Seriously, how many times does he have to (a) say “oh I’ve been a massive dick I won’t do that again” and then (b) be a massive dick, before people actually wait to see whether (b) takes place again before giving out the bravos?
Yeah, was just popping on to say something similar. Forgive me for not trusting some one who say’s they’ll never hit you again… again.
Websites that let people comment on game reviews are a big part of the problem: much of this year’s nastiness was facilitated by websites which chose to publish relentless, sexist attacks on their own authors.
I believe it, completely, but I am curious what specific examples we are referring to here.
(This is a topic that is of particular interest to me as Discourse is kinda-sorta a comment system at some level)
I though it was a game and my score is too low.
Because girls can’t be bullies too, right? You should see the sadistic stuff my SO does with her sims.
I think I’ll just continue to stick with the excellent John Walker and the rest of the Rock Paper Shotgun journos.
Does Discourse feel like a game? It is not intended to. That’s why it lacks a lot of the overt gamification stuff like a badging system, visible scores, etc.
But more viewpoints need to be represented in discussing games. We need more female games journalists who have a more central part of the dialog.
This sounds great. I wish more females got into games journalism and carved out a stake since there is obviously this huge missed niche of disenfranchised gamers that want their perspective.
Websites that let people comment on game reviews are a big part of the problem
Oh I see, so just put more of the Right Opinions in focus, give them a “central part of the dialog”, and then to be really sure, shut down dissenting opinion. So it’s more of a monologue really. But with opinions you like.
The funniest part is that I’m sure everyone involved in this thinks they’re liberal.
And no, I’m not doing a free speech bit. I think women and feminists should start producing all this desperately needed female perspective on games, since they’re all convinced it’s sorely needed. I just wish the absence of an audience would prove something other than another machination of the ever watchful Patriarchy conspiracy.
He gives a deeply insightful psychology-based explanation which cops to some really bad problems.
So if he’s bullshitting, then the truth must be REALLY SOMETHING.
All that being said, I won’t be trusting him with my lunch money.
This is a good time as any to plug Feminist Frequency’s excellent analysis of women and female characters in video games:
Games journalism is already as bad as regular journalism, except no one respects you if they don’t read your stuff, and there’s basically no chance of ever reporting on something actually meaningful other than the latest SOPA-like bill that’ll get passed anyways. Why would you want to subject more women to having to do THAT job, divorced from the criticisms of internet laymen that any woman would inevitably face? We need more female engineers. Now there’s a respectable job.
Also, Tomb Raider 2013 is weird. It’s a game that’s both hated and loved by feminists, some view the violence against women as degrading and some think it’s empowering. I don’t know, didn’t play it. Certainly some people framed it as a little gratuitous, but everyone has an agenda. Problem is, a lot of these arguments are a little too personal and not logical enough for me to get on board with them.
I still don’t know what’s expected of me as an average person if I’m to join up with this idea camp, either. I’ve watched Anita’s videos, and honestly? They don’t even convince me of things I already believe! If anyone is going to be the mouthpiece for this all, it should be Leigh Alexander, who has actually worked as a games journalist and has a better writing style than most of the other people associated with this movement/group/whatever it calls itself and definitely better than most other games jouralists.
I’ll listen to almost any argument, and I’ve tried to give this a fair shake, but I still can’t tell what the plan for actually fixing this problem is.
Haha, you’re funny! If a website doesn’t want to publish bigotry, threats and harassment aimed at women, it’s part of the patriarchal conspiracy to silence dissent. Gotcha! Look at us, quashing every boy’s right to be published by polygon and kotaku as guaranteed by the mrphteenth amendment to the constitution.
I agree, Mike definitely needs to put his money where his mouth is. Saying that, his mouth is at least going through decent motions with this one…hopefully there’s follow through.
Great job on that strawman. If you read the post at all you’ll find that it explicitly addresses your strawman and squashes it. It’s like you’re just working off rote rebuttals.
I tend to agree that if there is a such a need for the female perspective in gaming then why isn’t one emerging?
The thing that amazes me with sexism is that people don’t even realize they’re doing it.
I mean, in this day and age, people are relatively good at spotting racism. Even those who are racist have been forced to admit that it’s socially unacceptable and for the most part keep their mouth closed in public. Sexism for some reason is so far off the radar, it’s still socially acceptable to use female anatomy as derogatory terms. The problem is so massive I can’t even imagine a world where we’ve begun to fix it.
Polygon, Cnet, kotaku are three places that spring to mind that have apparent standards but don’t do much to apply them on the nasty types in their comments. YouTube too, obviously, and top game forums unlinked to content sites. But they have no editorial component, so no one can be reasonably expected to take responsibility.
Humbug to you, I say! Balderdash, even. The continued usage of a word takes away the shock factor it once would’ve caused until the word is just a word in most cases, and in other cases language simply evolves away from it. Language is ever-changing, especially English which is a ridiculous mishmash of languages already. I wouldn’t worry about this, particularly. There’s much better things to worry about when this will sort itself out with time.
