Can the sexism in these types of games stop?

**Tesseract** · 09-12-2013, 08:54 AM

(09-12-2013, 08:04 AM)Kman Wrote: sure is anita sarkeesian in here

I was thinking the exact same thing.

The whole attitude of: 'Why doesn't the gaming industry pander to my gaming preferences?' With that really entitled attitude. I also hate the way she removes cutscenes from their context to attempt to prove her erroneous point.

**Alardem** · 09-12-2013, 08:59 AM

(09-12-2013, 08:54 AM)Delirium92 Wrote:
(09-12-2013, 08:04 AM)Kman Wrote: sure is anita sarkeesian in here

I was thinking the exact same thing.

The whole attitude of: 'Why doesn't the gaming industry pander to my gaming preferences?' With that really entitled attitude. I also hate the way she removes cutscenes from their context to attempt to prove her erroneous point.

Seems like projection. She's a chick, not a dude. Quite a lot of women play games - she's just pointing out ways in which games can change in future to be less alienating to a large number of human beings (and help devs sell more copies, if you care about that kinda thing.)

I won't say I'm surprised by this defensiveness, but I am bored. Surely it's easy for this harmless woman to just make a bunch of sensible observations without assuming that she wants all men to be fed into a grinder. (lol)

EDIT: God damn it, can someone move this thing to the Off-Topic thread? People keep spewing out their knee-jerk reactions and it's boring. I'm happy to talk about gender issues, but this is not the forum for such things. This is a forum for pigs, fit only for the discussion of pigs.

**Tesseract** · 09-12-2013, 09:12 AM

(09-12-2013, 08:59 AM)Alardem Wrote:
(09-12-2013, 08:54 AM)Delirium92 Wrote:
(09-12-2013, 08:04 AM)Kman Wrote: sure is anita sarkeesian in here

I was thinking the exact same thing.

The whole attitude of: 'Why doesn't the gaming industry pander to my gaming preferences?' With that really entitled attitude. I also hate the way she removes cutscenes from their context to attempt to prove her erroneous point.

Seems like projection. She's a chick, not a dude. Quite a lot of women play games - she's just pointing out ways in which games can change in future to be less alienating to a large number of human beings (and help devs sell more copies, if you care about that kinda thing.)

I won't say I'm surprised by this defensiveness, but I am bored. Surely it's easy for this harmless woman to just make a bunch of sensible observations without assuming that she wants all men to be fed into a grinder. (lol)

Her attitude towards the gaming industry which is predominantly male isn't harmless; she uses clever words and removes game footage of its context to prove a point and she can seem rather convincing to a person who isn't familiar with the games she's talking about. She overuses and misuses the word misogyny and rather than looking at REAL issues she concerns herself with games - things we play to pass time or to escape reality. Her idea that most game protagonists are male and according to her that means misogyny and sexism is about as ridiculous as me saying: 'Hey why is every game character a different person? I want to play as me!'

I'm obviously not a "feminist" in the way Anita is, or a lot of the younger women are, I'd rather humanist as they're human issues - excluding the gaming protagonist thing because seriously games are just games and I have not witnessed any hidden messages of promoting hatred towards women in any games that I have played. I do agree that this is a thread better for the off topic area though.

**Kman** · 09-12-2013, 09:17 AM

i'm fully aware that there's a lot more male characters in videogames than female ones and i'm also aware that realistically the amount of male to female gamers is pretty much equal but with that said i don't get how people are somehow less capable of getting into a game just cause of your characters gender

like with portal i wasn't thinking "ugh i would totally be doing all this different if i was a guy" no i was thinking "these puzzles are fucking complex holy shit how do i solve this". i dunno where so many people get this idea that when you're playing a game your gender or whatever other characteristic your character has is constantly driven into you and reminding you of it, because really i'd say like 95% of the time all that stuff kind of blends into the background after the first few minutes

**3dge** · 09-12-2013, 09:58 AM

I don't get why you try to defend your statement, it's pretty obvious that this is a lost cause. The fact that you are offended by game developers picking male protagonists is kinda weird, I, and a lot of other people don't get why you are offended at all.

What it comes down to is how you want the story to be told.
The protagonist in this game is a drunkard, alone, sad and looking for his kids.
If you had a female protagonist the story would be different, if the female in the game was a drunk that didn't take care of her kids you would be complaining about something completely different

**Charlotte** · 09-12-2013, 10:54 AM

(09-11-2013, 09:05 AM)Tombcool Wrote: It's not dumb at all... there is just a bunch angry men coming at me because they don't want a full-length survival horror game with a female protagonist.

You should have your keyboard removed for making such a stupid statement.
I've not seen one comment here even suggesting that people would be mad if the protagonist was female.

**Kreekakon** · 09-12-2013, 11:04 AM

(09-12-2013, 09:17 AM)Kman Wrote: like with portal i wasn't thinking "ugh i would totally be doing all this different if i was a guy" no i was thinking "these puzzles are fucking complex holy shit how do i solve this". i dunno where so many people get this idea that when you're playing a game your gender or whatever other characteristic your character has is constantly driven into you and reminding you of it, because really i'd say like 95% of the time all that stuff kind of blends into the background after the first few minutes

I pretty much agree completely with this.

Also I just think the gender of the main character should be whatever the story was written to be. If it was written to be a male then male all the way. If it was written to be a female then female all the way. You shouldn't have to change something just because you want to be different when the story you've written is suited for the other thing. If i had to choose between well-written stories, and gender variety, I would definitely go for good stories.

**Traggey** · 09-12-2013, 11:30 AM

I will merely give you all this, my gift.

**FlawlessHappiness** · 09-12-2013, 12:04 PM

This argument haha! Smile

There's a 50%/50% chance of the gender.
If it's not a male, it's probably a female. If it's not a female, it's a male.

What i read is: "The game looks great! The gameplay is nice, and the graphics are good, but the main character is a male, so it sucks! Worst game ever!".

Wut?

There are only 2 genders to choose from, unless you want a shemale.

If the world had two fruits, and your mother came home with one of them, would scold her, because it's the second time she brings that fruit home, and not the other?

**JarrodTheBobo** · 09-12-2013, 12:29 PM

You can't force a developer to use a female character when they wish to use a male. It's their choice as to what gender THEIR character is.

It's not sexism, it's creative right. Just because Frictional hasn't wanted to use a female character as a lead role in they games, does not equate to them being sexist. Frankly, they probably don't even think on the damn gender of the main character for gods sake, there are much more important things to work on, like the story... and the character's personality... not the dangly bits it has between it's legs.

This is why a lot of you feminists cannot be taken seriously. Ah'm as much for equal rights as everyone else, and have done everything in my power to try and help things change, but things like this, are just trivial and stupid, and you need to stop.