Hiro Protagonist II

Bruce, instead of going on about what is and what isn't feminism. How about answering my post like you said you would. Here's the full post. Bruce, you've described yourself as a feminist but I'm having a hard time reconciling how as a feminist you're okay with the sexualisation of NPCs in crps. Even more, you say this adds 'realism'. I'm guessing 'realism' in the sense of treating subject matter that presents a description of everyday life. Some points and this post is going to be quite long. And since you're heterosexual and are looking at female NPCs, I'll just focus on female NPCs . Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious, but bear with me. Game developers set up a series of rules and within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do, and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibilities within the gamespace. So the developers have set up a series of possible scenarios involving sexualised female characters. Players are then invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play-through. The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon, because they were designed, constructed and placed in the environment for that purpose. Interactive media has the potential to be a perfect medium to genuinely explore sex and sexuality. But that’s not what’s happening here. These interactions set up a transactional relationship in which women (NPCs) are reduced to a base sexual function. It frames female sexuality as something that belongs to others, rather than as something NPCs enjoy for themselves. I’d argue that none of this is really about sex at all, certainly nothing resembling authentic consensual intimacy; publishers and developers are instead selling a particular fantasy about male power centered on the control of women - at least in this example of female NPCs. This then leads into the dehumanisation caused by objectification, inevitably leads us to the concept of disposability, which is defined as “something designed for or capable of being thrown away after being used or used up”. Especially when you have multiple female sexualised NPCs that you can go from one to the other. Which means that these female NPCs fulfil basically the same function as items the player can purchase from stores. This is a textbook example of another component of objectification referred to as interchangeability. The player treats the 'object' as interchangeable with other 'objects' of the same type (eg. Female romanceable NPCs), and/or with objects of other types.” Since these NPCs serve an identical or nearly identical “resource” function within the game space. So what we have here is sexual objectification. The practice of treating or representing a female NPC as a thing or mere instrument to be used for another’s sexual purposes. Sexually objectified NPCs are valued primarily for their bodies, or body parts, which are presented as existing for the pleasure and gratification of others. You even admitted that you need to be physically attracted before a romance can start. This doesn't sound like realism to me. And since you call yourself a feminist, you're okay with sexualised NPCs in video games.

I'm not discussing semantics. How is: Whoever makes the claims, the onus is on them to prove that claim semantics? It's not semantics at all. And you still haven't proved your claim. Okay byeeee.

Hello. I'm not here to prove a negative or do your job. As I said, whoever makes the claim, the onus is on them to prove that claim. I never made a claim that there are or there aren't female artists in the industry. So it's not for me to prove anything, since I made no claim at the start. However, you made a claim and it's up to you to prove it. That's how it works. Also, I am not a feminist. I don't have a feminist viewpoint. I have nothing to do with feminism. How you cannot grasp that is beyond me. And yet, you're arguing that I have a conception of feminism? I mean WTF? Seriously. Again, you obviously didn't read my post above and what I was 'debating' all these pages for.

Yes it does matter where they work since you said there were LOTS of females artists at big gaming companies. No point linking an artist who works on a comic book or some random artist who's still at school. Can you comprehend that when you make a claim, the onus is on you to prove it. You made a claim, now prove it. Prove where those artists work at big gaming companies who draw sexy (you may as well say sexualised) NPCs in video games. Here's a classic example of nerd rage. So blinded by his rage he's missed my post above and still hasn't proved his claims.

And you still haven't proved your claims. Not my problem that you make claims that you can't prove. And you said LOTS of females at big game companies. Not random artists on Devianart. So nice try to move the goal posts. It's not me who's being stupid.

Where this train wreck seems to have gone off the rails is when I made a post talking about sexualising female NPCs in romances which in turn changes them into objects. This was to Bruce since I quoted him and he admits he's a feminist. And I was using arguments from feminist websites (I have about 10 or so up in my browser tabs) on this very topic against Bruce. And this has been part of what I've been talking about since this is the romance thread. And everyone seems to have an opinion, well this is the internet so why not keep this going? Seeing this thread blow out to 30 pages doesn't surprise me. I can feel the nerd rage. I even got a pm from a poster from this thread! It was good to see the views of posters on this forum, their justifications, arguments, and everything else from the promancers though. It's also good to be able to pry the promancers deep seated bias and views out in the open for everyone to see. My views have been well documented in romance threads and I'm of the opinion that it's very hard to implement them so I would rather not have them in at the cost of other things. And I'm glad obsidian has taken this stance. I'm also of the opinion that a lot of what I wrote does seem to make sense and not giving a romanceable NPC agency is one of those flaws in crpgs. If anything, the promancers faulty arguments and equally faulty justifications has reinforced my views on why they shouldn't be in. P.S. What I found even more surprising is that about 95% of my original post was a straight copy/paste from Anita Sarkeesian's latest blog with maybe a couple of words changed. And no one has bothered to check it. Even when I told people to check out her site. Oh well. Not trolling at all, just using websites by copy/paste arguments against a so called feminist. So many people take things so seriously. Chill out guys. I said so many times I'm not taking a feminist stance. It was an argument against Bruce. Nope, too much nerd rage for some posters.

Okay, so you admit that your claim was false and misleading. I never claimed there were no female artists in the games industry. It was you who said there were LOTS of female artists working for big game companies who did enjoy sexualising female NPCs. Next time, try and tone down the false claims.

I've already stated my view on more than one occasion. PrimeJunta knows this. He seemed to want to include movies in the discussion which would have taken it off topic, hence his Catwoman in Batman Returns example.

Artists and Lead artists are one thing. Where does it state they enjoyed sexualising female NPCs?

I have no idea what you are talking about. Another mindless off topic point about countries. Funny how you make claims and never back them up. You're quick to make claims that LOTS of female artists at big gaming companies enjoy sexualising female NPCs but when called to provide some proof, it's the usual, not going to waste my time to prove anything. And I'm not refusing to believe reality if you can show me. The reality is there are people like yourself making claims and are unable to back those claims up.

Did you even read what I wrote? No, you are trolling when you agree with Zwiebelchen that there are LOTS of female artists working for big game companies who like to sexualise female NPCs. It's you and Zwiebelchen that are trolling with claims and can't back them up with proof. Just so you understand because clearly you don't. Show links to those female artists AND the artists who have admitted they like sexualising female NPCs.

A Wikipedia link? ROFL.

It's always good when people don't provide any links or proof of their claims. Need to provide a link who designed the character and for the artist to admit they liked sexualising that character.

Yes I have been to schools and offices with young employees. Also, if you're going to make claims about a LOT of female artists working at big game companies who enjoy sexualising female NPCs, then please provide some links.

It does make sense because this thread is about video games. As I said, if we're going to spend the next five pages talking about movies, then how is that relevant to video games? It's OFF TOPIC! Seriously, how hard is that to understand???? If you want to talk about movies, create a thread in the OFF TOPIC Forum. I know I won't be part of it because I'm talking about video games. You and Bruce and whoever can talk about movies in the off topic forum. And I'm not making an argument about any other medium. The desperation of those like you and Bruce are the ones who's trying to take this off topic to further your argument. I think PrimeJunta realises it's off topic as well.

No Bruce I'm not making my argument sound desperate. Why should this thread be taken off topic and we now talk about movies? We already have a movie thread in the Off Topic Forum. What it sounds like is you're making your argument desperate by trying to take this off topic and talk about movies in a video game thread. So keep it on topic and about video games and not movies, or tv shows or comic books or whatever. So the question is not relevant. But nice desperate attempt to take this off topic and talk about movies.

I'm talking about video games, not movies, not comic books, not TV shows. Video games since that's the topic of discussion.

Yes we do. We do need links. And I would have to question you being a feminist with a lot of posts on this forum which would call into question you being a feminist, but that is for another topic and it would be going off topic. Or better yet, create a website proclaiming you're a feminist and make an argument for the sexualisation of NPCs in video games. It's easy to say 'I am a feminist' but you have to prove it which is why I'm asking for links. Darji said there were a lot of feminists who support the sexualisation of female NPCs in video games. I'm asking for those links.

Well, you said there was a lot of feminists that do support sexualisation of female NPCs in video games. So again, Please share some links. Oh wait, now you won't share any links? Come on. And no, I'm not trolling. I'm not the one who claimed there were lots of feminists who are for sexualisation of female NPCs in video games. Oh yes, there's lots of feminists but I'm not going to prove with any links. Nice little cop out there.

No, I love when you try and justify things like sexualisation and objectification of female NPCs in video games in your posts which you've done. And no, I never said or insisted on calling it as developers taking pre-existing and un-sexual female NPCs and unnaturally turning them into sexualiased versions of them. But you keep making up those make believe arguments so you can argue against them. And we are talking mainly about romanceable NPCs Lephys. You know this thread where it states 'The Official Romance thread' and you would romance sexualised female NPCs. I know that's kind of hard for you to grasp. The stereotype is looking at scantily clad women in society as if that's the standard to go by and then putting them in as romanceable sexualised female NPCs. And when you sexualise those female NPCs, they become objects which you even said they do. No slithering your way out of this. So we should take the advice of 11 year olds because you know Lephys didn't see strippers as objects at the time!

I agree PrimeJunta and my original post has sexualisation leading into objectification which is what this is all about.

Please do show us those feminists who are all for sexualised NPCs in video games. You said there's a lot, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Gotta love this justification of sexualisation of females NPCs in video games. And that's what you expect with females NPCs. Well hey, these females don't adhere to standards of how to dress in real life so it's okay to put them in a video game and romance those sexualised female NPCs.

So are you a feminist? Also can you show me a link where a feminist is okay with the sexualisation of females in video games?

LMAO. Here's a clue if you didn't realise already and I'm pretty sure it's gone way over your head. I'm not a feminist and I said I wasn't taking a feminist stand. I already said I was pointing out the feminist stand to Bruce who admits he is a feminist. Get it now?