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

[Sprite Machine]

On 21/02/2016 at 3:13 AM, Anne Summers said:

Yeah, there has always been a big contingent among gamers who are quite vocal about the fact that they don't care about social issues and they don't want games to "push agendas" on them. Obviously they completely ignore the fact that 90% of games don't actually do this and are happy just to give you a succession of bigger things to blow up...

Which is, in itself, pushing an ideology or political view (anarchism, vigilante justice).
It's pretty much impossible to make a piece of creative work that doesn't express some sort of opinion about the world. It's like when people say "I have no political views", they just mean that their political views align with the staus quo.

[b00dles]

1 hour ago, rumblecat said:

I'm glad she's made lemonade from lemons, that should be admired rather than castigated, although it's equally mind-boggling that people somehow think she's bad or her reluctance to lie down and give up somehow means that she deserved this. I read someone somewhere having a go at her because she 'posed like a victim' in a photograph attached to an article about her recent legal issues, despite the fact that the photo was an old one and she had no control over what photo they used. And you realise the logical contortions that these emotionally stunted little shits will go through to try and cast her in a bad light. She complains about harassment but then she's writing a book on it that's been optioned for a movie, so she can't really complain and so on. Basically 'a good woman should know her place'.

I find this part the strangest thing of all, I admit I used to think along these lines in regards to some stuff like this "what are they complaining about, they've got x out of it" or what have you but it's just a peculiar reaction that I'm not entirely sure where it comes from. I've seen similar things about Malala - 'who's she to be speaking to the UN or what have you? I've had a shit time of it too and I could have come up with that stuff, they're only using her cos she's a woman'

 

If someone manages to turn a shit situation into something good, then more power to them, doesn't mean their shit situation wasn't still shit, just means they tried to turn it into a positive.

[Anne Summers]

Yep, definitely - remember one of Gamergate's primary lines of attack in the early days was "Well she can't be that abused! She is still tweeting/blogging/going to events!" In other words, if someone isn't so victimised that they have given up and shut up, then they aren't victimised at all. 

[K]

Wasn't it Totalbiscuit who said that death threats made against Zoe Quinn couldn't have been too serious because she was still alive?

[Mentazm]

[robdood]

Fucking lol. 

 

[Ersatz Nihilist]

Well, it's true that art wasn't possible before the internet - you have to give him that.

[Wiper]

46 minutes ago, Mentazm said:

 

[Bobby Digihill]

I had a dream last night that Gamergate had won.

 

Everything stank of stale sweat.

 

The end.

[NEG]

Is he a fan of Ganondorf or something?

[Wroth]

No he's a fan of stephen dorf

[The Bag]

4 hours ago, Mentazm said:

 

"...and for that reason I will continue to harass women on the internet"

 

All that was left of our beloved hobbies was the indies.  Small groups of those of us who truly love our craft and would willingly go through hell to share our love with others.

 

When it really comes down to it, at the end of the day, what you've got to ask yourself is what's really worse.  The imagined persecution of creators who chose to stand against the awful SJWs in the dream of someone stupid enough to join GG and to think people would believe he actually had that dream.  Or the persecution of creators who chose to stand against GG or just be unlucky enough to be the wrong gender to make games, write about games, have any interest in games, or look in the general direction of a game, which happens daily.  Who's the real victim here?  Who among us can truly say we've suffered, unless we say we had a dream about it?

 

[SM47]

When I have dreams they're usually stuff like I'm back in school only the school can only be accessed by climbing a sheer surface using complicated climbing equipment and when I get there it's full of people I've only met since leaving school and it's not even a school it's an off licence run by Timothy Dalton's family 

[Alex W.]

I thought the rule about tediously overwritten prophetic dreams was that there would be a third act twist where it turned out the hero's own actions were responsible for the crisis.

[rumblecat]

"In my dream we made it to a drinking hole on a wasteland (as water was being controlled the authoritarian feminist government) We had been through hell as we created art without the aid of the internet, and there was a feeling of relief as we drank and cleaned ourselves. But then I caught sight of my reflection. Anita Sarkeesian stared back at me from the water. 

And I realised this wasn't a dream. It was a prophecy." 

[ah]

Q: Why don't SJW women ever say yes when a true gamer offers to make them breakfast?

 

A: Because they think feminist men are beta cucks.

[Ork1927]

After reading that pile of nonsense -  I did go and look at Archie comics sales and they are surprisingly high.

 

So I've learnt something I guess. thanks God the SJW internet-less universe does not exist yet as I wouldn't have been able to look it up.

 

 

[Unofficial Who]

Archie has seen a second wind due to attracting serious talent like Fiona Staples.

 

Anyway, the article quoted above has to be some sort of troll, there is no way that even the most zealous 'Gator wrote that. Feminists teaming up with Islamic Fundamentalists? Pull the other one.

 

Things would be different if Gamergate and pre-Gamergate hadn't existed though.

 

Anita Sarkesian's kickstarter may or may not have hit it's modest goal. If it had it would have been enjoyed by literally hundreds of people. She would probably have moved on to another topic of study. So for her it was great success balanced with ongoing harrassment.

 

This thread likely wouldn't exist. (I know pre 2012 I was convinced that sexism in the industry had died out years before. Because I didn't see it happening.)

 

Had the Zoe post not happened it's likely Depression Quest would have been quietly released and either ignored or given the tiny amount of press that Twine games usually get. It would have been totally overshadowed by other games on the topic like Actual Sunlight. Zoe would have been free to either hone her craft or go on to do other things. Her life would be easily 1000% better. Rather than having all of the downsides with being famous and non of the upsides.

 

At least five writers would still be writing about games rather than leaving the industry being either too fearful or too exhausted to continue writing in the field. On the other hand a couple have left the field to actually write for games.

 

Loads more women would be talking about games in public. As it is a lot of them have left open forums, twitter and Facebook. It's not worth risking harrassment to talk about games.

 

DOA3 Volleyball Extreme would have sold less copies.

 

Anyway it's all pissing in the wind. We live in the universe we have.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

15 minutes ago, Unofficial Who said:

Anyway, the article quoted above has to be some sort of troll, there is no way that even the most zealous 'Gator wrote that. Feminists teaming up with Islamic Fundamentalists? Pull the other one.

 

This is actually a common right-wing idea. Richard Dawkins is probably the most prominent person to have espoused it.

[Dudley]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Dawkins is basically the atheist answer to hate preachers.

 

He's basically Abu Hamza a lot of the time, just with better grammar and less awesome limbs.

[Alex W.]

1 minute ago, Rudi von Starnberg said:

 

This is actually a common right-wing idea. Richard Dawkins is probably the most prominent person to have espoused it.

 

Yeah, Sargon of Akkad who we met earlier in this thread produced some godawful animated video arguing that feminists and Islamic extremists both want to destroy our Western freedoms, and Dawkins shared it saying "yes, I agree with this, except of course Real Feminists like me and Christina Hoff Sommers".

[The Bag]

1 hour ago, Unofficial Who said:

Anyway, the article quoted above has to be some sort of troll, there is no way that even the most zealous 'Gator wrote that. Feminists teaming up with Islamic Fundamentalists? Pull the other one.

 

He's unfortunately very real, I googled him after reading this.  He is one of these people who gets used as an example of a game dev supporting gamergate (for example https://storify.com/Tolvo/a-gamergate-dev-sees-sikhism), he's an indie dev who is working on multiple projects (for years in some cases) and has never released anything - so I'm a bit loath to call him a dev if I'm honest.  You can find his blog here, where this dream post originated: http://bastendorfgames.weebly.com/

 

Where you can also get information like he's doing the art for someone else game (as well as his 3 projects, he's an artist) called SJW Riot:

 

Quote

SJW Riot

 

This is something I'm helping Yuji (IndieDevil) with.

He was having a hard time finding quality talent that didn't turn out to be an SJW.

 

So I decided I could lend a hand. Thanks to the honing of my skills and improvement of my own style, I'm quite capable of making Yuji's game look great. However, I have to work within his budget, meaning I can only do sprites when he asks for more

 

The section I've highlighted did made me laugh, is it us that's wrong?  No it's everyone else.

 

And then they're the new section, his NSFW blog which has one post about a new side project http://bastendorfgames.weebly.com/nsfwblog/side-project

 

Quote

So as I promised on the main blog, I'm announcing the start of a new project. As I said, this will not be replacing my primary project. This is simply something I started to give myself something to do in order to break up the monotony of level design, so that I don't grow disinterested in my other project.

This is the main character, she'll probably end up being called Code Name: Kat or something, which wouldn't be a half bad name for the game, either.

Save your snide remarks. I know she's far too... heavy... to be a ninja, but that's the point. Yep, from the outset of this project I wanted to have a ninja character with bigger breasts than Taki from Soul Calibur. And not just marginally bigger, because fuck social justice warriors. At least Kat's bust is supported.

It's not going to be straight up pornographic, and I highly doubt I'll have any full frontal nudity, but if you're lucky, I'll add a bikini mode. Because fuck Anita Sarkeesian.

I may also be adding a Puritan Mode, which will make her breasts a little more... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yes: boring. I'll add a mode that makes her more boring. This is, by no means, to say she'll be anything under side 32 DD, so no, that's not a victory for SJWs, nor is it pandering to them. It's more for the whiny puritans who don't like super over-sized boobs. Though, I may not even give them that much. I may force player to deal with playing a character whose breasts are indeed far larger than her head by default.

Naturally, it's going to be a more realistic ninja game, which means stealth/puzzle. Don't get me wrong, I love Ninja Gaiden, but ninjas aren't supposed to be killing machines. They're supposed to be, well, ninjas. Unseen, unheard, unknown.

I won't be revealing too much more, for now, though. And sorry, no concept art. I'm the main artist, it's a waste of time for me to draw concept art. In the time it takes to draw several poses of the characters in the game, I could finished their whole primary sprite asset. If I needed an art team to do graphics, maybe I would draw concept art. But I don't, so I don't.

 

Honestly the main feeling I get from reading his blog is sadness, and some pity.

Edited February 23, 2016 by The Bag
Hopefully fixed the screwed up quotes

[matt0]

46 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

 

Yeah, Sargon of Akkad who we met earlier in this thread produced some godawful animated video arguing that feminists and Islamic extremists both want to destroy our Western freedoms, and Dawkins shared it saying "yes, I agree with this, except of course Real Feminists like me and Christina Hoff Sommers".

 

Richard Dawkins, who first theorised the concept of the meme, is agreeing with a man who calls himself Sargon of Akkad on twitter in 2016 about the parallels between "the bad kind" of feminists and Islamic Fundamentalists.

 

What a strange, strange world.

[Alex W.]

He's an artist who doesn't believe in doing concept art and goes straight to drawing the final production assets.

 

I don't even.

[Darren]

Yeah but you don't need concept art when you can instantly produce work as good as that realistic ninja.

[Sprite Machine]

Christ alive, that is indistinguishable from satire.

[David Kenny]

That ninja looks like a man wearing a rucksack the wrong way round.

[Rowan Morrison]

In an ideal world we'd club together and pay Peter Serafinowicz to read that post over a video of Martin Luther King.

[macosx]

For balance

[Alex W.]

"The dream opened up with me..."

 

It just occurred to me that the bit before that is backstory. Did his dream have an opening crawl like Star Wars or something?