibly strong doubts about the likeliness that a bad review due to "SJW issues" is going to meaningfully impact the buying habits of people who don't give a **** about SJW issues. Also, if you count giving bad reviews as a form of censorship, shouldn't you also count female developers not daring to speak their minds about the whole business due to fear of being harrassed as a form of censorship, too? And people say feminists have a victim complex. Wow.

...The complaint was about the development team, not the game.

And more importantly, has never been on the table. Just putting it out before we forget it. There are some that are like that though. While not directly people tout a percentage of female PCs as good, I get the sense of a threshold in their mind for what is Right. No one here mind you. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure "people in other places never say they want this, but I think they probably think so, even if they keep silent about it" is something we should be protesting about so vehemently.

So you accuse me of lying, then when I ask you to provide proof of my alleged lying, you claim to "have moved on". How cute.

Do find me a quote asking for it. I'll be waiting.

And more importantly, has never been on the table. Just putting it out before we forget it.

Hence my favorite book, "Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov. And basically half the bibliography of the Strugatsky brothers.

I certainly don't. Both sides in this war have embraced extremist views and resorted to disgusting behaviors. Me neither. In addition to the already stated complaints, the conflicting sides also go completely ass-backwards about accomplishing their purported goals.

Sadly, you would be wrong about that. My opinion of courts is now sadly diminished.

I don't really know the law about this at all, not where I live and certainly not where you live, but, provided the person complained to the authorities, wouldn't the dog biting her be cause for the the authorities forcing the dog to be put down? I'm also ignorant of the law on this matter, but I'm pretty sure that if someone kicks a dog, no sane court would force the dog to be put down if it bites back in response.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't stop my dog from biting the heck out of a person like that in this situation. Also, your emotional reaction is perfectly understandable, and I pretty much feel the same way, but hitting people isn't the answer (even if I'm convinced my dog deserves better than the person in question).

And kicking a dog isn't the same as hacking a dog apart with a fire axe. Your point?

Magical hearts. Yeah, not exactly the most creative examples, but the core idea is solid (and has a lot more mythopoetic resonance than the conceptually somewhat similar Eye and Hand of Vecna).

Wow that's really funny guys, next time I'll remember to laugh. So you're fine with kicking animals? Good to know. Gotta side with Bruce here. I wouldn't execute a person for killing an animal, and by the same logic I also wouldn't hit them for kicking an animal. That said, the woman in question sounds like a horrible person.

Given the fact that she's an anthropomorphic personification of sexual desire, I think half a million is actually selling it a bit short As for Ravel, she didn't really have a reason to, and as far as I'm aware, she probably has access to the level of spell slots where doing so is perfectly feasible. I mean, okay, the idea that she prefers female bodies is reasonable, but a/ there is no real text or subtext in the game confirming that, and b/ I like to think that an inherently magical monster with thousands of years of experience is not bound by such mortal concerns. (Then again, I prefer my monsters weird.) It's not exactly "diversity for diversity's sake". It's, partially, diversity for verisimilitude's sake. In the US, about 3% of women identify as bisexuals, according to a CDC report on the matter. Sigil being such a melting pot as it is, I'm fairly sure that number should hold true (perhaps creep even higher). If there are a 100 female NPCs in the game (I think it's a rather conservative estimate), verisimilitude is maintained by having 3 bisexual NPCs. I don't necessarily think all of them have to be outspoken about their orientation, but saying that their inclusion feels forced and gratuitous, despite them conforming to the statistical average is weird. (By the way, I'm also fully in support of having bisexual male NPCs, also not that hard to insert. [Heh, insert. *snicker*]) As to this "detracting from the game for everyone who doesn't want diversity rainbowland"... Planescape is a weird fantasy-steampunk diversity rainbowland setting, if diversity pains them so much, maybe they shouldn't play a game set there. I mean, this is literally asking to erase a portion of universal human experience in a context where its inclusion doesn't only make sense, but actively reinforces setting assumptions. I'm fairly confident in stating that whoever reaches the conclusion of "Black Isle believes all women are bisexuals/lesbians whine whine straight erasure" based on the game having one bisexual human female is someone whose opinions can safely be ignored.

The very problem with this is that if this were their stance and their argument, then they've already lost by having people on their side partaking in the very same actions. It'd require leading by example, which clearly isn't happening. Not neccesarily by guilt of the person you've quoted, but merely by people sharing her opinions who could NOT manage to be "above it all" when it came to the bickering. Or maybe this is a convenient excuse used by people who were determined to dismiss the other side anyways. Asking the other side to behave in a manner you are unwilling to is a fundamentally dishonest thing. Also, how exactly is "you are guilty by association, therefore I don't have to listen to you" a different stance from "Gamergate is an organized harrassment campaign, and whoever says otherwise is either lying or has been duped"? "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Not only is the question very loaded, it's also not specific enough for me to answer. I mean, inclusive how? Lower quality in what areas and by how much? For example, I'd gladly sacrifice having 5 different shaders of UItimate Prettiness (which my PC wouldn't be able to run anyway) for, say, having a diverse, well-realized cast with various skin tones and sexual orientations, but only 3 different shaders of Moderate Prettiness. I'd also be perfectly okay if the game only ended up having 436 different weapons instead of the 578 they originally planned to have. But let's have a less absurd example and point out that in order to write a well-realized and diverse cast, the designers have to employ a more diverse cast of writers, who are, presumably, a bit inexperienced. Their work needs more supervising and polish from the lead writer, which means he has less time to do his own stuff, which ends up meaning that they have to scrap an area they wanted to do, because they had no time to flesh it out properly. Thing is, I think all RPGs have areas that could've used more polish, and now the (non-writer) energy that would've gone into fleshing out the scrapped area can be spent on polishing the other, more important areas. Not a horrible tradeoff in my book. We could go on, but the essence of the matter is this: would I sacrifice core gameplay elements in exchange of having horrible caricatures like Whiny Gay Dude Whose Sole Defining Characteristic Was Being Gay in ME3? Nope. Would I be okay with the devs deciding they value inclusivity more than [insert fairly tangential element of the game]? Of course I would, they're the devs, they know what they're doing - if they deemed [element] expendable, it probably was. ...Or you can make them bisexual, therefore also increasing diversity in your game? I'm rather convinced FFG is pansexual (well, asexual panromantic, if we're really fond of labels) anyways, Ravel - being a polymorphing hag - also probably doesn't think too much about her partners' gender, species and orientation, so we're essentially at "you only have to change one character". I'm fairly sure the game has enough humanoid NPCs* to not hurt verisimilitude by making one of them bisexual, and why couldn't that one be one of the players' companions? *As opposed to Grace and Ravel who aren't human and therefore shouldn't play by human rules.

Except even if they were interested in doing that (which I find unlikely), they have zero power to enforce it.

*Sigh* Unable to sleep, chest hurts too much. My doctor has assured me it's probably from this virus I've caught not too long ago, but I can't shake off the nagging doubt that it's something heart-related even though I know it's exceedingly unlikely with my age/lifestyle/family history and the symptoms aren't matching either. The sadly unavoidable fate of the med student is to descend into paranoia, it seems.

I love how you've completely cut away anything from the quote that might provide context as to what is said to be good for everyone in the industry. Also, while I fully support the idea that you, personally, are a white male bigot (and a not very bright one at that), I'm not as arrogant as to include every gamer in this definition. You too. Provide actual quote saying "[stuff] being changed in games is good for everyone in the industry", otherwise you're arguing with a strawman there.

...Wow, looks like the forum couldn't handle the length and ate most of my previous post. Here's the rest:

Weirdly enough, to me, it shows that several female game developers speak from experience when they recall harrassment for supporting "SJWs". They also echo many of my own thoughts on the matter. If you'll allow me, I'll point out the quotes I've found the most insightful.

The other way around. They are hypocrites. Let me get this straight. Anti-GG spokespeople get harrassed. They respond to this by collectively calling GG-ers abusive backwards cavemen or something. GG-ers brush this off and get their pitchforks. The sight of pitchforks awakens atavistic impulses in certain elements of anti-GGers, who start to harrass GG-ers. GG-ers collectively call anti-GG-ers bad names, and when they do the exact same thing GG-ers have done a few days ago when faced with name-calling based on the actions of a deranged few, it's a proof of their inferiority and lack of moral backbone? He's merely asking you to put yourself in their shoes. AKA.... GG supporters allegedly took part in harassment. SJW asked them to stop the harassment. The harassment continues to occur off and on, but the collective group claims to not condone the actions. SJW supporters allegedly took part in harassment. GG asked them to stop the harassment. ?????? The point is either: A) Why haven't they publicly stated they don't condone or support the actions? It's radio silence on their end. or in my opinion more importantly B) You'll find yourself responding with "how the HELL do you expect me to stop a bunch of strangers on the internet who happen to hold the same stance as me from taking part in harassment? I can't and I can't be held responsible for them." Grats, neither can we. That's the point, that's the message. Weird, I thought this was the message: How silly of me. After all, this is merely what he's written. (Snark aside, your post is well-argued and completely reasonable. But that doesn't change the fact that it's not the sentiment he's expressed.)