Journalism and sexism in the games industry

[Orogun01]

 

The real reason is probably having to make all the extra animation work.

 

Yeah because only difference of genders in 15th century europe were the moves xD

 

You say that but have you ever seen sword strikes clipping through jiggly boobs...it ain't pretty.

[Longknife]

You say that but have you ever seen sword strikes clipping through jiggly boobs...it ain't pretty.

 

 

 

Wtf man I don't wanna picture that.

 

Now I'm sad... :C

[Blarghagh]

But that studio is the same one that didn't want to give fans the ability to play a female character because it " was unrealistic " due to the historical accuracy of  how they wanted game to be portrayed

 

Says something about them don't you think?

 

Bruce, I'm breaking my own rule here about not engaging you in the context of this thread to tell you something very simple: Do your research before just repeating something you heard. Seriously. This "controversy" was entirely made up for clickbait and absolutely none of it holds water.

 

Since people seem to be confused about this, I'll explain this supposed controversy: Precisely because Daniel Vavra and his team wanted to add an inclusivity option for women, the Kingdom Come Kickstarter included a stretch goal for a smaller female character based mini-campaign because the basic campaign dealt with facets of historical medievel society that only applied to males. The controversy was not that they did not want to give fans the ability to play a female character, the controversy was that they asked for extra money to do so.

 

The arguments were that an inclusivty option should be "a given" (despite the fact an extra campaign would cost a significant amount of money that the company did not have) and should not be a seperate campaign but included in the main campaign as a character customization option (regardless of the fact that this made no sense whatsoever). All in all, it's the most non-controversy horse**** that gender politics in games has come up with and if anything is the clearest argument that gender politics in the context of games needs to be reigned in because it is out of control, damaging to developers reputations (such as by the fact that you think they refused to give players the option when that is simply a lie) and artistic freedom via entitlement, misinformation and basically just making **** up and this is exactly why Daniel Vavra is one of the developers at the forefront of #GamerGate.

 

It should be pointed out that the stretch goal was achieved and the female character campaign will be in the game.

 

Here's an interview where he discusses it back in Febuary of this year, far before either that controversy or #GamerGate (emphasis mine):

 

Kingdom Come: Deliverance has been more than successful on Kickstarter; at the time of writing, it had raised £933,869, having targeted just £300,000. If the team hits the big one million, it hopes to add in a dog companion, but it’s already passed one of its major milestones, allowing it to add a playable female character to the game in a stand-alone questline.

 

This is something that Vávra seems quite passionate about doing well; if he’s going to add a playable woman to the game, he wants to do it with historical accuracy and respect, rather than ignore gender issues.

 

“It was very unusual for women to fight in battles, ride horses or get involved in politics. Not impossible, but very rare,” he said.

 

“If I would like the story to make sense, a very important part of it would have to be the emancipation and obstacles that the heroine must overcome to prove the world that she is equal, because at the time, the social roles of men and women were quite different. It would be an interesting story,” he said, “But it’s not the story I wanted to tell.

 

“Our story is about one particular event in history and the way I decided to tell it (is in my opinion) the best. I can promise you, that in the questline we added, we will reflect all this and will do our best to show how it really was to be a strong woman in medieval culture.”

 

Source: http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/19/kingdom-come-deliverance-promises-the-world-and-looks-set-to-deliver/

 

Does this seem like a man who refuses to add female characters? Or is this a man who worked hard to add an extra section to his game for women even though it made no sense in the context of his base game because adding this option was important to him when he could have just as easily have decided to just say "screw it" and left it a sausage fest like so many other games, and was then dogpiled, hounded and suffered irreversible reputation damage for his efforts? This is exactly what I mean when I say the internet outrage machine fed by these gender politics is consistently harming inclusivity in games by showing developers that it's not worth the effort to add them.

 

The reason why this developer is "steeped in controversy" is because games journalists made a controversy up and now the developer is a major face of a movement that calls for journalistic ethics because it's already been on the receiving end. It's as simple as that.

 

EDIT: Removed giant quote tunnel.

Edited November 13, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Orogun01]

http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/

[Blarghagh]

That is a fantastic read.

 

EDIT: I had no idea about the Alistair Pinsof situation. That's thoroughly despicable.

[BruceVC]

 

But that studio is the same one that didn't want to give fans the ability to play a female character because it " was unrealistic " due to the historical accuracy of  how they wanted game to be portrayed

 

Says something about them don't you think?

 

Bruce, I'm breaking my own rule here about not engaging you in the context of this thread to tell you something very simple: Do your research before just repeating something you heard. Seriously. This "controversy" was entirely made up for clickbait and absolutely none of it holds water.

 

Since people seem to be confused about this, I'll explain this supposed controversy: Precisely because Daniel Vavra and his team wanted to add an inclusivity option for women, the Kingdom Come Kickstarter included a stretch goal for a smaller female character based mini-campaign because the basic campaign dealt with facets of historical medievel society that only applied to males. The controversy was not that they did not want to give fans the ability to play a female character, the controversy was that they asked for extra money to do so.

 

The arguments were that an inclusivty option should be "a given" (despite the fact an extra campaign would cost a significant amount of money that the company did not have) and should not be a seperate campaign but included in the main campaign as a character customization option (regardless of the fact that this made no sense whatsoever). All in all, it's the most non-controversy horse**** that gender politics in games has come up with and if anything is the clearest argument that gender politics in the context of games needs to be reigned in because it is out of control, damaging to developers reputations (such as by the fact that you think they refused to give players the option when that is simply a lie) and artistic freedom via entitlement, misinformation and basically just making **** up and this is exactly why Daniel Vavra is one of the developers at the forefront of #GamerGate.

 

It should be pointed out that the stretch goal was achieved and the female character campaign will be in the game.

 

Here's an interview where he discusses it back in Febuary of this year, far before either that controversy or #GamerGate:

 

Kingdom Come: Deliverance has been more than successful on Kickstarter; at the time of writing, it had raised £933,869, having targeted just £300,000. If the team hits the big one million, it hopes to add in a dog companion, but it’s already passed one of its major milestones, allowing it to add a playable female character to the game in a stand-alone questline.

 

This is something that Vávra seems quite passionate about doing well; if he’s going to add a playable woman to the game, he wants to do it with historical accuracy and respect, rather than ignore gender issues.

 

“It was very unusual for women to fight in battles, ride horses or get involved in politics. Not impossible, but very rare,” he said.

 

“If I would like the story to make sense, a very important part of it would have to be the emancipation and obstacles that the heroine must overcome to prove the world that she is equal, because at the time, the social roles of men and women were quite different. It would be an interesting story,” he said, “But it’s not the story I wanted to tell.

 

“Our story is about one particular event in history and the way I decided to tell it (is in my opinion) the best. I can promise you, that in the questline we added, we will reflect all this and will do our best to show how it really was to be a strong woman in medieval culture.”

 

Source: http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/19/kingdom-come-deliverance-promises-the-world-and-looks-set-to-deliver/

 

Does this seem like a man who refuses to add female characters? Or is this a man who worked hard to add an extra section to his game for women even though it made no sense in the context of his base game because adding this option was important to him when he could have just as easily have decided to just say "screw it" and left it a sausage fest like so many other games, and was then dogpiled, hounded and suffered irreversible reputation damage for his efforts? This is exactly what I mean when I say the internet outrage machine fed by these gender politics is consistently harming inclusivity in games by showing developers that it's not worth the effort to add them.

 

The reason why this developer is "steeped in controversy" is because games journalists made a controversy up and now the developer is a major face of a movement that calls for journalistic ethics because it's already been on the receiving end. It's as simple as that.

 

EDIT: Removed giant quote tunnel.

 

 

I am surprised you broke your rule and decided to speak to me again in this thread  but I'm glad you did because I learnt something new about this particular development

 

I was wrong about Kingdom Come, thanks for setting the record straight

[Blarghagh]

I've been finding the last couple of days really fascinating. Apologies to Brad Wardell being issued, two GamerGate charity campaigns being very succesful (Unicef and a charity that gives Thanksgiving meals to the homeless) and... Time Magazine Poll on "what annoying word should be banned in 2014" landing squarely on... feminist: http://time.com/3576870/worst-words-poll-2014/

 

I'd say #GamerGate is still winning, even though I personally don't think such focus should be placed on feminism, it's journalists who are my issue.

 

Addendum: It also has to do with non-gaming controversies, such as scientist that landed probe on comet gets slammed for wearing t-shirt with pinups on it: http://www.peeep.us/328748bd First world problems! Hilariously, the shirt he was wearing was a custom-made birthday gift that a woman made for him. Reminds me a lot of Bayonetta 2.

 

Also, Erik Kain, pillar of neutrality at all times, wrote another article regarding video game journalism that I thought was fascinating:

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/11/13/the-catch-22-of-video-game-journalism/

Edited November 13, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Namutree]

 

Addendum: It also has to do with non-gaming controversies, such as scientist that landed probe on comet gets slammed for wearing t-shirt with pinups on it: http://www.peeep.us/328748bd First world problems! Hilariously, the shirt he was wearing was a custom-made birthday gift that a woman made for him. Reminds me a lot of Bayonetta 2.

 

Clearly the woman had internal misogyny. Women won't be able to move foreword into the future until their sexuality is fully repressed like in the past. 

[Lexx]

Addendum: It also has to do with non-gaming controversies, such as scientist that landed probe on comet gets slammed for wearing t-shirt with pinups on it: http://www.peeep.us/328748bd First world problems! Hilariously, the shirt he was wearing was a custom-made birthday gift that a woman made for him. Reminds me a lot of Bayonetta 2.

This is just too dumb.

 

 

PS: I think he looks awesome with sick tats and I like that they haven't gone all super serial with suit and tie and crap.

 

/Edit: Just like that guy the last time with his mohawk hair.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Lexx

[Shallow]

Yknow something that just popped in my head...well didn't JUST pop in my head, but I feel it's worth pointing out now...

 

 

We go on and on and on about the implications of harassment and "misogyny" that targeted the anti-GG crowd. However, to me GG is both a small fish and a big fish. It's small in the sense we're talking about the corruption of video game media and the world can survive with that being corrupt, but large in the sense that GG has shown more resilience and determination than other activist groups that've even voiced support for GG, such as Occupy Wall Street. It's in a unique position where being an activist merely demands NOT visiting untrustworthy or bias/corrupt news sources, and I believe it's that permittance for laziness that allows GG to remain alive and even grow. And ironically, it's that laziness that can bring about change in a capitalist market, which are the exact opponents it (and other activist groups) are up against.

 

 

   But for me, maybe the above hints that I think there's GamerGate, and then there's bigger picture. I want to see GamerGate go beyond just attacking corrupt video games journalism. The BBC, MSNBC, ABC. I want them to answer for this, because there's absolutely no excuse for such professional journalists to possibly overlook the other side of the story; no, it's clear they didn't care to give GG a voice, demeaning their news coverage on it to nothing but blatant propaganda.

 

 

 

The SJWs will go on and on and on about the significance and the impact of violence and alleged sexism in video games, and how that can affect our entire culture.

 

....What about the impact of being blatantly lied to or misled by major news sources?

 

Seriously now, think about the implications. If they lie to you here, what's to stop them from lying to you about the Ukraine Crisis? What's to stop them from lying to you about ANY conflict involving their own stance on things? Yknow, having a good amount of Russian friends (tons really) I think I've got a pretty good feel for Russian culture and what Putin is like, because I always always always inquire from my friends. So when news reports claimed "Russia shot down that flight" or "here's evidence of Russia kidnapping an Estonian official," it all seemed to align with what I thought: that yes, Russia truly is behind all of this even without any western bias.

  But now...? I have to sit here and re-assess everything. I cannot know for certain the validity of any of that. Who's lying...? Granted I still have the accounts of Russian friends to go off of so my overall opinion remains the same, but in regards to those individual stories...? Yeah, I kinda wonder now if there's any legitimacy to Russia's claims of a smear campaign from the west.

And mind you, I'm older. I'm 25 years old, so I already have an established way of seeing things. But what about 14 year olds? What about the younger generation that no doubt knows at least a little about GamerGate? We're teaching this generation not to trust the media. Regardless of whether you think that's a good lesson in the sense that you believe ALL current mainstream media to be corrupt and full of lies, the impact on this younger generation is that they don't trust the media out of sheer habit, and would continue to do so even if all corruption problems were resolved. That? Yeah that's bad.

 

  But for whatever reason we don't discuss this. You think violence in video games is a travesty, despite tons of research to suggest it having the opposite effect? You want to talk about sexism in video games, when even research papers done by SJWs or Anita herself fail to highlight any significance of these? Yeah, what about raising a generation to be paranoid and skeptical as a rule of thumb; a generation that's more accepting and welcoming of conspiracy theories and how big business and the government is out to get them? That to me is the real issue. And I cannot stress enough how frustrating it is to watch that unfold.

 

We desperate need a generation of paranoid and skeptical people to tear down government and corporate spying programs and the like, so if that's what we get I'm happy, it's also great that we're getting to the 14 year olds before they're brainwashed in college and the likes by SJWs, it's very important that this generation will be properly skeptical though, looking careful at what evidence is presented instead of just disregarding anything "the man" says and embracing hillbilly loons shouting about how evil lizard spacejews did 9/11 as a ploy to destroy western civilization. The way many portions of the world are structured leaves information as well as control extremely vulnerable, it would be good with some appropriately paranoid people to try and deal with this.

 

Also it's already confirmed that mainstream media is almost as corrupt as games media, suppressing negative stories about people they support, lying to their audience, and the likes. It seems very likely they're also more than willing to bs on foreign affairs, the question is how much is bs from one side, how much is bs from another, how much is bs from a third, what's corruption and what's just ignorance.

And I can guarantee you in another 3 months where we mark the 6 month anniversary of GG there still won't be any substantive changes that GG endeavours to achieve.

We've already accomplished one of three goals I care about within the video game portion of gamergate (crashing the mainstream media being an unrealistic and only slightly related 4th pipedream), you keep on saying that we haven't accomplished anything or that we won't accomplish anything, well, we're accomplishing the portions of the movement I care about just fine. So why do you keep on insisting we're never gonna accomplish anything when we already have?

[Amentep]

 

Professors should shy away from deliberate stunts, just my (what's the ASCII for 'cent' anyway)

 

Supposedly alt-155 but that produces 'ø' when tried here. And unfortunately 'my 10ø' just looks wrong.

 

alt-0162 = ¢

 

 

So... by your logic... so does the developer of Tomb Raider... not allowed to be be male in those game.. Or Twitcher which you like won't allow you to play female. B00 H00!

Its not the same thing, there was a huge controversy when Kingdom Come was first KS

 

I haven't seen anyone complain about Tomb Raider because the main character has always been female and that's part of the accepted narrative of the game

 

When Tomb Raider was previewed in the game magazines back in the day, it was originally previewed with Male and Female protaganists.

 

Later previews the male was dropped.

 

Now, apparently, the producers say they always wanted Lara but did the male as a placeholder thinking the game wouldn't sale with just a female protaganist but reaction to Lara was so positive they didn't need him.

 

But from the gamers perspective at the time...they dropped the guy.*

 

*Edit: Not that I cared, the game was fun.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Amentep

[Namutree]

I've always hated Tomb Raider. Always.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Jesus this thread moves fast. 600+ posts in 10 days seems lightspeed compared to the usual pace around here.

[Namutree]

Jesus this thread moves fast. 600+ posts in 10 days seems lightspeed compared to the usual pace around here.

We care about this stuff.

[Lexx]

This thread is fueled by misogynie.

[Blarghagh]

I believe the colloquial term is "my soggy knee".

[Volourn]

"And I can guarantee you in another 3 months where we mark the 6 month anniversary of GG there still won't be any substantive changes that GG endeavours to achieve."
 

What has the anti GG side accomplished? NOTHING.

 

Their goal is to commit mass murder and they have EPICALLY failed at that.

 

 

R00fles!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

This thread is fueled by misogynie.

Quiet you! If the SJWs know about our Misogny Fission reactor, they can strike at us with their tumble bombs.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

http://basedgamer.com/#

 

Rotten Tomatoes thing for vidya.

 

Thoughts?

[Meshugger]

Without signing up, i would say that it is a good step forward.

[Amentep]

I've always hated Tomb Raider. Always.

It certainly has its flaws as a series, so I can understand that.

[namelesshero]

Don't mind me just here for this 

[pmp10]

http://basedgamer.com/#

 

Rotten Tomatoes thing for vidya.

 

Thoughts?

That's also a 50k$ crowd surfing project mired in memes.

And that's for something that may not even get off the ground.

It be nice to see gamergate do something constructive for once but honestly I doubt this will get far.

[Gorgon]

Gamergate should totally do a kickstarter and ask for 500.000$ to do a handful of youtube vids. 

[Keyrock]

http://basedgamer.com/#

 

Rotten Tomatoes thing for vidya.

 

Thoughts?

I don't know whether it will succeed, but it's a good idea.  We honestly need something like this so that the masses aren't so dependent on metacritic, which is an inherently deeply flawed system.  Something like this has been mulled over before, long before GamerGate, so it's nice to see someone push to make it a reality.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Keyrock