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

[Eighthours]

40 minutes ago, Nick R said:

 

Plus the character has a colour scheme based on a 4chan rape meme:

 

https://www.fastcompany.com/3037941/the-secret-meaning-behind-gamergates-branding

 

 

That's one level of conspiracy too far, I think.

[Dudley]

12 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

A girl created by Gamergaters as a figurehead for their movement, which was about harrassing women online ethics in games journalism.

 

And you can tell this because the first thing "she" says is about sexual attractiveness.

[SeanR]

what the fuck does "corruption against journalism" fucking mean? And why is it worth fighting for?

[Fry Crayola]

Reminds me of the guy at work who sent round an email to say he was raising money "in honour of cancer".

[GamesGamesGames]

6 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

Reminds me of the guy at work who sent round an email to say he was raising money "in honour of cancer".

 

That's brilliant.

[Unofficial Who]

A game that I loved for its diversity was Dragon Age Inquisition and I'm glad nothing will ever tarnish its brand and...oh no.

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/12/07/dragon-age-voice-actor-larps-40-minute-career-breakdown/?

 

Quote

What did you do to celebrate Dragon Age day on Friday? I watched a voice actor get brutally shut down by Dragon Age fans, after he posted the cringiest video I have ever watched in my life. Greg Ellis, the voice of Cullen in Dragon Age: Inquisition, decided that it would be a good idea to post a 40 minute video, in-character as Cullen, complaining about him and his voice actor being victimised by cancel culture. It is awful. It is hilarious. It might well be the best thing to happen to Dragon Age since Dragon Age 2.

 

 

The twitter and video have since been made private.

 

Some amazing quotes.

 

Quote

“Greg and Cullen were summarily lumped together and generalized about due in part to the coincidence of skin pigmentation.”

“Black Lives Matter, and they don’t matter more than anyone else’s. I love… I love… everyone. I support everyone’s life choice and decision to love whomever they please, and to identify with whatever gender they prefer. So yes, all lives do indeed matter to me.”

“#metoo, and the intellectual glitterati demand that men discard their past treatment of women and forge a new code, defining 21st century masculinity.”

 

Best of all

 

Quote

“The manifest is filling up. The womanifest is filling, up too. Join me for this new adventure. Like, follow, subscribe. Plant your flag against cancel culture. Let not the naysayers win.”

 

2020 just keeps giving.

[Unofficial Who]

 

 

Ouch!

[Gambit]

I have no idea what that's all about. But going through the thread he refers to his fans as "Cullenites" and I almost cringed myself into a black hole.

 

I can't say I can remember a single thing that Cullen did in any of the Dragon Age games. I can't even remember what game he was in (Inquisition?). 

[Unofficial Who]

16 hours ago, Gambit said:

I have no idea what that's all about. But going through the thread he refers to his fans as "Cullenites" and I almost cringed myself into a black hole.

 

I can't say I can remember a single thing that Cullen did in any of the Dragon Age games. I can't even remember what game he was in (Inquisition?). 

 

He has a blink and you'd miss him role in one of the prologues in Origins and he appears in DA2. But he's a major character in Inquisition and can be married.

 

This is highly disappointing and weird.

[Unofficial Who]

Some changes are afoot in Mass Effect Remastered and some fans can't get behind it.

 

 

[Oz]

Mass effect: woke edition 

[Isaac]

From the comments on that tweet, some of the camera angles in Mass Effect are frankly laughable now.

 

Here is the introduction to Matriarch Benezia, one of the three main ME1 villains:

 

 

The camera angles are: arse shot, tits shot, face shot. In that order. Embarrassing.

[Oz]

There’s also some progressive stuff in the game like there being one of each space race in the space senate. So the senate looks like the planets they are representing and they don’t all studied in Eaton.

 

Saren shits on the senate though. And they are all very ineffective in defending the galaxy from certain doom. Much like our parliament in that sense.  
 

But at the end of the day there are multiple problems with the game when looked at through culture in 2021. 

 

Art is a representation of the culture at the time it came out. If they are going to update something I suggest starting with gameplay mechanics. And leaving woke enhancement to the day one patch team.
 

Trying to update everything until absolutely no post millennials are offended is a fool’s errand. It results in everything being bland.

[jonny_rat]

19 minutes ago, Oz said:

There’s also some progressive stuff in the game like there being one of each space race in the space senate. So the senate looks like the planets they are representing and they don’t all studied in Eaton.

 

Saren shits on the senate though. And they are all very ineffective in defending the galaxy from certain doom. Much like our parliament in that sense.  
 

But at the end of the day there are multiple problems with the game when looked at through culture in 2021. 

 

Art is a representation of the culture at the time it came out. If they are going to update something I suggest starting with gameplay mechanics. And leaving woke enhancement to the day one patch team.
 

Trying to update everything until absolutely no post millennials are offended is a fool’s errand. It results in everything being bland.

Christ. What utter horse shit. Or they just take out the embarrassing camera shots, which is what they are doing as a low effort, high impact intervention, and we stop all this hand wringing, alt-right bait shit like woke, offended millennials, etc. Absolute gammon bingo.

[jonny_rat]

This all seems especially relevant with the mass effect games anyway with the recent info coming out that the team bowed to pressure from right wing media and morality groups in terms of adding same sex relationships when the games were first released. We could argue that adding those in would be a higher impact change, but in terms of the work needed, changing those camera angles is a much more bang for buck action. 

 

And I'd argue that it will make for a better game. They were an embarrassment first time around: doing a remaster of your game (even a largely cosmetic one) and leaving those in would be a choice and you'd absolutely answer for that in 2021 (and hopefully provide a better argument than "it's a document of the time" - okay, if that's true then hope you're happy with the same shitty UI as a document of the time as well)

[Eighthours]

31 minutes ago, Oz said:

There’s also some progressive stuff in the game like there being one of each space race in the space senate. So the senate looks like the planets they are representing and they don’t all studied in Eaton.

 

Saren shits on the senate though. And they are all very ineffective in defending the galaxy from certain doom. Much like our parliament in that sense.  
 

But at the end of the day there are multiple problems with the game when looked at through culture in 2021. 

 

Art is a representation of the culture at the time it came out. If they are going to update something I suggest starting with gameplay mechanics. And leaving woke enhancement to the day one patch team.
 

Trying to update everything until absolutely no post millennials are offended is a fool’s errand. It results in everything being bland.

Tits and arse shots are pretty low hanging fruit, though. Easy to change, and will save us toe-curling embarrassment when playing the game in front of our partners. Win-win.

[Oz]

1 minute ago, Eighthours said:

Tits and arse shots are pretty low hanging fruit, though. Easy to change, and will save us toe-curling embarrassment when playing the game in front of our partners. Win-win.

Yes I agree. Fair enough. 

[Oz]

8 minutes ago, jonny_rat said:

This all seems especially relevant with the mass effect games anyway with the recent info coming out that the team bowed to pressure from right wing media and morality groups in terms of adding same sex relationships when the games were first released. We could argue that adding those in would be a higher impact change, but in terms of the work needed, changing those camera angles is a much more bang for buck action. 

 

And I'd argue that it will make for a better game. They were an embarrassment first time around: doing a remaster of your game (even a largely cosmetic one) and leaving those in would be a choice and you'd absolutely answer for that in 2021 (and hopefully provide a better argument than "it's a document of the time" - okay, if that's true then hope you're happy with the same shitty UI as a document of the time as well)

Not sure what you are on about mate. I did say they should update gameplay first before worrying about making the game politically correct. I agree if changing the camera angle is easy and they think it makes the game better they should do it.  I don’t think we should be signing petitions either way. Everyone needs to calm the fuck down. 

[jonny_rat]

4 minutes ago, Oz said:

Not sure what you are on about mate. I did say they should update gameplay first before worrying about making the game politically correct. I agree if changing the camera angle is easy and they think it makes the game better they should do it.  I don’t think we should be signing petitions either way. Everyone needs to calm the fuck down. 

When you play into the total nonsense about woke millennials making everything bland (due to the uproar over changing a few camera angles), you can expect to have such silliness called out. 

[Oz]

3 minutes ago, jonny_rat said:

When you play into the total nonsense about woke millennials making everything bland (due to the uproar over changing a few camera angles), you can expect to have such silliness called out. 

Yeh ok I understand. 

[jonny_rat]

12 minutes ago, Oz said:

Yeh ok I understand. 

Apologies for the aggro from me. At the moment I see that stuff and I can't quite rein my shit in!

[Oz]

2 minutes ago, jonny_rat said:

Apologies for the aggro from me. At the moment I see that stuff and I can't quite rein my shit in!

No it’s fair I think. My argument was also reductive which I did not appreciate. 
 

I think there is a happy medium.

 

I would like some games to be able show things that are controversial or sexy. Agree the ass shot from Miranda is not it.
 

This can be done in a more intelligent way and we will all be better for it. We can make it better and smarter without making it bland. 

In my view some things have been made better in this pursuit and others have been made bland. But this conversation are at that point just about opinions and tastes. 
 

The tit shot to introduce benezia is just bad. That is not an opinion at that point. 

[mdn2]

51 minutes ago, Oz said:

Not sure what you are on about mate. I did say they should update gameplay first before worrying about making the game politically correct. I agree if changing the camera angle is easy and they think it makes the game better they should do it.  I don’t think we should be signing petitions either way. Everyone needs to calm the fuck down. 

Didn't you say in the ME Legendary thread that you'd be signing the petition?!?

[Alex W.]

I think it is outrageous that the creative staff of the Mass Effect series get to decide what those games are like, and instead a literal committee of the internet’s stupidest people should vote on it.

[Alan Stock]

It was embarrassing at the time and its still embarrassing now. I can appreciate a hot bod but the camera angles were just so blatant it was immersion breaking and childish (I'm mainly thinking Miranda here). It slighty hurt the tone of any conversation that followed because you had just had a load of tits and arse shoved in your face. Let's be fair, the outfits themselves are teen wank fest material anyway, they didn't need to add the camera angles as well. Bear in mind it was the actual art director of the game who decided to do this rework, in the interview he said they just just stood out to him as being out of place and too blatant. Regardless of your thoughts on the sexualisation of it, you can't deny that it somewhat undermined any serious tone they were taking with Miranda.

[Harsin]

I must admit I chuckled at the seemingly serious suggestion that the cringey tits and ass shots are offset by it being a progressive game because it has fictional gleep glops on the space parish council.

[Alex W.]

It’s not like the games don’t have plenty of actual sexuality. They’re still a high water mark in my opinion as far as blockbusters go. Give me more of that over more sexless action games where the characters are dressed and shot for titillation.

[Oz]

17 minutes ago, mdn2 said:

Didn't you say in the ME Legendary thread that you'd be signing the petition?!?

Yes I was trying to make this point that signing petitions for this stuff is absurd. I also said on that post I would be issuing dead threats to developers on Twitter. I was joking about both to be clear. 

[Dudley]

Hilarious.

[Oz]

12 minutes ago, Harsin said:

I must admit I chuckled at the seemingly serious suggestion that the cringey tits and ass shots are offset by it being a progressive game because it has fictional gleep glops on the space parish council.

No I don’t think it is offset. I am saying the game was regressive in some ways and progressive in others. It was certainly an interesting concept to imagine that in this functional galaxy the council would have members of each race.