Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

[matt0]

I'm not a fan of Jim Sterling either. I find him pretty embarrassing, sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don't.

The difference is, if someone was cynical or critical of Sterling, most people in here wouldn't bat an eyelid.

Sure, but that doesn't explain why you would attribute some nebulous agenda of censorship to someone making youtube commentary videos and consistently ignore the fact that there's no evidence for it.

Which is a weird thing to do.

[SMD]

If games were banned we wouldn't be having this frankly moronic circular discussion so I'm all for banning video games now.

[ZOK]

It's irrelevant, though.

I haven't been part of any hate crusade, regardless of what you think. You're having an emotive response because of the GG abuse and essentially saying as critics, AS and FF can say whatever they like about videogames and nobody can disagree with them. That's not right either.

This is just stupid, and exists only in your head.

[matt0]

It's irrelevant, though.

I haven't been part of any hate crusade, regardless of what you think. You're having an emotive response because of the GG abuse and essentially saying as critics, AS and FF can say whatever they like about videogames and nobody can disagree with them. That's not right either.

I'm still not sure what actual Tropes Vs. Videogames content you take exception to. Can you point to the actual videos you disagree with and explain why?

A vague feeling in your waters about censorship doesn't count.

[Shoes]

This topic is like the White Hole episode of Red Dwarf.

[SMD]

A white hole?

[Rowan Morrison]

The threat of censorship is a bit like God to the GG crowd, I think: where it doesn't exist, they have to invent it. And it sits at the heart of everything, like a spider in a web of shite - GG is all about the notion that somebody is going to take something away from you. Anxiety, it's a killer. If you're going to allow anxiety to eat away at the precious few hours you have, you owe it to yourself to make sure the source isn't just a load of old bollocks being peddled to you by someone else for their own benefit.

Being concerned about censorship is a noble path. You can head over to https://www.indexoncensorship.org and get involved in the real struggle to defend freedom of expression. You really don't need to be worried about Feminist Frequency or any of the GG boogeywomen.

[RubberJohnny]

It's irrelevant, though.

I haven't been part of any hate crusade, regardless of what you think. You're having an emotive response because of the GG abuse and essentially saying as critics, AS and FF can say whatever they like about videogames and nobody can disagree with them. That's not right either.

I didn't say you were part of a hate crusade, I said you were joining in afterwards on attacks against the same targets, their character, insisting they had a motivation and/or were professional victims and the other stuff you've come out with - I mean you are, that sort of undermining is creating a narrative that they were a nefarious influence and are therefore partly to blame for attacks, it's gross!

You've got this weird idea that the middle ground between 40,000 bigots who wanted a war on women in the industry and the millions of gamers who want the industry to be an inclusive space for developers is "the truth is in the middle, where the middle is agreeing with the bigots arguments if not their methods", it's fucked!

[NEG]

You really don't need to be worried about Feminist Frequency or any of the GG boogeywomen.

Are you sure? Where's the harm in carrying on being noble, regardless of God being there or not?

Edit: I mean I realize not everyone goes about it the right way as the internet proves, but the message by itself isn't something to shut down (or to label a person for saying it) is I think one of the things Shrew is trying to say.

[Rev]

Are you sure? Where's the harm in carrying on being noble, regardless of God being there or not?

For the same reason it's not really worth your time campaigning to ensure that the RNLI aren't going to turn the oceans into thick treacle so boats can't sink. Sure, it'd suck if the oceans were treacle...But it's not massively likely and it's not worth picking a fight with the RNLI or doing anything that is stopping them doing good and useful work.

[deerokus]

Sterling has had a lot gaterhate lately, ever since he did that episode on the DOAX bullshit.

He's also bisexual so yeah, needless to say they hate him.

[Spacehost]

It's actually really hard to find good, high quality research on videogame effects on behaviour. I'm sure I read a meta-analysis of almost all the available research that concluded that they failed to form any conclusive findings from the analysis and then made a call for more work to be done.

[NEG]

Besides the games that exploit gambling-like behaviour/addiction, probably not much different from watching TV with more brain stimulation due to interactivity/having to think.

Small kids are another matter, but parents need to be the watchful eye there.

Doctor NEG, at your service.

[SMD]

Besides the games that exploit gambling-like behaviour/addiction, probably not much different from watching TV with more brain stimulation due to interactivity/having to think.

Small kids are another matter, but parents need to be the watchful eye there.

Doctor NEG, at your service.

You're an absolute blert.

[NEG]

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/BLERT

Sounds cool.

[Alex W.]

Violence in games is like sugar in food. We all enjoy a good dessert but when most of your beverages and savoury foods are loaded with invisible carbs you want to reconsider.

[Broker]

It's baffling and incredible how many people claim to be concerned about censorship without even a basic idea of what the word means.

1) Did I call his stance correct? No. Just that labeling any person MRA when their channel has plenty of other unrelated stuff that grew a fan base over years feels wrong to me.

One more, just for old times sake.

Are you genuinely saying that someone who has an offensive MRA stance in all their most popular YouTube videos shouldn't be labelled that if some of their other videos aren't like that?

[NEG]

It doesn't lessen my enjoyment of the other stuff that YTer had done for years. An actual activist would do a considerable amount more harm than the average uninformed shouty guy that doesn't investigate (by doing videos about nothing else, for example).

More of a 'looking for the good of all people' kind of comment. Would you really want to label every misinformed person a woman hater and whatever else the MRA stands for? Maybe those that are harassing, but I'd like to think that's the worst of the bunch, the majority speaking are probably just the misinformed.

I think I've said similar before and got called a concern troll or something along those lines, but it really is just a case of believing better of humanity. Things are rarely ever black and white.

Does it suck that AOS's most popular videos are the ones that suck currently? Yes. That doesn't justify switching off the person completely, to me at least. I'm sure there's been other popular YT'ers that have said 'the wrong thing' at one time or another, with fans ending up staying there regardless.

Edit: On a more personal level, I do have a hard time letting go sometimes. I know that it is justified to leave something be sometimes, such as a YT channel you may have listened to off-screen for a long time. Can just take me longer. So I'm not saying it's right to stay subbed to channels like that either. Just can be hard when you knew the person as something else for a long while, you know?

[SeanR]

It's baffling and incredible how many people claim to be concerned about censorship without even a basic idea of what the word means.

One more, just for old times sake.

Are you genuinely saying that someone who has an offensive MRA stance in all their most popular YouTube videos shouldn't be labelled that if some of their other videos aren't like that?

"he's a massive racist, but he's also a sonic fan, what you gonna do?"

[Unofficial Who]

I think the violent video games thing is a bit of a side issue, maybe we could move talk of that over to http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?/topic/223244-has-a-game-ever-been-too-violent-for-you/or another more recent topic.

In terms of banning the only bans coming from the Tropes videos were from segments of the community who believed that it was dangerous for Anita to make this series even when it was a tiny little project aimed at a few schools. Which is why the death threats, the DDoS attacks and the complaints to youtube and Kickstarter that her project was terrorism. Coming off the back of Jack Thompson et al making easy political gains by blaming gun violence on video games in the US there might of been a fear that raising this would raise the undead spectre of Jack Thompson to haunt the community again.

(And when he did show his face again who was it that brought him back into the fold? Hint, it wasn't Anita.)

I think what Anita Sarkesian, Zoe Quinn and Leigh Alexander has shown is that despite there being an ugly side to videogames there's also a massive audience for those who aren't 'dude-bro' fps fans. And what's happened in the years since has shown that gaming isn't a zero sum game. The existance of games like Life is Strange, Gone Home, Undertale, The Beginner's Guide and dozens of other indie games has not resulted in the cessation of franchises like Call of Duty or GTA. It's shown that the industry did have room to grow.

Off topic. Doom 4? I saw some of the previews and yeah, I found the gore an issue. And I think that's the big challenge the industry faces because the fidelity of violence is going to start to become a problem. (And some companies such as Valve and Blizzard have circumvented that entirely by going for style over photorealism.) I'm not going to be calling for the banning of Doom 4. Personally I found it a bit stomach inducing but it's set in a clearly fantastical setting and it's not sexualised violence. If I want my Doom fix I can reinstall (or rebuy) Doom 2 and I have enough Doom mods to last a lifetime. In this digital age the sale of Doom 4 doesn't mean other games I want to buy will be less available due to shelf space.

[Sprite Machine]

I don't like certain things very much but you get the idea of how bad it can feel getting shit talked by someone who may look down on a hobby all of us here (I'd hope) love. Gaming's taken a lot of steps before being validated by the public eye, seeing it go backwards where it becomes a niche again would suck, and the person shit talking wouldn't care.

If you want videogames to be taken seriously, move forward and become less niche, you absolutely need critics like Anita Sarkeesian (and many, many more!!!) to analyse their content on a socio-political level.

"Gaming" isn't going to be validated if we just ignore all of its problems or insist they aren't important.

[robdood]

Not sure why this video sprang to mind, but it was thanks to Mr Lees (and this forum / thread!) that I started to change my thinking a couple of years ago..

[Jarik]

I always got the impression from the Tropes video series that Anita wants you to think about the tropes you're using & whether they're appropriate, but if you do & you're like "Yeah, it is." Then that's totally fine. Maybe your Damsel/Princess isn't going to be skilled/determined enough to rescue herself & needs someone to do it for her, but that's alright, because that's the game & at least you've thought about it.

[Shoes]

NEG's the first person I've seen outside of YouTube who watches YouTube opinion videos.

[NEG]

Nothing wrong with long ranty vids. Grew from a love of podcasts during the days of MMO playing and as bandwidth got better, YT proves just as entertaining.

Can't listen to just music whilst grinding on Timbermaw faction all day. ;P Oh them were the days...

[Broker]

"Nothing wrong with long ranty vids, it's the succinct ones that communicate an idea effectively that I can't stand

I totally understand humour. Play Sonic!"

[NEG]

Play Undertale, too!

[deerokus]

I think we found the domestic target audience for all those weird softporn bits in so many modern Japanese games.

http://news.yahoo.com/angry-single-men-stage-anti-christmas-rally-tokyo-104128179.html

"Unpopular men, who don't have a girlfriend or are not married, are overly discriminated. We want to break this barrier," he told AFP amid the shouting protesters

[Spacehost]

Actually it's about commercialism in religious holidays.

[deerokus]

Afaik because it doesn't have religious meaning Christmas in Japan is when everyone goes to KFC (which puts on a fancy menu with champagne and stuff) and then gets laid. As such these guys have a shitty time of it I guess.

I am sure that's very reductive but that is how it was explained to me by someone I know who emigrated there (but is a bit of an asshole).