Journalism and sexism in the games industry

[BruceVC]

 

 

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

 

Or maybe is because guys aren't supposed to complain, nagging is a female trait that I would hope equality will do away with.

 

Also, developers are allowed to have a vision for what their game will be that doesn't agree with everybody's taste. Why is that cause for complaint? Every argument for female representation on video games is as easily refuted now as it was when Tropes vs. Women first came out.

 

Why you think that criticizing apples for not being oranges is a good thing is beyond me. 

 

 

Okay fair enough, I agree with the whole vision concept that developers should be able to have

 

The only consideration that I would expect you guys to ask yourself is how come it seems that  the only prominent development company that has openly supported GG is one that is linked to controversy? I am not going to suggest why that is, I'll leave that with you to ponder

[Volourn]

Could be because they were harassed and attacked by crybabies because they wouldn't have a female protagonist. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Pretty much what Volo said. The controversy behind Deliverance seems to be largely non-issue, and the same problem could be applied to the Torment game where the original plan was to have the PC be female by default.

[Longknife]

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2m42sa/2012_study_tries_to_establish_causal_link_between/

 

 

Frankly I'm not surprised, seeing how they seem to insert gender into literally everything and seem incapable of not noticing it.

[kirottu]

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2m42sa/2012_study_tries_to_establish_causal_link_between/

 

 

Frankly I'm not surprised, seeing how they seem to insert gender into literally everything and seem incapable of not noticing it.

 

That is something Bruce should read.

[Chilloutman]

 

I see that one hurt a bit and you're trying to rationalize.

Devs I admired for a long long time like Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert (and many more) have come out in the right side of this. It's no coincidence that the most prominent dev supporting gamergate has pretty much admitted to sexual harassment, then there's "indies" with kickstarter frauds, and "unknowns" who have made 0 games but of course it's the "sjw" blacklisting that's at fault. While we're at it, you don't seem to know  what blacklisting is.

Meanwhile you're grasping at straws with the Blizzard statement. Thing is I would really like it if more devs could share their honest opinions on gg but you probably wouldn't and you're making a damn fine job at making people(especially women, and that includes women of all hair colours) worried about expressing their opinions.

 

I have to say this begs a very important consideration, why haven't any serious Devs or Development companies publically aligned with GG?

 

It leads directly to the credibility of the movement and whether people want to be associated with it ?

 

 

Here you go Bruce...

 

http://techraptor.net/content/interview-daniel-vavra

[exodiark]

 

I see that one hurt a bit and you're trying to rationalize.

Devs I admired for a long long time like Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert (and many more) have come out in the right side of this. It's no coincidence that the most prominent dev supporting gamergate has pretty much admitted to sexual harassment, then there's "indies" with kickstarter frauds, and "unknowns" who have made 0 games but of course it's the "sjw" blacklisting that's at fault. While we're at it, you don't seem to know  what blacklisting is.

Meanwhile you're grasping at straws with the Blizzard statement. Thing is I would really like it if more devs could share their honest opinions on gg but you probably wouldn't and you're making a damn fine job at making people(especially women, and that includes women of all hair colours) worried about expressing their opinions.

 

I have to say this begs a very important consideration, why haven't any serious Devs or Development companies publically aligned with GG?

 

It leads directly to the credibility of the movement and whether people want to be associated with it ?

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/gamergate-interviews/12384-Xbro-GamerGate-Interview

 

Is an Xbox developer from Microsoft serious enough? While he's anonymous, he exists and is confirmed to be one of Xbox Developers. He doesn't seek fame or infamy, so he see no need to reveal himself.

Edited November 13, 2014 by exodiark

[exodiark]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/gamergate-interviews/12391-Glaive-GamerGate-Interview

Also another serious person with serious pro GamerGate opinion

 

Glaive has worked in the game industry for 12 years, with a career that spans publishers, AAA development studios, and game consulting houses. 

 

Also from his testimony:
 

Do you know of other developers who have been silenced or self-silenced by concerns of game journalists will react to their opinions of GamerGate?

I think all the studios I know of have people in support of GamerGate, as all the studios I know of have lots of gamers on their staff.

Edited November 13, 2014 by exodiark

[kirottu]

[namelesshero]

I guess the overlap with the codex can expain the... ugh ... quality of the arguments here.

[Shallow]

Yes that is one example that I know about

 

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?

So what you're saying is that a big dev on our side cares more about historical accuracy in his game than rewriting history in order to please sjws? This isn't saying he's sexist, this is just saying people who aren't social justice hitlers are more likely to not side with other social justice hitlers... it is completely to be expected that someone on our side isn't as big on screwing over his artistic freedom and his attempt to portray his video game world as he sees it in order to be all social justicy as someone on your side would.

 

Also, that studio had a stretch goal for including a separate intro that'd be realistic for female characters according to the devs view of the timeframe, so it's really just bs for you to go off implying they're sexist and not just not a social justice hitler.

[TrashMan]

Plenty of GameDevs support GG, but unofficially.

Official support is too risky, as they risk getting balacklisted and harassed.

[TrashMan]

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

 

 

It's the EXACT SAME THING you hypocrite.

 

If something is wrong, then it's wrong regardless if 10 people protest or 1000.

And Tomb Raider doesn't even have a historical accuracy reason for not doing it.

 

So no, there is no contraversy, because there is no problem. There never was.

 

The feminist shrills makes their living and get their power by breeding conflict and making a fuss over nothing, creating outrage and contraversy to fuel their careers.

[Keyrock]

Yes that is one example that I know about

 

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?

 

It says they are making a game striving for historical accuracy and taking place in a time period when gender roles were very strongly defined and extremely difficult to defy.  It's not the same as in a fantasy game where the world and the gender roles (or lack there of) can be anything you want them to be.  Early 15th century Europe was a very real place with a very real and very strict social system divided by gender and blood.  If you're striving for historical accuracy in a game like that it's not a trivial matter to allow the player to choose gender.  It's not as simple as making a female character model and changing a few lines of dialogue here and there to reflect the player's gender roles.  Almost everything would have to be written multiple times to reflect gender differences.  Entire quest lines would have to be completely different or unavailable to one character or the other.  It would be almost like creating a whole second game just to add the gender choice.  While this may sound good to the consumer, it does to me, and I would welcome a game with such complexity and it would certainly add replay value, this would be a mammoth undertaking for the developer, even a publisher funded developer working with a budget in the hundreds of millions.  For a small upstart studio working off a budget a fraction of that, it would be sheer folly.

 

This is why so many of us gamers hate social justice warriors, this is why so many of us hate people just like you, Bruce.  It's because developers are not free to express their art as they see fit, they are not free to act on their vision, not without harassment from zealots trying to cram a social engineering agenda into everything.  Not every game has to be all inclusive.  Not every game has to represent genders equally (guess what Bruce, the genders are different, this is a biological fact, men and women are not the same).  Not every game has to include someone with every shade of skin color under the sun and make sure they're all shown in an equally positive light.  Sometimes developers want to tackle specific subjects from a specific point of view.  Sometimes these subjects may be difficult for some people to swallow.  Developers should be free to create their games according to their vision, free from the oppressive noose of totalitarian control freaks tightening around their necks and sapping their creativity.  It's called freedom of expression.  This is one of the things we are fighting for.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Keyrock

[Gorgon]

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

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

Yes that is one example that I know about

 

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?

 

It says they are making a game striving for historical accuracy and taking place in a time period when gender roles were very strongly defined and extremely difficult to defy.  It's not the same as in a fantasy game where the world and the gender roles (or lack there of) can be anything you want them to be.  Early 15th century Europe was a very real place with a very real and very strict social system divided by gender and blood.  If you're striving for historical accuracy in a game like that it's not a trivial matter to allow the player to choose gender.  It's not as simple as making a female character model and changing a few lines of dialogue here and there to reflect the player's gender roles.  Almost everything would have to be written multiple times to reflect gender differences.  Entire quest lines would have to be completely different or unavailable to one character or the other.  It would be almost like creating a whole second game just to add the gender choice.  While this may sound good to the consumer, it does to me, and I would welcome a game with such complexity and it would certainly add replay value, this would be a mammoth undertaking for the developer, even a publisher funded developer working with a budget in the hundreds of millions.  For a small upstart studio working off a budget a fraction of that, it would be sheer folly.

 

This is why so many of us gamers hate social justice warriors, this is why so many of us hate people just like you, Bruce.  It's because developers are not free to express their art as they see fit, they are not free to act on their vision, not without harassment from zealots trying to cram a social engineering agenda into everything.  Not every game has to be all inclusive.  Not every game has to represent genders equally (guess what Bruce, the genders are different, this is a biological fact, men and women are not the same).  Not every game has to include someone with every shade of skin color under the sun and make sure they're all shown in an equally positive light.  Sometimes developers want to tackle specific subjects from a specific point of view.  Sometimes these subjects may be difficult for some people to swallow.  Developers should be free to create their games according to their vision, free from the oppressive noose of totalitarian control freaks tightening around their necks and sapping their creativity.  It's called freedom of expression.  This is one of the things we are fighting for.

[Keyrock]

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

According to Ubisoft, yeah.

[Chilloutman]

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

[Longknife]

Yes that is one example that I know about

 

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?

 

 

Yeah, it says they're a bunch of history and fact-respecting idiots.

 

Why can't everyone just learn to Listen and Believe????

Edited November 13, 2014 by Longknife

[Longknife]

Also if you eat cereal you're a sexist f***tard:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpAQDwsJriQ&

[Keyrock]

Also if you eat cereal you're a sexist f***tard:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpAQDwsJriQ&

That video is tremendous! 

[namelesshero]

In that it was made by a fully grown man.

[Longknife]

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.

[Chilloutman]

Also if you eat cereal you're a sexist f***tard:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpAQDwsJriQ&

 

priceless the end put tears in my eyes

[BruceVC]

 

Yes that is one example that I know about

 

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?

 

It says they are making a game striving for historical accuracy and taking place in a time period when gender roles were very strongly defined and extremely difficult to defy.  It's not the same as in a fantasy game where the world and the gender roles (or lack there of) can be anything you want them to be.  Early 15th century Europe was a very real place with a very real and very strict social system divided by gender and blood.  If you're striving for historical accuracy in a game like that it's not a trivial matter to allow the player to choose gender.  It's not as simple as making a female character model and changing a few lines of dialogue here and there to reflect the player's gender roles.  Almost everything would have to be written multiple times to reflect gender differences.  Entire quest lines would have to be completely different or unavailable to one character or the other.  It would be almost like creating a whole second game just to add the gender choice.  While this may sound good to the consumer, it does to me, and I would welcome a game with such complexity and it would certainly add replay value, this would be a mammoth undertaking for the developer, even a publisher funded developer working with a budget in the hundreds of millions.  For a small upstart studio working off a budget a fraction of that, it would be sheer folly.

 

This is why so many of us gamers hate social justice warriors, this is why so many of us hate people just like you, Bruce.  It's because developers are not free to express their art as they see fit, they are not free to act on their vision, not without harassment from zealots trying to cram a social engineering agenda into everything.  Not every game has to be all inclusive.  Not every game has to represent genders equally (guess what Bruce, the genders are different, this is a biological fact, men and women are not the same).  Not every game has to include someone with every shade of skin color under the sun and make sure they're all shown in an equally positive light.  Sometimes developers want to tackle specific subjects from a specific point of view.  Sometimes these subjects may be difficult for some people to swallow.  Developers should be free to create their games according to their vision, free from the oppressive noose of totalitarian control freaks tightening around their necks and sapping their creativity.  It's called freedom of expression.  This is one of the things we are fighting for.

 

 

Okay, that's not a  bad explanation. I sort of agree, but my comment  about Kingdom Come wasn't suppose to become such a big deal. I just used this to reinforce my point that very few developers have publically aligned with GG and the one that has is steeped in controversy around there commitment to inclusivity

That's the point, that's what you guys should be focusing on. But no I get several posts   telling me how wrong I was about Kingdom Come, that game is not really relevant to my main point.

 

That's the issue with GG, some of you guys keep focusing on really irrelevant twitter comments and blogs from nameless and unknown  people " where there  opinion is very important in highlighting how badly you gamers are treated and how SJW are just evil incarnate "

 

All this energy spent seems so misplaced to me

 

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.

Edited November 13, 2014 by BruceVC