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

[Rowan Morrison]

The whole women vs games thing is an interesting subject because I imagine gaming is one of the only cultural mediums that still has an unequal audience. While the tropes and the sexism is prevalent from the creators of other mediums, at least the people consuming art, film, music, books is probably 50/50. Doubt it for games.

Comics is the other obvious one, and that's still a laughable cesspool on aggregate.

[minkee]

I wouldn't be so sure. Everybody games, these days, and I'm not just talking about Angry Birds and that ilk.

And it's been that way for a while. Sure, I wouldn't be surprised if it's generally men that dominate the conversation, but that's the point of this thread, right?

This is correct. Some figures showed that women *buy* more games than men, too - although I think that changed in this year's study. Women 18+ make up a bigger audience for games than Teenage Males, too. I forget actual figures of the top of my head, though, so look 'em up... ESA Facts is a useful sorce.

Mostly the fact that women clearly want to, and do play games is derailed by people going 'oh but only x or y games not z games the only true game type'

[Wiper]

This is correct. Some figures showed that women *buy* more games than men, too - although I think that changed in this year's study. Women 18+ make up a bigger audience for games than Teenage Males, too. I forget actual figures of the top of my head, though, so look 'em up... ESA Facts is a useful sorce.

Mostly the fact that women clearly want to, and do play games is derailed by people going 'oh but only x or y games not z games the only true game type'

Yeah, those ESA stats are quoted in the first of the links I posted:

Well, aside from all the statistics over the past few years saying the opposite, yeah. Of course, they tend to be approached similarly to the film industry (and, historically, the world of literature) - arguing that while there might be parity in those who partake of the medium, it is men who are the 'real' fans, the enthusiasts that the medium needs to primarily focus on to turn a profit, and that genres which don't sell primarily to men aren't the same as the real thing anyway.

Women over 18 making up 36% of the market, men over 18 35%, teenage boys but 17%.

[cowfields]

I imagine the whole tropes / objectification problem is most probably not that bad on mobile phone games. While it's still definitely there, it's like [books, films, whatever] in that it's easier to find balance and examples that aren't offensive. I suppose also because mobile phones lend themselves better to story-light games, puzzlers and more abstract things.

So if anything (and I realise this post is mostly speculation) I wonder if less women play games on 'dedicated' platforms* , while the balance is evening out it might happen faster if it wasn't dominated with such tropes.

Out of pure selfishness part of the reason I dislike the sexist creative choices in gaming is because they make them shit. Boring. It's the same as why I'm angry that they're remaking Labyrinth. Think of something new, fucksocks.

Anyway, has Anita done much to actually search out games that show a positive trend? I'm a little out of touch with it all, and I'm not criticising her series (far from) but I'm actually curious to see where she thinks the positives are. While it's important to recognise the old traditions of sexism in games, and also it's not her job to deal with all the issues all at once**, I'm not sure if she's really made a comment about whether it's getting better or worse. Or where it's getting better and how it might balance out. I'd argue that with the popularity and abundance of cheaper indie games (that are no less deep, no faster to consume) than the big budget ones that things are kinda getting better - at least in the choice available. In terms of the big money and what is being greenlit, maybe not so much.

I'm looking at my steam list-of-shame and seeing some really interesting stuff that doesn't follow the tropes and it's been quite easy to find them. I think it reflects my relationship with games these days anyway. Anything that "feels" like a gamergater might like it I just want to seperate myself from it. I'm looking at you, Devil May Cry.

* for the sake of argument let's just say that any computer where someone specifically bought a 'good' graphics card and a controller so they could play games with it counts as dedicated.

** I imagine that's part of the problem with the abuse and criticism she gets. It seems like she's simply presenting video essays on some things about games, and they're just one piece of a very big and complex puzzle, but people are taking it as some kind of finite and absolute discussion, where if she doesn't address every thought they might have then it's ill conceived or something. It's tiresome.

[matt0]

NEG is definitely trolling, getting people to explain the "meaning" of Winnie the Pooh!

Constantly misunderstanding and sidetracking the conservation.

I know this... but I've still been daft enough to get suckered back in over the past few pages.

It's the consistency with which he misses the point and the sheer distances he goes to while he's doing it that give the game away. Credit where credit's due though, this Winnie the Pooh stuff is his masterpiece.

[Rowan Morrison]

I would think it's quite obvious to even the layman that Pooh = Earth / Pentacles, Eeyore = Water / Cups, Owl = Air / Swords and Tigger = Fire / Wands. Or - if you prefer - Mike, Neil, Rik and Vyvyan respectively. And this of course is barely beginning to think about possibly scratching the surface. You know the story of the magician who decided to try to believe Noddy was the supreme Godhead, to see if 'reality' would make any attempt to fit his deliberately ridiculous model? Gave up after two weeks, scared shitless that he might actually be right.

What I'm trying to say is, maybe Neg has the right idea and it's best to believe that sometimes a jar of honey is just a jar of honey. Of course in Sanskrit honey is madhu, related to our very own mead and forming the root of Madhava or nectar-born, which is another name for Krishna / Vishnu. Krishna married Jambavati, daughter of the bear king Jambavan, while Varaha is an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a pig and Narasimha, another of his avatars, is sometimes depicted as half-man, half-tiger. Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, rode an owl. Bear! Pig! Tiger! Owl! Bear! Pig! Tiger! Owl!

And don't get me started on Christopher Robin and the notion that the robin's red breast is red from its attempts to staunch the wounds of Christ as he hung on the cross. It's just about a bumbling cute bear that wants honey. Anything beyond that is conjecture and has possibly no meaning.

[NEG]

Rowan understands perfectly.

[The Bag]

I hate myself for even bothering to respond.

But like I said, the complaint is not valid enough to me because of the reasons I mentioned such as side characters not impacting the female cast in the first place. It's a moot point at best.

Edit: There is little gain in fiction speech equality. The story is what matters. All the characters could be frogs, you'd be happy with the amount of dialogue each frog gets at that point, correct?

They could, but to zero gain in my view. There's many equality things I agree with, this one feels pointless.

This reminds me of the other thread where you found it odd that Geekette's six year old daughter would comment on the lack of female game protagonists. Like you don't think a young girl is aware enough to notice that the vast majority of games she plays have male player characters.

Actually, fuck it, I've just deleted a whole bunch of stuff because you probably are trolling but just in case you're not - try and imagine it where 1 in 10 games you played had a male protagonist, where there was one token guy (the love interest) in the latest block buster, where every Disney comedy sidekick was female. You seem completely unable to see it from the side of your gender being under represented in all forms of media. What I'm trying to say is, as the people who can see our skin colour and/or gender front and centre in most media we don't get to say "nah, that's not important enough because I don't care about it". Nothing exists in isolation.

By all means disagree, make your argument, but if you have no more thoughts beyond "it doesn't matter to me/I don't care" then kindly let the thread continue without having to tell everyone how little of an issue you think something is.

[Nick R]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Pooh

[Broker]

In fairness to Neg, it's hard to understand how a six year old thinks when they're twice as smart as you.

[Rowan Morrison]

Rowan understands perfectly.

Just to clarify, I believe everything I wrote about Pooh and his friends being manifestations of the Lords of the Four Quarters and various other archetypes, up to and including The Beatles, to be fully true and my post was in no way an attempt at parody or sarcasm, and furthermore I do very much blame the author for all meanings implied or inferred - just not exclusively. I'm not sure I have a point, much as a big fat man might not be sure he still has a penis, but if I do I suppose it's that a straightforward interpretation of Winnie the Pooh is at least as equally misguided and perilous as any other approach.

[milko]

What I'm trying to say is, maybe Neg has the right idea and it's best to believe that sometimes a jar of honey is just a jar of honey. Of course in Sanskrit honey is madhu, related to our very own mead and forming the root of Madhava or nectar-born, which is another name for Krishna / Vishnu. Krishna married Jambavati, daughter of the bear king Jambavan, while Varaha is an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a pig and Narasimha, another of his avatars, is sometimes depicted as half-man, half-tiger. Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, rode an owl. Bear! Pig! Tiger! Owl! Bear! Pig! Tiger! Owl!

I'm immediately drawn to this bear! pig! tiger! owl! repetition, it's like honey to my bee, or something. Anyway: Krishna/Vishnu. Krishna married Jambavati. Vishnu's wife is Lakshmi. Is that allowed? I suppose anything goes when you're divine. I did not expect this thread to make me look up this kind of thing, and it's a nice distraction from trying to somehow find a way to fix it to be about the actual topic properly.

[Rowan Morrison]

Well, when Vishnu went and incarnated himself as Krishna and Rama here on Earth, Lakshimi incarnated herself as their wives, Rukmini (Mrs. Krishna) and Sita (Mrs. Rama). So that's quite sweet, and as far as I'm aware as Rama, he left it at that. But as Krishna, he had - get this - eight wives. Eight principal wives, that is, and then somewhere in the region of sixteen thousand 'junior wives'. It's a sacrilegious sitcom that practically writes itself. Honeys, I'm Home. And there we are back to square one.

[Rowan Morrison]

By the way, to advance distraction you could map our Pooh players to the four faces described in Ezekiel 1, lock those to the four temperaments, and elements and tarot suits if you're so inclined, and the and then have hours of fun applying this model to quartets throughout all of history and literature, and also working out where various forumites might fit in and translating practically anything into Gauntlet characters.

Like Seinfeld, right, that's a classic four-person setup:

Kramer : Tigger : Fire : Lion : Warrior

George : Pooh : Earth : Bull : Valkyrie

Elaine : Eeyore : Water : Man : Elf

Jerry : Owl : Air : Eagle : Wizard

And so on, and before you know it, it's teatime.

[Uncle Mike]

I'm not sure Elaine is the Eeyore in that setup.

[Rowan Morrison]

I'm not sure Elaine is the Eeyore in that setup.

Well, I expect the problem there is more to do with my earlier mapping of Eeyore to the water role, which I suppose I'm now committed to. I think Elaine is very much the water role in Seinfeld, though they're all skewed into the air quadrant one way or another - and throughout the seasons they occasionally morph roles. Kramer is definitely fire / lion - he might as well be on fire and riding a lion. George is the earthy bull for obvious reasons, and Jerry is arguably the smartarsed air character, so Elaine's pretty much water by default. And when I put it like that, we're right back on topic and suddenly I'm the bad guy.

[Uncle Mike]

Eeyore is the Earth one though, right? It's Eeyore/Pooh causing you the issue. Just shoehorning it in to make women look bad.

[ah]

I can't help but notice that you've ignored Kanga in all of this.

[Benny]

I've been very much enjoying that Rowan is returned to us.

[Rowan Morrison]

Eeyore is the Earth one though, right? It's Eeyore/Pooh causing you the issue. Just shoehorning it in to make women look bad.

No, sad old Eeyore is cups and water, all emotion. Pooh is earth. Because he's a Pooh! If women look bad as a result of this I assure you it's all a coincidence, the same as everything else.

I can't help but notice that you've ignored Kanga in all of this.

And Piglet.

[NEG]

I'm so glad everyone has embraced Pooh so well.

[Gambit]

I see NEG has won in his objective of destroying the thread.

[Dig Dug]

Anyway that Project Rub-esque petting mini-game from Fire Emblem If is being removed for the Western release of Fates.

Cue people complaining about censorship and what have you.

[Mr Cochese]

Que passa?

[Fry Crayola]

Cue the second correction...

[Wiper]

Anyway that Project Rub-esque petting mini-game from Fire Emblem If is being removed for the Western release of Fates.

Queue people complaining about censorship and what have you.

They've also apparently edited the not-at-all gross sequence where you, as a male hero, get to romance a female NPC who is attracted to women by spiking her with a drug that turns her straight.

The fact that these things have had to be edited out for the localisation rather than, you know, not being present in the first place, hasn't exactly enamoured me to the new game; for one of my favourite SRPG series, they've done a really a good job of completely putting me off buying it.

[Straps]

I love it when stuff like this happens. Not just because it's right, but because there's thousands of terrible nerds too busy talking about censorship to bother proper people.

[Dig Dug]

Cue the second correction...

fuck

[NEG]

Fire Emblem didn't have this problem before, right? I mean there's always been marrying in the series etc.

Odd they went so hard on the waifu loving route with this one.

[Wiper]

The relationship building has been in the game from reasonably early iterations, but they expanded it a lot in Awakening, doing the same trick Phantasy Star pulled all those years ago of letting you choose who to marry early on then use your progeny as the game progresses, only expanded across the whole cast. Which was a shame, as I missed the relationship design of the earlier games - without the marriage conceit, and with final payoffs for relationships only coming in the epilogues, it allowed them to design far more platonic friendships and such, rather than Awakening's "everyone gets hitched!" approach.

Anyway, that game was an unexpected success, which is likely why they doubled down on the relationship side of the game.