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

[deerokus]

I was at a talk by Jon Ronson last night about his new book about social media storms and public shaming. There was a Q&A segment. As we all know from watching stuff like Pax panels, Q&A segments are a recipe for disaster.

Anyway one of the many inane questions was from some guy who seemed to want him to talk about the unfair shaming Roosh had received from evil Glaswegians. Bit awkward.

Thankfully Ronson is very deft at dodging moronic questions and seguing into a funny anecdote.

[Shoes]

That ex-boyfriend who stole your heart? One of us.

That charming married man at your office, with the beautiful wife? One of us.

That wise mentor who helped you more than you’ll than you’ll ever know? One of us

And we saw what you said about us, without even knowing who we were.

[b00dles]

'This is what Private Pyle looks like'

[Shoes]

Smiley request.

[Alex W.]

Just swap it in for the existing lol smilie, should improve some old posts.

[Nick R]

MRA quotes

+

Frinkiac

=

https://twitter.com/SimpsonsMRA

[Graham S]

I'm on a train so I can't really copy any quotes, but Leigh Alexander announces last games criticism project and her departure from games criticism for the foreseeable future here

http://leighalexander.net/at-worlds-end/

It says she's marrying someone off Shut Up Sit Down. Who? (Hello magazine doesn't adequately cover celebrity gossip about board game podcasts)

[Dig Dug]

[Ersatz Nihilist]

It says she's marrying someone off Shut Up Sit Down. Who? (Hello magazine doesn't adequately cover celebrity gossip about board game podcasts)

Quinns, isn't it?

[Festoon]

Quinns, isn't it?

Yep.

[deerokus]

He's from Aberdeen. Dirty sheep-shagging bastard.

[Shoes]

Zoe Quinn forced to drop the charges against her ex, because the system is atrocious:

http://blog.unburntwitch.com/post/139084743809/why-i-just-dropped-the-harassment-charges-the-man

 

[Unofficial Who]

I was just about to post the same thing.

 

Fuck.

 

Early bed for me tonight I think. There's some reasonable discussion here at http://www.metafilter.com/157024/Everything-I-have-done-will-be-held-against-me-and-spun-by-my-accuser

[friedgold]

Fucking hell.  And people here and elsewhere will *still* decry it as 'just the Internet.

[b00dles]

I wonder if Gjoni and GG's collective brains will enable them to re-write this whole episode when they're older as them not being really pathetic women haters that totally fucked up various people and their careers for no real reason whatsoever.and if they are sitting their reading their video games journalism in their mental homes glad that they really sorted all those ethics out.

[George Clooney]

Has it been mentioned that Anita has been chosen by Twitter as part of a trust and safety council?  Of course, this has set people off who say she's a liar and just wants to make it so Twitter is a place her and all of her friends can say what they want without opposition.  Apparently she hates free speech, and just wants to silence critics.  And any death threats or barrages of insults are obviously jokes, so aren't harassment.  She doesn't get harassed you see.

 

An off shoot from this is Firewatchs Steam forums, where the devs included her in the "thanks to" section, which had people demanding to know her exact input (which the devs clarified as a stupid request - they thanked loads of people for different reasons, most of which had no actual input on the game, but had just made their lives better in some way during them making it, or had inspired them and stuff.  They even listed pets and toddlers in there).  The best was one person saying they had played it to completion and loved it, and their play length was around 2 run throughs of the game, but hated it now after learning Anita was thanked, and wished they could still refund it.  They're now heavily modding it, which of course is censorship, and has by the sounds of it bought people down on them harder.

 

Which leads on to my last point.  I fucking hate that the climate has become that some parties are so desperate to shout about censorship.  The stupidest one I've seen recently is in World of Warcraft, where one of the main characters, an undead lady called Sylvannas, has had her model updated for the next expansion.  I'd link pics if I wasn't on mobile, but the main difference is that her midriff is now covered.  Now logically, there's a reason for this - she's leading her faction into war in the expansion so wearing more armour makes sense, and as a whole it does look like what she's wearing would afford her more protection.  But there has been uproar from part of the community claiming this is censorship.   Then others were claiming that because Blizzard aren't offering enough "sexy" options for female armour, they're censoring there too.  This is despite several characters being blatantly sexualised in the past by Blizzard.  Hell, just check out Hearthstone and the female hero portraits there.  The annoying thing is it can't be a change made because Blizzard prefer it this way, no.  It has to be that the SJWs have won somehow and forced them, and this is censorship.

 

I hate that.  I hate that any change now that involves certain things like the amount of skin shown or tasteless jokes can't be the creator deciding not to, it has to be censorship.  And even when it's a change the devs want to make themselves, if they came to the decision by talking to someone else, that's still censorship.  There was a steam green light game called "tranny gladiator" recently that had people talk to the creator to say tranny was a slur (oddly the guy, who had poor English seemed to genuinely want to make the game not as a piss take to trans people), so he changed the name to Trans Gladiator.  He then has GG rally to his side to tell him that this was censorship, and he was being bullied by horrible SJWs, and should make it with the original title.  The whole free speech/censorship shite that GG peddle is a load of bollocks.  I've lost count of the number of times I've heard one of them arguing that blocking on Twitter is censorship or impeding their free speech.

[Benny]

I think crying free speech is pretty much the last death rattle of bullies, xenophobes, misogynists, racists and homophobes desperate to continue to peddle their hatred unchallenged, so I like to think we're fighting an eventual winning battle.

[palaver]

I think it's important to remember that, even if it's wrecked a few lives along the way, GamerGate was justified by a couple of articles saying that gamers are literally dead.

[Benny]

I know I've been a shambling corpse for a while now at any rate.

[Alex W.]

It reduces the problem to a single simple question that requires no discussion. For a movement that suspects that discussing things is some sort of Stalinist mind control by evil interlopers you can see the appeal.

[Capwn]

4 hours ago, George Clooney said:

An off shoot from this is Firewatchs Steam forums, where the devs included her in the "thanks to" section, which had people demanding to know her exact input (which the devs clarified as a stupid request - they thanked loads of people for different reasons, most of which had no actual input on the game, but had just made their lives better in some way during them making it, or had inspired them and stuff.  They even listed pets and toddlers in there).

 

Ugh, I bet it's because of Anita that Firewatch has you being led around by a woman. I bet the person in the other firewatch tower was originally a man and then they asked Anita and she told them to make it a woman. You also never see her breasts, I bet that was her idea too.

[NEG]

It would be interesting to visit a parallel universe where people didn't care enough to react to begin with if it was something they disagree with (or at least a universe where harassment as response didn't happen). It has to surely be clear to the brightest of the idiot bunch that they're just as much to blame (and continuing to be so) for devs taking wider notice in general in the long run. What result do they expect when they harass and consider something as silly as tranny of all things censorship. If anything, they're helping the cause of everything they dislike.

 

NEG's WoW Sucks Rant Number 9032:
 

Spoiler

 

Blizzard are very much a reactionary developer when it comes to gameplay, mind. To say/imply that devs are immune to pressure from every day news in the industry (and of course, feedback from those playing the games) is just silly. While the Sylvanas stuff does sound hilariously stupid to even consider arguing over (other then to just tell them 'hey blizz this model sucks, make it better'), this is the same developer that would make changes to in-mass whining in usually less then a week of 'x gameplay' going live regardless of it being a detriment to the game or not. To me, Blizzard haven't had their own balls in years. (just ignore the fact I still play most of their games)

 

Of course, some would call that consumer loyalty. What are you without your consumer base, especially when all of your games rely on change to keep going. My annoyance at them over the years would work better if the products stood still. (Fuck anyone that would have anything bad to say about Mr Blow, for example!) On the other hand, I'd argue it's still not impossible to stay faithful to groundwork a game is built upon, to respect it enough to not bow down to certain kinds of players who wanted (and have) molded the game into something else.

 

 

[Sprite Machine]

6 hours ago, NEG said:

To say/imply that devs are immune to pressure from every day news in the industry (and of course, feedback from those playing the games) is just silly.

 

Nobody is saying that, though. We're just saying it isn't censorship.

[Nick R]

18 hours ago, George Clooney said:

The whole free speech/censorship shite that GG peddle is a load of bollocks.  I've lost count of the number of times I've heard one of them arguing that blocking on Twitter is censorship or impeding their free speech.

 

[NEG]

1 hour ago, Sprite Machine said:

Nobody is saying that, though. We're just saying it isn't censorship.

 

No, but much like the Steven Fry news today it's a weird old world that feels like it gets offended by anything and everything*. The road to political correctness of everything might not be as rosey as some imagine it to be.

 

*Not that I found that particular comment amusing myself either, but it's sad that it feels like every comment has the possibility to cause a shit storm today when people could be, I dunno, curing cancer? Do you really rather push political correctness on a person known to be suicidal many times during his life and has been a benefit to British entertainment constantly as a whole for however long now? Really? What a world.

[Hexx]

 

That's the change mentioned above if anyone's interested

[PaB]

Stephen Fry hounded off twitter by self righteous arseholes accusing him of being a misogynist

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35577913

[NEG]

 

And this is how she was for the first 3-4 years of WoW. Nobody cared about looks. (besides those to point out she should be a Blood Elf, not a Night Elf.)

[Harsin]

Hasn't Stephen Fry quit Twitter multiple times now?

[Delargey]

14 minutes ago, NEG said:

 

And this is how she was for the first 3-4 years of WoW. Nobody cared about looks. (besides those to point out she should be a Blood Elf, not a Night Elf.)

 

So why did they remove her stomach amour in the first place?