Now we are getting somewhere. Thanks for your intelligent remarks.
So, let’s take an example. Journalists attacked the cleavage in Bayonetta and Bioshock Infinite. If I wasn’t lazy, I would link to the articles. How on earth is that sex positive? Covering up cleavage saves the day? What are we, Puritans from 1722?
As for richer storytelling. I completely agree. It’s not hard to point at video games and say that the writing sucks. Hell, most TV writing sucks. But that’s not what they are saying. They are saying that the work isn’t “correct” not that it is aesthetically bad. That is why I have a problem with their agenda. But I have a feeling that if these critics were just arguing on the aesthetic merits, they wouldn’t get as much attention than when they involve politics.
GamerGate has left a bad impression with most people because of the terrible tactics their movement has employed. It’s hard to seriously evaluate someone’s ends when their means are so appalling.
Sex-positive culture emphasizes safety and consent. Threats of rape, murder, and violence undermines any chance at that emerging in the gaming community anytime soon.
I know more than one woman who likes the Bayonetta series. I also know more than one woman who is scared to death of getting involved with the gaming or tech community because of the extreme lengths GG and others have gone to assert their world view.
What if GG had said nothing? It’s not like Anita Sarkeesian gets to personally approve each game before it’s published. Believe me, sexuality in gaming isn’t going away anytime soon. There is and was no need to so violently lash out against a few cultural critics.
Also be aware that there are people involved in this who regularly think that phrases like “I don’t know who’s jewing [sic] who anymore” are fine and normal to be saying. (that would be /pol/)
trollies driving trollies trollies driving trollies bullies bullying bullies bullying trollies driving trollies bullies… Throw in MRA/TRP/PUA people (Men’s Rights Activist/The Red Pill/Pick Up Artist), plus (what’s the name for the ultra-radical feminists? as in, “all men need to die” thinking? Those.) to escalate, and you get this big mess.
I honestly think that I’m in a “silent majority” (yes I know it’s cliche) that saw one side, tried to get involved, figured out all the harassment and abuse going on, and decided to “nope the fuck out”. I’m slowly trying to get rid of the confirmation bias that I have for the (unnamed, for my sanity) side.
It is amazingly, sadly laughable how much these knucklehead Lamers use the word “journalism” given that the topic has nothing to do with journalism because reviewing videogames is not journalism.
Do you believe that a person who has been threatened should be free from fair criticism of what they say? I am trying to actually argue on the merits, not resort to ad hominem and straw men.
I’m saying there is a time and a place for fair criticism. Well intentioned criticism looks very petty when it arrives adjacent to threats of violence.
There is an immense amount of hostility directed towards women in the gaming community right now. Many people don’t feel safe enough to engage in critical discourse in such a hostile environment.
At this point in time, I am much more interested in securing a basic sense of safety for all women (and in fact all people) interested in being involved in the world of gaming.
You should be too, if your are genuinely interested in earnest dialogue about the content of games.
LoL, I’m not sure what is more pathetic, the new company that GG types are pretty much now forced to keep, or that those few remaining are still sending out sockpuppets with the same tired & failed derailments armed only with poor reasoning.
Been a long time lurker to BB, like close 10 years… Felt no need to chime in as I usually found myself agreeing with the political leanings here. Was seriously surprised by the anti-GG tone here, I expected expected better coverage from BB, and couldn’t believe the negativity in these boards, so I decided to create an account and chime in. But apparently that makes me an 8chan shill in your eyes. Seriously, what’s wrong with you guys? This place should be better than this.
Yes, there is no evidence that people take their virtual violence out in the Real World. Unfortunately when they start flame-throwing they still think it’s virtual. News flash. This shit is real.
Certainly the official sex crime rate is the end-all and be-all in the story of a heavily paternalistic society that still attaches significant amounts of social and personal shame to being a victim, especially a society that has such an infamous problem with public molestation of women that it implemented women-only train carriages specifically to combat it.
In 10 years, the only time you’ve ever had a difference of opinion with the (diverse) editors of BB is whether it’s acceptable to threaten women with rape and death over the criticism of the content of computer games?
Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. Bayonetta 2 does not feature “cleavage”; it features long, lascivious pans up the body of a fantasy female character whose clothes vanish proportionally to the power of the player’s attack.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that; I like T&A as much as the next guy. The problem arises when a) female video game characters are consistently sexualized for adolescent male fantasy, and b) male video game characters almost never are. Many of the same people defending Bayonetta 2 would freak the heck out if there were a male character in a AAA game with exposed buttcheeks and a lot of lingering camera shots of his big sock-covered dong flopping about.
The reviewers who point out the sexuality in Bayonetta 2 are not, for the most part, saying “OMG never show boobs!” They are pointing out that major video games go to the well of adolescent male appeal a whole lot, and maybe it’d be nice to see less catering to them and more catering to the broad array of people who now play video games. The people, like myself, who want to see jiggling boobs have many opportunities to do so; perhaps we don’t need to be the mainstream center anymore, any more than mainstream cinema needs to cater excusively to my love of giallo.
So let me get this straight. Anita Sarkeesian’s work discussing the use of tropes in video games and suggesting that games could do a better job of depicting women is “silencing voices”, while credible rape and death threats are “fair criticism of what they say”?
Do you believe the wave of criticism and threats coming in at the same time are separate things?
And what fair criticism are you talking about anyway? Assuming people are plotting to censor creators because they dare criticize them isn’t actually fair, especially not while ignoring the actual censorship attempts happening as we speak.
I remember reading posts by people who freaked out that in Dragon Age there was an option to start a relationship with a male character if you were playing a male. They didn’t even want to see the option. And now I’ve read the next game wasn’t going to feature any romance at all. But the feminists are the ones who are “censoring” games with their critiques.
I just want to play wedding with my dolls!
This is always what it comes down to. Somehow cultural critiques are censorious, but we just won’t worry about it if someone cancels their talk because of a literal bomb threat. Feminists have been critiquing movies for years and the same action blockbuster where the guy gets the girls still keeps coming out. The voices of massively rich people who want to make the same thing over and over to appeal to an audience they presume would be offended by anything new it haven’t actually been silenced yet.
