Chaz

And they are supposed to be the immature ones?

The new Tomb Raider is a reboot of the franchise, and they are going for a realistic art style, so you have to respect them if they want to draw a new Lara with realistic proportions, and funnily enough, she could still be a super model with a body and face like that. Same thing with Dragon Crown, people should respect their art style instead of beign petty immature childs that attack the artists, attack the people who like the game and the people that disagree with them, I think this is about the internet white knights having an ego trip more than anything else.

It's not about ditching them or not ditching them, it's about letting the developers make the game they want to make and not chastise them because you don't happen to like their art style, not all games are supposed to be E for everyone. And Dragon Crown is an extreme example, while many games have beutiful famele characters the great majority are not so exagerated, unless their are going for a cartoony or surreal style and the guys making the game should not be apologizing like they commited a ****ing crime. Look, I disagree, some of the most played games in the world are World of Warcraft, League of Legends and World of Tanks, we all know that tanks are totally hot and nobody complains about them, and as for WoW and LoL, both games have beautiful female characters and those games are suuuuper popular, and people LIKE those characters as they are, there's fanart all over the freaking internet. And what is this new "juvenile fantasy" nonsense argument? Yeah, games are almost always fantasy fullfilment experiences and they are juvenile , they are a hobby to have fun, they are not serious bussines, unless you are a developer. What the hell people? are we now supposed to be embarrased that we like to enjoy our fantasies on top of beign embarrased that some of us happen to like attractive female characters?

Gaming needs women, so the games should be more welcoming to them. Or something like that. That's actually a perfect synopsis. I love gaming. I want more people to embrace gaming, because it is good for my hobby. Therefore I don't want games to alienate an entire gender. Pretty simple. I don't play games for boobs, so it is a pretty simple thing to give up, honestly. A ridiculous notion that characters with big breasts (and we're not even talking about nudity here) would alienate an entire gender. I mean more than half of the posts have been plain trolling on this thread but are you for real? Not to mention that the whole "entire gender" beign alienated is not even close, just a vocal minority of feminists or what have you and the internet white knights that will unquestioningly support them by default, no matter if they're right or wrong. So you either don't have boobs in games or you offend an entire gender? Ever heard of a false dichotomy? Thank god you're not the one making the games

Bingo, but then again many people in gaming have been chastised and now think that if you like boobs you'r immature, including some developers. I prefer to trust the developers, if they want to go with a completely sexless, sterile art style, that's their prerogative. But don't you people start bitching when another dragon crown comes along, don't start with that misogyny bs argument, or sexism nonsense, nobody becomes sexist because they played video games, wake up!

Well, if there's any gerne that will give you lots of options is RPGs, even when the studios themselves don't have a ton of resources to sink into customization and cosmetic options, there's always a modding community that often creates armors and stuff thats much better looking than the original models, and there's stuff for everyone, I've even seen mods where they make a prettier, younger version of Boone from F:NV because they said that he originally looked like a chuby serial killer The funny thing is developers sometimes will mock the modders because they spend so much time creating better looking armors and outfits.

I take no Issue with that. The problem is when people take it over the top or are so insecure that they start attacking people "If you find this appealing you're a 13 year old" "you're immature" etc. Or what other people that do to take it over the top is to say that these type of games will make you sexist and misogynyst.

Did I say I felt victimized? I don't see that I did. You're missing the point. As more women enter the world of gaming (or, perhaps, as more women become more open/participatory about their gaming), they may want more options for their female characters. I'm not talking about facial or even figure attractiveness in either sex - my perception is it's usually about how outlandishly revealing the clothing options are. Typically, at least in some genres, even if you can play as a female character, the clothing/armor options (if there are any options) are largely about showing off everything. Sometimes I don't want my character running around with giant hooters and chainmail bikini's. So what's wrong with putting in the option to dress them in a more elegant, sedate outfit instead? Especially in a RPG where I thought one of the points is having choices. This fear some people seem to have that some outfits or some chrs not having a sexah option = they'll never see sexah outfits again is, imo, pretty silly. Not even every TV/movie show has women dressed in their underwear the entire time. Why should games be different? You didn't say you were victimized, but that's how I interpreted your 99.9% comment. In my experience the western RPGs are usually more grounded, and the ones that go over the top are the asian ones, it has something to do with their culture I've read, they like to play with beautiful characters, In Lineage 2 the Orcs didn't look like orcs, they looked like green muscular men with pretty faces, I couldn't tell the diference between the male elf and the female elf and the Dark Elves were scantily clad, females mostly, but men too, however it depended on the armor. You don't see women of movies and tv wearing the same kind of outfit because it's a different medium, in video games or comic books you can draw characters anyway you want so you can go for an extremely glamorized style where everyone is pretty, everyone is wearing tightskin outfits and you can get away with that, in TV you can't because you usually hire actors for their acting skills and not necessarily their fisique. I don't know why you complain about RPGs, maybe you don't have as many options as you want, but there are a lot of options and out of all the other genres, RPGs have been the most fair to women, they are portrayed to be pound for pound as strong and as capable as men, because that's how we see them today. in a realistic dark age society women would be treated like little more than commodities.

I wouldn't just blame Kotaku, even George RR Martin has said that he gets a lot of **** for writing sex scenes in his books, but funnily enough, not a single complaint about all the violence. Same could be said about video games, you have mass murder in games and everything is fine, but a sorceress has big boobs and everybody loses their minds. That's because gamers and most importantly game developers are predominantly men, but I guess they should apologize for beign men that are attracted to women and design games from their point of view. And enough with the victmization, many male character's these days look like freaking models, prettier than brad pitt and with better fisique. so this "99.9% dominant" arguemnt, not buying it.

It doesn't matter if Project Eternity won't have scantily clad women. I think a mature person can enjoy a grounded/practical art style and also can enjoy a more glamorized/sexualized art style that other games have. I think it's extremely petty and immature to attack an artist because he drawn women with big boobs, or attack him/her because women don't have big boobs. Many people in gaming media have criticized Dragon Crown for it's art style or supported anita sarkeesian unquestioningly because they are too afraid of beign labeled regresive or misognysts, or maybe because they like to stroke their own ego by posing to be extremely mature men and say "yeah, big boobs, those things are for 13 year old". Others maybe do it because their gut reaction is to always side with women when they should be paying attention to the arguments instead. In these forums I asked if there's any evidence that Video Games can cause sexism and misogyny in real life and everyone started to him and hum and to change the subject "yeah I gotta go, I have to study for some exams" that was the best argument I've heard so far.

New Vegas is among my top 3 RPGs

Punishing the developers by boycotting them just because of the actions of a few fans was childish in my opinion, Mark Jacobs was not responsible at all, he never told anyone to spam other websites, in fact he told everyone to stop doing that and has apologized publicly in behalf of his fans. Anyway, I'm glad they funded the game successfully despite PA little tantrum. Pretty much every MMO that has come latety has been funded and overseen by Publishers, I'm curious to see what a crowdfunded, player-driven MMO will look like.

My main is an Inq and in my case the second part of the story was getting boring and the ending (last 4 leves) got pretty exciting!

Then I guess The Simpsons are misandric because the women are the smart ones of the family and the men are utter idiots? You're grasping at straws, man.

Right on!

Well, I see that the topic hasn't advanced much, not surprising since we're playing the "ignore the opposing arguments" game, so I thought maybe I'll share someone else's critisism, and while I dont agree with all the points she made I think it's a very good watch.

Well, it's certainly sad that we couldn't get to argue maybe in a more "mature" manner, Alan. I did my best to present my arguments, but when I say something perfectly legitimate like "Hey, men are objectified in the media as much as women" and you immediately dismiss it saying "That argument has been put forth and then slapped out of the way by so many people" I already knew this was not going to be a reasonable discussion. Someone more moderate could have said "Yeah, maybe, but women get it worse" that would have been a fine counter point and we could have gone from there, but not you, you just completely rejected the idea that men are objectified at all, and why? because a Webcomic and a feminist article said so. (and in response to the webcomic, if puppy eyes and kissable lips are what turns her on, characters are already beign drawn like that, and no man ever complained) So yeah, with those kind of double standards we weren't going to agree in even the most trivial of matters. And I recognize that there is a lot of injustice against women, specially in underdeveloped countries with low education or countries where religion has a big influence, but when we hear a women will be slashed, then stone to death because she broke some religious law, we know exactly what the reason is. I am yet to see an injustice against women where we can point at Mario, Double Dragon or any video game as the cause. Maybe peach beign kidnapped is a tired cliche but it's harmless, and to think that Peach is a representative of women is like thinking that mario is a representative of men around the world, which is asenine. They are caricatures, people, time to give up the double standards and start looking at things evenly. I hope it has been perfectly clear that in the same way that Anita blocked all comments, Alan blocked me, not because I insulted him, not because I threatened to rape or kill him, or because I was disrespectful (snarky maybe) but because I presented legitimate critisism and reasoned arguments. If at any moment I would have stepped out of line, the fine gentlemen in charge of moderation would have slapped me down immediately, it hasn't happened yet so I assume that I have been civil about this. I don't know if I'll be coming back to the thread since Alan won't respond to me and Heisenberg said he has exams, I guess I'll come back later to see if anyone else has contributed something to the discussion, later everyone.

Ok, sure, I'll quickly reiterate what I said because you don't even aknoledged that I responded to your veiled accusations, I mean corrections. I was quoting a researcher directly, the study has not even been published as far as I know, and more importantly this research does nothing to support anita's claims, which is the main topic of this thread, I wasn't really interested in going on this huge tangent about how "all internet comments are bad and they shouldn't be allowed" to begin with, much like the whole "you can be pro sex and be anti porn" tangent was a waste of time, but I addressed it because alan just kept saying that science supported his pro censorship position and after a closer inspection, not quite the case, and it's also funny because he latched onto science when he thought it supported him but when it comes to the claim that video games can cause misogyny "Pffff, who needs scientific evidence? we just take what anita said on faith" I'm parodying by the way. Good luck with your exams.

Some guys were making the case that it's much better and more productive if comments were disabled outright in pretty much every article/video that's published, or at least it seemed that their propostion was universal. That opinion was based on a research that first, I think it's a misinterpretation, second, the research was not even published yet, as far as I know. That's a fair opinion, however I don't quite see how it addresses the points I made, maybe it's not supposed to, maybe you just wanted to give your 2 cents, that's fine, I'm just not sure why you quoted me.

(I wanted to add this to my previous post but I can't seem to edit it) Now, it is my understanding that this research has not been published yet? so we only have bits and pieces of it, and based on what I read that was actually what I understood, I recognize that I might be wrong about the research but I point out that I raised several other points, nine to be precise, that are not contingent upon me beign right about this particular study which we only have a few quotes about and it has not even been even publshed, so trying hang your hat on that and use as a case for internet censorship, is just silly. Not to mention that the real research that you guys should be looking for is one that supports Anita's claims, I mean let's get back on topic here. I'd like to see some serious peer reviewed research that makes a case that Mario Bros, Double Dragon and Legend of Zelda cause misogyny in real life. I mean Anita spent like 20 minutes talking about these franchises and people just ate it up, so I assume those perticular games make a significant impact on the life of women. Cliffy B said that the people who disagreed were immature and needed to grow up, I asked for evidence that supports Anita in almost every page and I was accused of hating her and hating feminists, I tried to present reasoned arguments and I was simply written off because of "cognitive disonance", so far it has been excuse after excuse to avoid engaging me and my arguments. The worst part is that some of you guys seem proud of this position of blocking or ignoring people who disagree and seem to be proud of this pro-censorship stance "go anita! you showed those trolls!" Wait a minute what about all those women on youtube, gamers or not that do allow comments and do interact with the community? shouldn't we be praising them? Actually I already asked this question and of course it was ignored.

I'm sorry but what you are quoting is the blog by Bora Zivkovic, and his take on the research. I tried to quote one of the resarchers themselves, Dominique Brossard said “In a discussion, when you see people frowning, it influences how you feel about the discussion,” (see I can do that too) So after reading what Dominique said it was my understanding that people would be more distrustful of an article (or video) where there were negative comments. Let's assume that I was mistaken and negative comments actually have the power to become the reader more stupid and affect his ability to Learn the article, so even if I was wrong about that I made several other points that you didn't even address: 1 - It's ok to be a skeptic, even when you're a reading a document about nanotech or the dangers of video games. 2 - Brossard said that potent online comments can undermine a factual report, I pose to you that they can do the same for non-factual reports 3 - I gave the example of pseudo science, and how reading people's opinion can give you insight on what's trash and what's not. 4 - I gave the example of how TV can paddle bs and since there is nobody to challenge their opinions, viewers just eat it up 5 - You failed to aknowledge how funny the O'Reiley video was 6 - I pointed out that the blog made a good case for moderation (not outright disabling comments) and said that the nastiest comments were because there was no moderation at all 7 - I also said that the 1-9-90 is a good rule of thumb but in no way applies to every online community and that even youtube viewers can engage in moderation 8 - I gave my opinion on the blogs that disabled comments saying that it was a mistake to think that the trolls that don't even constitute the whole of the 9% are representative of the whole community, there are times when the vocal minority and the silent majority completely disagree with each other and to think that the first represents the latter is a mistake 9 - I appreciate your veiled attempt to call me a liar but I would appreciate even more if you respond to all of my points, thanks.

Actually this is great, I took the time to read the article that you posted and the blog posts that talks about. I hope you read this because from what I've read it seems that you are misinterpreting the results of these experiments and spining them to justify censorship maybe? Now what the researcher said is that "In a discussion, when you see people frowning, it influences how you feel about the discussion" this says that comments can affect how you feel about the article and what your opinion on it is, but it doesn't say that they won't understand it or that it will be more difficult to learn. So your take that people "gain" less when there are comments and that these comments "compromise the readers ability to learn" is a complete misinterpretation, it talks about your opinion on the article, not your ability to learn it. Also, doesn't it make sense to you that if you read an article about a new technology and all the comments below are going "this is dangerous!" "this is false!" that some people would grow a little suspicious and go "hmmm, maybe this is dangerous"? now at that point is up to the reader to do more reasearch and really find out if it's a dangerous technology, but I think it's in no way shape or form bad to be a skeptic. Also keep in mind that just like this can undermine a factual report, it can also undermine a non-factual report, I pulled up a Homeopathy video on youtube on the fly, you know what the first comment was? "Plaaaaaaacceeeeeeebooooooooooo", first it was hilarious, second, while it didn't hold much of an explanatory power, that comment is actually doing a public service. Without those comments there, some poeple might think that homeopathy actually works and start buying pills. Keep in mind that for some people is not easy to differentiate science from pseudo science, and while I'm a big advocate of science I personally think it's good that people don't bow down to anyone that wears a lab coat. And on a personal level, I remember that my mom used to belive all kinds of stupid **** because she saw it on the News, stuff like role-playing games to be satanic, video games causing gun violence and stuff, and part of this is because the TV shows can get their point across uncontested, there are no comments, obviously, because fo the way TV works, and the only opinion that matters is the one that the TV show is putting forth. What? you don't like what the News said? nobody is supressing your opinions, you can create your own TV network (and while it's true that they have no legal obligation of having you on their show, that doesn't mean that it's ok for them to be terribly one sided) by the way when the TV allows for some interaction we witnessed some of the most hilarious moments in the history of mankind. As for the blog, it seemed to be doing a case for moderation in comments than a case for censorship, it stated that comments are so nasty because they are not moderated AT ALL. This is a reason I critized Anita, she just disabled comments outright, which is certainly nothing to be praised for. Not the mention that the 1-9-90 rule is a good rule of thumb but it doesnt apply to every website. In Youtube the Silent Majority not only watches, but they can rate, favorite, subscribe, they can upvote, downvote and even flag comments that they think are nasty or simply bollox. Some of the blogs that disabled comments did so because they thought that the trolls among the 9% are representative of the whole community, big mistake. There are videos where the comments are a cesspool, completely against the video while the approval rating is above 95%, Silent Majority wins, and thinking that the vocal minorty represents them is a big mistake. So, I took the time to read all these researchs you brought up, I hope you extend me the same courtesy and at least take the time to read my response.

Because you say so? So it's bad for people to learn and realize that some feminists are female supremacists and misandrists? it's bad to get the full picture? why exactly? people should know that there are extremists on all sides, so far only the gamers have been branded as the new taliban, but nobody is saying that about the feminists which is totally unfair. And the ones who point that out are written off as misogynists. My guess would be that anita asked for it. Neither TED or TEDx disable comments and ratings on their videos, either on youtube or their homepage. Actually what happens in many cases is quite the opposite, There have been articles or videos where something was factually wrong or it didn't show the full picture, and thanks the feedback on the comments the author corrected the articule or took down the video and uploaded a revised version. People are not infallible and I really cant stress enough how important feedback and comments are, specially when you are trying to get a point across, who you really want to hear from are the people who have a different point of view otherwise you're just preaching to the choir. I'm just baffled of how the pro censorship people praise each other and pat each other in the back, for what? silencing people? blocking dissenting opinions? that's what you are so proud of? I was not aware that bigotry suddenly become a positve trait. How about instead of giving props to the most intolerant people on the internet we give praise to those who have grown ticker skin, those who are not afraid of critisism, those who take feedback and most importantly those that can recognize when they are wrong. The people on this side of the argument are not the ones that are blocking people or ignoring them when they don't have the power to block them

The first post, it features an article by a guy that said that said "if video games are going to grow up then bullying needs to stop" first of all I consider bullying to be bad, of course. I was victim of bullying when I was a kid, also some people might consider I was also a victim of virtual bullying because I'm sure someone was mean to me on the internet at some point, but I don't consider someone posting a comment like "**** or gtfo" to be on the same footing as someone insulting me to my face when I was at school, not by a longshot, specially when real life bullying will often get physical. Now that we got that out of the way, the title of the article is ridiculous to me because it says that if video games are to grow up bullying needs to stop? it's implying that video games haven't grown up since they were created decades ago, also, how is someone beign a meanie in the comments section of youtube affect game developers in any way? unclear. Now, on to the article itself, first it paints people who disagreed as "the taliban of gaming"? what? I was slammed here because I compared anita's video to a terrorist trial but this guy can get away with comparing us to terrorists? because we disagree with her? Oh, he's just talking about the ones that were mean/insulting, ok but insulting someone is not the same as beign a terrorist. He also said that the reason everyone was against Anita is because "she was a girl who dared to analyze women in video games" and that's it. First of all, there are plenty of female gamers that have their own youtube channels (with 10 times more subscribers and ratings and comments enabled, mind you) and they don't get that kind of hate. So is it really all the hate because she was a girl? couldn't it be because they disagreed with her or because they don't belive in feminism? Is it because she was analyzing women video games? You could say that, but I see it because she was analyzing video games in a very negative light, her main presuposition is that games amplify misogyny, and her video series is not meant to determine if she is right or wrong, her mind is already made up. The video series is just to list off how many times and in how many instances video games have been misogynisitc. So were all the attacks really becase she was a girl? I don't think so, if it was a guy the one who wanted to create the series he would have recieved pretty much the same kind of pushback, because many of us would have belived that what he was saying was bollox. So does this guy, cliffy b, aknowledges that some people had legitimate critisism and mentions it in his article? nope, everyone that disagrees is written off as a taliban, and I see that as hateful

That's fair enough but in the case of Youtube, downvoting doesn't have any negative impact on your channel. I don't find the rest of the post very relevant, research beign done on whatever? sure, call us when it's done and when it has been peer reviewed. It's funny because you are the one who started off this very thread by posting a hateful article by some guy who just dismessed everyone that disagreed with sarkeesian and wrote them off as haters or trolls, at this point I'm not sure if you ignored me or just don't even read. Now I recognize that nobody wants to read nasty comments or insults, but I came here with reasoned arguments and you can't stand it either, you just shut yourself off. I think that what some people really hate is dissenting opinions no matter if they are disrespectful or not.