(04-23-2014, 11:45 AM)Acies Wrote: And sure, I believe that males may very well create entertainment which may or may not take the gender-question into consideration and still provide great joy for either gender. I do believe however that there's a unmet need for games created by females, directed at females with female undertones and choices permeating the game. What I'm trying to say is that both genders can enjoy games with either 'undertone', but currently there are none with female undertones which makes the market one-sided in the choices available.

(04-23-2014, 01:32 PM)Bridge Wrote: Absolutely disgusting. Should black people also have their black people games with black people undertones? How about we stop speaking in vaguenesses and lay down some concrete definitions: What is a female undertone? And here's a bonus question: Can you point out any male-specific undertones?

EDIT: Just a fair warning, these questions are rhetorical because I don't believe in them. I can and will (unless you make impressive arguments) dismiss them with a reference to vicariousness.

(04-23-2014, 02:47 PM)Alardem Wrote: [Insert obligatory statement about how hyperpowerful muscleman does not equal half-naked skinny lady.]

Quote:Tactful much? Calling me retarded and 'feeling sorry' for me is not the best way to debate.

Quote:You "believe in nothing". Yet you've put some effort into being a contrarian. I see a disconnect here.

(04-23-2014, 03:00 PM)Acies Wrote: Would wuthering heights be the exact same book if written by a man? Would GTA be the exact same game if made by a company solely consisting of women?

(04-23-2014, 03:08 PM)Bridge Wrote: @Acies:
That's all true, of course, though I object to the notion that art can't be precise. It doesn't need to be, but there are many painters that do in fact think in exact dimensions, exact angles and exact colors. Maybe not counting strokes though because that is pointless.

(04-23-2014, 03:00 PM)Acies Wrote: As you progress through creating something you fill in the 'unplanned' blanks with your best judgement.

(04-23-2014, 03:08 PM)Bridge Wrote: Otherwise, people do of course "inherit" values but it's the duty of any discerning individual to constantly question said values. I don't have the same values I was "told" I should have, though there may be some overlap. In my case it has mostly been a case of coming to a conclusion about what values I think are virtuous through trial and error or rational examination. I used to be quite illogically counter-culture and still to some extent am but have receded gradually as I discovered that certain views are too impractical to be tenable.

(04-23-2014, 03:08 PM)Bridge Wrote: Let me ask you, is there anything particularly that screams "woman" about the Harry Potter series? The protagonist is male and it has the whole "smurfette principle" that feminists like to point to and yet is, lo and behold, written by a woman. I don't notice, because it's not written with a shallow agenda in mind. The females are not given artificially inflated importance and it's not preachy in a feminist way. It's just a book. It's debatable whether it's good, I personally find it to be enjoyable but not exactly great. The fact that a woman wrote it has no bearing on the work.

(04-23-2014, 04:28 PM)Acies Wrote: I believe any human being goes through the process of questioning the validity of values, it is a sound thing to do. The point I was making is that there are values imparted on you, beyond your control or understanding. As much as one would like to shape the person who is "I", solely by own choosing, you are a product of your environment. If one truly had the capability to separate, process and change each of the millions of values held within the human mind it would require you to have godlike attributes or be a robot conscious through programming. One would have to have 'total self-control' and like 'a programmer' rewriting any and all information passed onto the brain, which in turn is impossible. Therefore one can conclude that any human being hold values imparted on them.

Quote:A work doesn't have to 'scream' a value to hold it. I am sure Harry Potter holds values imparted specifically on women, because as I ventured on my above argument, no one is unaffected by their environment. No one can selectively build and choose their own consciousness.

(04-23-2014, 04:57 PM)Bridge Wrote: But this is the exact same trap I was warning against - going so deep in your interpretations that you find stuff that isn't there, because you assume upon the answer. Again I disagree, it doesn't have to be the case that somebody cannot help but write something because of environmental factors. People are perfectly capable of being critical of themselves and their environment, enough to approach objectivity. It's not like writers only commit to paper views they themselves hold or experiences they have had, that would be absurd. Again, what are these "woman values" that you refer to? Seriously, you can't just say they must be there because how could they not be and fail to mention anything concrete.

Is there anything remotely "woman" about any of these? Where? I don't see it. Punisher War Zone is shallow in what many would call a "male" way, and American Psycho is pretty disturbing, which is supposed to appeal only to males, the violent sex, right? If you are going to say the patriarchy made them do it, don't bother.

(04-23-2014, 05:46 PM)Acies Wrote: I believe the gender of a person has influence on the artistic work they produce (and by an extension to this thread: a group of females would produce a different type of game than a group of males).

(04-23-2014, 09:20 PM)Bridge Wrote:

(04-23-2014, 05:46 PM)Acies Wrote: I believe the gender of a person has influence on the artistic work they produce (and by an extension to this thread: a group of females would produce a different type of game than a group of males).

But for what reason? It doesn't make sense to make such an assumption without knowing what the specific traits in question are. You don't need to write an academic paper about it, just name the traits you have noticed in your own experience and we can determine if they are reality. Obviously, we are not deciding the fate of the world here, this is all ultimately pointless. Otherwise I have no problem with the discussion ending if that is your wish.

(04-23-2014, 11:10 PM)Acies Wrote:

(04-23-2014, 09:20 PM)Bridge Wrote:

(04-23-2014, 05:46 PM)Acies Wrote: I believe the gender of a person has influence on the artistic work they produce (and by an extension to this thread: a group of females would produce a different type of game than a group of males).

But for what reason? It doesn't make sense to make such an assumption without knowing what the specific traits in question are. You don't need to write an academic paper about it, just name the traits you have noticed in your own experience and we can determine if they are reality. Obviously, we are not deciding the fate of the world here, this is all ultimately pointless. Otherwise I have no problem with the discussion ending if that is your wish.

https://www.msu.edu/~pengwei/Mou%20Peng.pdf

• Obviously women and minorities are "misrepresented" in the majority of video games, but is that discrimination or laziness? I argue that it's laziness. I asked a perfectly reasonable question earlier: Do these games even represent white males? Being in a leading role does not necessarily mean you are well written.
  
• Context is king. Yes, I would very well expect a NBA game not to have female characters because it is a men's only league and it makes a lot of sense for it to have more black characters because a whopping 78% of the NBA is black. Otherwise, consider that a game set in the US is likely to have a lower percentage of black people than a game set in some African nation because black people only make up around 13% of the nation. Here's a game set almost entirely in Brazil and lo and behold, it has only one Caucasian leading character. The enemies are mostly non-Caucasian because you wouldn't expect to find a lot of Caucasians in Brazil where they are a minority. Here's another example of that. The game takes place mostly outside of the US, and the enemies are whatever nationality you would expect to find in the country the particular level is set in. I could go on and on listing examples, but this type of arithmetic doesn't jive with me. It goes completely against common sense. Would you be happy if the ratio of ethnicities and genders were all 1:1, even where it doesn't make any sense or is distracting?
  
• The sample is way too small. Top 20 games 2006? That doesn't give you any useful information at all, it can so easily be heavily skewed. To say nothing about the quality of the games they picked. I'm not riveted by most of them, and they are not what most people take seriously. It's akin to doing a study of the most popular stupid movies that everybody hates and which are not the subject of critical analysis. And they even reference a study of NES and Genesis games all the way back in the dark ages of gaming without irony (not to mention suggesting that studies have confirmed that violence and video games are linked - which has been debunked over and over.)
  
• They only played the first 10 or so minutes of a game (or viewed the introductory cutscene) and called it a day. That's extremely poor methodology to me. Not even a fraction of useful information can be deduced from that, and a lot of absolutely non-sexist games would be immediately labeled as sexist.
  
• They imply that video games directly influence people's views and can have harmful effects especially on adolescents. Maybe if you completely immerse yourself in video games so that you literally don't know what reality is anymore and have no upbringing, but that is hardly representative of most people.
  

(04-23-2014, 02:47 PM)Alardem Wrote: [Insert obligatory statement about how hyperpowerful muscleman does not equal half-naked skinny lady.]