Fear of women body in modern videogames

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

 

 

 

 

Having testicles is where all similarity ends, between a regular male and a BSN "male" forum goer.

 

Go on, check it out. We'll see how long it'll take you to come back screaming for the Spanish inquisition.

 

 

Don't you think your generalized opinion of the people who frequent BSN is a little  insulting and fatuous?

 

 

Tsk, tsk, Bruce... are you trying to out-troll the troll?

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having testicles is where all similarity ends, between a regular male and a BSN "male" forum goer.

 

Go on, check it out. We'll see how long it'll take you to come back screaming for the Spanish inquisition.

 

 

Don't you think your generalized opinion of the people who frequent BSN is a little  insulting and fatuous?

 

 

Tsk, tsk, Bruce... are you trying to out-troll the troll?

 

 

Okay, I don't really get trolling when people do it. I generally believe people mean what they say when they post something so I respond accordingly. I need to work on that

[Malcador]

Malc some people actually believe in the principle of equality and they don't do it just because it makes them sound good to say so in public

 

But I am interested in your comment around the words "those people". In the context of this discussion who are " those people"

I'm doubtful of those people being like that when they can earn a good sum from it. But also believing it and taking a pandering approach to it are separate - which is the kind of situation DE was alluding to. As for 'those people' well, those would be the ones who need to feel included in games these days somehow (why the hell are there no myopic protagonists, game designers are so short sighted).

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having testicles is where all similarity ends, between a regular male and a BSN "male" forum goer.

 

Go on, check it out. We'll see how long it'll take you to come back screaming for the Spanish inquisition.

 

 

Don't you think your generalized opinion of the people who frequent BSN is a little  insulting and fatuous?

 

 

Tsk, tsk, Bruce... are you trying to out-troll the troll?

 

 

Okay, I don't really get trolling when people do it. I generally believe people mean what they say when they post something so I respond accordingly. I need to work on that

 

 

Oh I do mean it I just don't hold it against them.

 

:D

 

^See what I did there.

 

 

As for the half serious part of the discussion, people occasionally complain (me among them obviously) that Bioware does more to cater to particular niche groups than its core audience. Much of it is the result of aggressive lobbying on BSN forums that Bioware allows. The problem with minority groups is not in their otherwise legitimate claim for some features or others (like gay romance for example) its in the "holier than thou" attitude that is utterly hostile to any opposing opinion that shows up. Bioware employees back them in this regard openly on the forums leading to an unhealthy "only head nodding allowed" mentality.

 

My way of expressing my opinions couldn't be described as mild, but I've seen respectful people on BSN terrorized by other forum goers for making "dissenting opinions" with the silent approval of BW staff and this soured the whole experience for me.

[BruceVC]

 

Malc some people actually believe in the principle of equality and they don't do it just because it makes them sound good to say so in public

 

But I am interested in your comment around the words "those people". In the context of this discussion who are " those people"

I'm doubtful of those people being like that when they can earn a good sum from it. But also believing it and taking a pandering approach to it are separate - which is the kind of situation DE was alluding to. As for 'those people' well, those would be the ones who need to feel included in games these days somehow (why the hell are there no myopic protagonists, game designers are so short sighted).

 

I still think you missing something fundamental in this discussion, "those people" don't want to be included for the sake of it. They want a game to represent the reality of life and the demographics of the people that actually purchase the game. Its kind of obvious and completely reasonable to me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having testicles is where all similarity ends, between a regular male and a BSN "male" forum goer.

 

Go on, check it out. We'll see how long it'll take you to come back screaming for the Spanish inquisition.

 

 

Don't you think your generalized opinion of the people who frequent BSN is a little  insulting and fatuous?

 

 

Tsk, tsk, Bruce... are you trying to out-troll the troll?

 

 

Okay, I don't really get trolling when people do it. I generally believe people mean what they say when they post something so I respond accordingly. I need to work on that

 

 

Oh I do mean it I just don't hold it against them.

 

:D

 

^See what I did there.

 

 

As for the half serious part of the discussion, people occasionally complain (me among them obviously) that Bioware does more to cater to particular niche groups than its core audience. Much of it is the result of aggressive lobbying on BSN forums that Bioware allows. The problem with minority groups is not in their otherwise legitimate claim for some features or others (like gay romance for example) its in the "holier than thou" attitude that is utterly hostile to any opposing opinion that shows up. Bioware employees back them in this regard openly on the forums leading to an unhealthy "only head nodding allowed" mentality.

 

My way of expressing my opinions couldn't be described as mild, but I've seen respectful people on BSN terrorized by other forum goers for making "dissenting opinions" with the silent approval of BW staff and this soured the whole experience for me.

 

 

 That comment "See what I did there" made me laugh. I don't think  I will ever to be accurately determine when someone is Trolling because I know I would have thought you were being serious.

 

I still think that the majority of people on BSN are people like you and me, normal fans of RPG who just love the virtual world that Bioware has created. A world where some of them have an identity that is more fulfilling than there one in RL. And they love to discuss this world in a place where others share there passion. I say Bioware has done really well to have created such a popular and buzzing forum

[Malcador]

I still think you missing something fundamental in this discussion, "those people" don't want to be included for the sake of it. They want a game to represent the reality of life and the demographics of the people that actually purchase the game. Its kind of obvious and completely reasonable to me?

Wanting that doesn't always make sense though and you don't want to create some sort of checklist a designer has to go through because that sort of handcuffs them, no ? Guess it's just foreign to me to want a protagonist that is like me in order to enjoy a game.

[BruceVC]

 

I still think you missing something fundamental in this discussion, "those people" don't want to be included for the sake of it. They want a game to represent the reality of life and the demographics of the people that actually purchase the game. Its kind of obvious and completely reasonable to me?

Wanting that doesn't always make sense though and you don't want to create some sort of checklist a designer has to go through because that sort of handcuffs them, no ? Guess it's just foreign to me to want a protagonist that is like me in order to enjoy a game.

 

 

No its not unreasonable, in fact "those people" want exactly the same thing. I'm glad you can empathize with them

[Malcador]

No its not unreasonable, in fact "those people" want exactly the same thing. I'm glad you can empathize with them

I don't really, was my point about it being foreign to me. And there are cases where it's unreasonable, depending on the setting of the game, at least in that you want the character's demographic-specific appeal to fit in well.

[Chaz]

I was watching a Massive Chalice dev chat and they were almost apologizing because their explanation of the game was too "male-centric" according to some. How was it male-centric? when they explained their game they said that you play as an inmortal king, and it seems that was enough to cause pushback, later they were all like "You can also be a Queen, you can also be a queen, men and women are equal in our game, we swear!"

I know people like to feel included, but that was taking it over the top.
 

Edited June 14, 2013 by Chaz

[Elerond]

I was watching a Massive Chalice dev chat and they were almost apologizing because their explanation of the game was too "male-centric" according to some. How was it male-centric? when they explained their game they said that you play as an inmortal king, and it seems that was enough to cause pushback, later they were all like "You can also be a Queen, you can also be a queen, men and women are equal in our game, we swear!"

 

I know people like to feel included, but that was taking it over the top.

 

How? Developers of Massive Chalice said when they achieved their goal that they want more money so that they can carry out features that backers want. And then some backers ask to play game as immortal queen instead of immortal king and devs say that they will make that as an option and I think that they also said that they make possible to retire heroes with same gender partner and make that viable choice even that they don't produce more heroes.

 

It should probably be remembered that they have very few features locked down in Massive Chalice as it is still in pre-production which they have mentioned multiple times and they ask people to success features and other things that they want to see in that game.

[BruceVC]

I was watching a Massive Chalice dev chat and they were almost apologizing because their explanation of the game was too "male-centric" according to some. How was it male-centric? when they explained their game they said that you play as an inmortal king, and it seems that was enough to cause pushback, later they were all like "You can also be a Queen, you can also be a queen, men and women are equal in our game, we swear!"

 

I know people like to feel included, but that was taking it over the top.

 

 

Its never over the top if you are not included. Its just one of the things human beings aspire to and desire to achieve

[Nonek]

Strange that one has not seen many men whining about having to play as a female in the Tomb Raider games.

 

Edit: Or women whining about having to play as Duke or G. Freeman, I wonder if this sense of outrage is only triggered by games with character creation?

Edited June 14, 2013 by Nonek

[Chaz]

How? Developers of Massive Chalice said when they achieved their goal that they want more money so that they can carry out features that backers want. And then some backers ask to play game as immortal queen instead of immortal king and devs say that they will make that as an option and I think that they also said that they make possible to retire heroes with same gender partner and make that viable choice even that they don't produce more heroes.

 

 

It should probably be remembered that they have very few features locked down in Massive Chalice as it is still in pre-production which they have mentioned multiple times and they ask people to success features and other things that they want to see in that game.

 

 

 

From what I heard in their dev chat you would have been able to play as a male (king) or female (queen) all along, like in any other RPG, but they clarified because some people were freaking out. What is kind of disturbing is when developers start to overly apologize for beign "privileged white men, with glasses". Also, it's funny how they go on like 20 minutes on how you can have an homosexual couple (which is fine, nothing wrong with some suprise buttsex) But if you want developers make attractive female characters for heterosexual men (which are 90% of them), well that's a ****ing crime now.

[Tagaziel]

From what I heard in their dev chat you would have been able to play as a male (king) or female (queen) all along, like in any other RPG, but they clarified because some people were freaking out. What is kind of disturbing is when developers start to overly apologize for beign "privileged white men, with glasses". Also, it's funny how they go on like 20 minutes on how you can have an homosexual couple (which is fine, nothing wrong with some suprise buttsex) But if you want developers make attractive female characters for heterosexual men (which are 90% of them), well that's a ****ing crime now.

There's a world of difference between making attractive female characters and making them objects for lonely males to salivate over. For example: Veronica (FNV) and B&B corps (MGS4). All are women with plot relevance, proper backstory, and are pertinent to gameplay, except Veronica doesn't shove her **** and ass into the camera when she appears.

 

By the way, I didn't bother replying to your previous post because it seems you don't get the point and instead prefer fashioning straw men to fight with.

[Chaz]

 

There's a world of difference between making attractive female characters and making them objects for lonely males to salivate over. For example: Veronica (FNV) and B&B corps (MGS4). All are women with plot relevance, proper backstory, and are pertinent to gameplay, except Veronica doesn't shove her **** and ass into the camera when she appears.

 

By the way, I didn't bother replying to your previous post because it seems you don't get the point and instead prefer fashioning straw men to fight with.

 

You talk about "making women object for lonely males to salive over" and come and talk to me about straw man?  The only reason you stopped replying is because you don't have any arguments, I've asked several times where is the harm, how does sex appeal in video games translates into suffering or misery in the real world and of course you decided to stop replying beacuse there is no harm, you're just whining because you don't like the art style.

[HoonDing]

All are women with plot relevance, proper backstory, and are pertinent to gameplay, except Veronica doesn't shove her **** and ass into the camera when she appears.

I'm pretty sure she does when you give her a dress.

[Elerond]

 

How? Developers of Massive Chalice said when they achieved their goal that they want more money so that they can carry out features that backers want. And then some backers ask to play game as immortal queen instead of immortal king and devs say that they will make that as an option and I think that they also said that they make possible to retire heroes with same gender partner and make that viable choice even that they don't produce more heroes.

 

 

It should probably be remembered that they have very few features locked down in Massive Chalice as it is still in pre-production which they have mentioned multiple times and they ask people to success features and other things that they want to see in that game.

 

 

 

From what I heard in their dev chat you would have been able to play as a male (king) or female (queen) all along, like in any other RPG, but they clarified because some people were freaking out. What is kind of disturbing is when developers start to overly apologize for beign "privileged white men, with glasses". Also, it's funny how they go on like 20 minutes on how you can have an homosexual couple (which is fine, nothing wrong with some suprise buttsex) But if you want developers make attractive female characters for heterosexual men (which are 90% of them), well that's a ****ing crime now.

 

If people were confused what devs intended then I fail to see what is wrong that they corrected peoples false assumptions of the game? 

 

I heard that if devs want make today game with attractive female lead who has heterosexual relationship with man, for example kiss him then publisher reject to publish your game, because that is just weird.

 

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/

 

So one could make assumption from that attractive female characters are only okay if they are ogling objects or subjects of men sexual advances, which one could see rising some resistance when about half of the gamers are female.

[Chaz]

 

 

From what I heard in their dev chat you would have been able to play as a male (king) or female (queen) all along, like in any other RPG, but they clarified because some people were freaking out. What is kind of disturbing is when developers start to overly apologize for beign "privileged white men, with glasses". Also, it's funny how they go on like 20 minutes on how you can have an homosexual couple (which is fine, nothing wrong with some suprise buttsex) But if you want developers make attractive female characters for heterosexual men (which are 90% of them), well that's a ****ing crime now.

 

If people were confused what devs intended then I fail to see what is wrong that they corrected peoples false assumptions of the game? 

 

I heard that if devs want make today game with attractive female lead who has heterosexual relationship with man, for example kiss him then publisher reject to publish your game, because that is just weird.

 

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/

 

So one could make assumption from that attractive female characters are only okay if they are ogling objects or subjects of men sexual advances, which one could see rising some resistance when about half of the gamers are female.

 

 

It's so sad when people quote me but it seems they didn't even read what I said, giving information about your game is not wrong, in almost in any RPG since pokemon I expect I can create a male or female character, and in strategy games the commander is usually genderless, they said their game would be like XCOM and in xcom and other strategy game you play as a commander of undefined gender.

 

What is kind of disturbing is when developers start to overly apologize for beign "privileged white men, with glasses"

 

 

I was always cool with Bioware or Obsidian beign inclusive in their games but when a developer starts to pretty much apologize for beign a male, that's when we enter creepyland.

 

Also if you think that about half of the gamers are female, you're in a fantasy world. I mean sure, if you count people that play facebook games or play from their smarphones, sure. If you talk about core gamers, I would say they are about 10% give or take.

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2013 by Chaz

[Elerond]

 

 

 

From what I heard in their dev chat you would have been able to play as a male (king) or female (queen) all along, like in any other RPG, but they clarified because some people were freaking out. What is kind of disturbing is when developers start to overly apologize for beign "privileged white men, with glasses". Also, it's funny how they go on like 20 minutes on how you can have an homosexual couple (which is fine, nothing wrong with some suprise buttsex) But if you want developers make attractive female characters for heterosexual men (which are 90% of them), well that's a ****ing crime now.

 

If people were confused what devs intended then I fail to see what is wrong that they corrected peoples false assumptions of the game? 

 

I heard that if devs want make today game with attractive female lead who has heterosexual relationship with man, for example kiss him then publisher reject to publish your game, because that is just weird.

 

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/

 

So one could make assumption from that attractive female characters are only okay if they are ogling objects or subjects of men sexual advances, which one could see rising some resistance when about half of the gamers are female.

 

 

It's so sad when people quote me but it seems they didn't even read what I said, giving information about your game is not wrong, in almost in any RPG since pokemon I expect I can create a male or female character, and in strategy games the commander is usually genderless, they said their game would be like XCOM and in xcom and other strategy game you play as a commander of undefined gender.

 

 

There is lot of RPGs where you have only one gender option, like for example Quest for Glory series, both Witcher Games (premade character), Venetica (premade character), Planescape Torment, Lands of the Lore series, Nox, etc.. And as kickstarter example Torment ToN had changeable gender as stretch goal. And in the Massive Chalice they failed to inform people in pitch video that you can select ruler's gender and speak only about king option.

 

In strategy games game don't usually give commander visual or audio role in the game, meaning that you don't need to specify his/her gender in the game if you don't necessarily want to do so, but from their pitch video I get picture that this will not be case with Massive Chalice.

[Chaz]

 

In strategy games game don't usually give commander visual or audio role in the game, meaning that you don't need to specify his/her gender in the game if you don't necessarily want to do so, but from their pitch video I get picture that this will not be case with Massive Chalice.

 

 

This is going to be a very interesting game with a lot of RTS and RPG elements, maybe the King/Queen will be a playable character (they should have said ruler instead of king so people wouldnt have freak out). Of course any information they failed to deliver should be clarified, but you don't have to apologize for beign a "privilged white male" just because you didn't address something in your Pitch video, which by the way is meant to convey the overall idea of the game, not every single detail, so I don't really see them at fault.

 

I don't know about you but whenever I heard to word privilged I thought of someone that's very rich, it looks like in 2013 beign a man means you're automatically privilged, lucky us.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Chaz

[Sannom]

I was always cool with Bioware or Obsidian beign inclusive in their games but when a developer starts to pretty much apologize for beign a male, that's when we enter creepyland.

I was under the impression, from what some have said on the topic, that you are completely blowing things out of proportion on this one. Mind giving a link to that dev chat?

[Chaz]

 

I was always cool with Bioware or Obsidian beign inclusive in their games but when a developer starts to pretty much apologize for beign a male, that's when we enter creepyland.

 

I was under the impression, from what some have said on the topic, that you are completely blowing things out of proportion on this one. Mind giving a link to that dev chat?

 

 

What you're not gonna take my word on it? Fine, Here, you tell me if I am exagerating, but when these guys go on a huge tangent on how they are going to appeal to minorities and call themselves "priviliged white males" I lost interest in that Dev Chat that was supposed to talk about game design.

 

 

[alanschu]

Strange that one has not seen many men whining about having to play as a female in the Tomb Raider games.

 

Edit: Or women whining about having to play as Duke or G. Freeman, I wonder if this sense of outrage is only triggered by games with character creation?

 

That women may not have an issue playing any individual game as a male protagonist, nor that the idea of a game having a female protagonist should cause disappointment in men in order for the complaints to be justified.  I think on some level, you see more outrage with character creation, the same way you get people going "I can't play an elf?!" when a character can be created.  It probably doesn't come up that you can't play as an elf when you're assigned Geralt.  I remember an old poster on this forum inquiring about whether or not there was a female protagonist option for Alpha Protocol, because she found it difficult to play as male characters because she preferred to play as a self insert.  There wasn't, she said thanks, and moved on.

 

If there were a 50/50 split in games that featured male and female protagonists, for example, the sex of protagonists wouldn't be a topic for discussion.  There's a disparity with gaming as whole, however.  Now you can (probably rightly) argue that a large part of this is based on the target audience, as well as typical developer, in a lot of cases.  Though gaming in general is growing, and there's now some impetus for increasing the variation in protagonists because some of those new camps (and some from the older camps) want it.

 

Note that this doesn't mean that the ratio MUST be 50/50 or anything like that.  It's just that some people want to be able to play more female protagonists.

Edited June 15, 2013 by alanschu

[Tagaziel]

You talk about "making women object for lonely males to salive over" and come and talk to me about straw man?  The only reason you stopped replying is because you don't have any arguments, I've asked several times where is the harm, how does sex appeal in video games translates into suffering or misery in the real world and of course you decided to stop replying beacuse there is no harm, you're just whining because you don't like the art style.

Actually, you were the first person to raise a particular point and have not provided any proof. As such, you still have not fulfilled your obligation to provide evidence. Therefore neither I nor anyone else who negates your claims is under any obligation to provide you with any proof.

 

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat.

 

So, until you prove that there is no negative impact (good luck with that), you will remain a whiner who complains about not seeing enough **** in games, instead of a competent partner for a discussion.

[Furiku]

Game journalists seem to not want anyone to see any boobs, but they love praising and talking about gay sex and apparently touching each other's butts: http://www.destructoid.com/touchin-butts-and-taking-names-in-glow-tag-256174.phtml

 

I think I'm seeing a pattern of what they're trying to do here.