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[LaserHawk]

What double standard? There is no double standard. There's a pair of different scenarios but that's it. He chose to say nothing, but she did.

Beats me. He probably should have said something back then. Kotaku allegedly caused those death threats.

 

[kirblar]

What double standard? There is no double standard. There's a pair of different scenarios but that's it. He chose to say nothing, but she did.

There's a double standard in terms of how the press will approach these issues. Gamers make up a minority % of the population, Women make up half. So selling a story using the female angle rather than the gamer one will probably get you more mainstream traction. You could say something similar about how Ferguson blew up not because of a kid getting killed, police escalating the situation, or riots occurring, but instead because two white reporters for major news companies got arrested.

The trick he's missing here is that rather than lean in and get annoyed about the double standard, he has an opportunity to just go with it and catch the wind in order to get his story heard now.

 

[Tellaerin]

I suspect his reaction to her stems form her tweet framing this as a "Women in Tech" issue, rather than a "Public Figures in Tech" issue.

And it's a fair point. There are idiots out there whose first response to anything they don't like is to spew death threats on the internet. It's all too common nowadays. Yet virtually none of those incidents have elicited the kind of collective outcry from the press that the threats against Anita Sarkeesian have. People being subjected to death threats and harassment from internet crackpots is something we ought to be up in arms over in general, not just when the victim's a woman and hot button feminist issues are involved.

 

[ChawlieTheFair]

And it's a fair point. There are idiots out there whose first response to anything they don't like is to spew death threats on the internet. It's all too common nowadays. Yet virtually none of those incidents have elicited the kind of collective outcry from the press that the threats against Anita Sarkeesian have. People being subjected to death threats and harassment from internet crackpots is something we ought to be up in arms over in general, not just when the victim's a woman and hot button feminist issues are involved.

Great point.

 

[dreamcastluvr]

I must say her videos really shed light on how completely disposable women are in some games (I'm looking at you Hitman).

Are you joking? This is one of her claims that boggles my mind. If either gender is consistently portrayed as disposable in action games (and movies), it is male. I've played the Hitman games, and remember killing a lot of anonymous men whose only purpose in the games was to be killed. Very few women are targets or nameless 'grunts' in those games.

In games where both genders are portrayed as disposable, such as the Saints Row and GTA series, I would say that the theme/trope is "humans are disposable."

I've never encountered a game where women were portrayed as disposable but men weren't.

I understand that she is feminist and is approaching her project with her focus being only those tropes that concern women, rather than men. But you have to admit that that type of approach insinuates an indirect claim (though not explicitly verbalized) that women are 'picked on' more than men, when nothing could be further than the truth.

 

[Yagharek]

What a lovely way to show empathy. 'I don't care about death threats, stop being such a drama queen! Also I get way more death threats than you. Hit piece.'

Did you miss the threats made to his wife and children? It's not reading like an egocentric rant to me.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

But you have to admit that that type of approach insinuates an indirect claim (though not explicitly verbalized) that women are 'picked on' more than men, when nothing could be further than the truth.

Do you mean specifically within the game of Hitman, or in general?

 

[Terrell]

Did you miss the threats made to his wife and children? It's not reading like an egocentric rant to me.

I'm not sure how that's relevant to anything when discussing how the information is presented and not the information itself.

 

[unbias]

Are you joking? This is one of her claims that boggles my mind. If either gender is consistently portrayed as disposable in action games (and movies), it is male. I've played the Hitman games, and remember killing a lot of anonymous men whose only purpose in the games was to be killed. Very few women are targets or nameless 'grunts' in those games.

In games where both genders are portrayed as disposable, such as the Saints Row and GTA series, I would say that the theme/trope is "humans are disposable."

I've never encountered a game where women were portrayed as disposable but men weren't.

I understand that she is feminist and is approaching her project with her focus being only those tropes that concern women, rather than men. But you have to admit that that type of approach insinuates an indirect claim (though not explicitly verbalized) that women are 'picked on' more than men, when nothing could be further than the truth.

The argument, though is, that since women are under-represented that the % of their use in games gives them very few jobs. Men are always disposable in games(most of the time) sure, but they are almost always disposable and X, her argument is a lot of the time, in the realistic games, women are disposable with no X to go along with it.

She presents it different, and adds some things, but this is essentially the sentiment.

 

[JMargaris]

If you want it to be mockery enough it can be, in the sense that "Anita is a wimp for leaving her home after one death threat". Or it could also mean "My family has received a frequent amount of death threats, to the point where it would become inconvenient for us to vacate our home for all of them."

Yep.

People in this thread are now doing the textbook "what not do to when people get threats" thing. Like, I'm 99.9% sure Fiction is aware of literally a dozen different FAQs that tell her not to do the thing she's doing.

The last tweet (chronologically the first one, I believe?) reads like he's calling Sarkeesian an attention seeker and/or a coward.

You're choosing to read it that way. You had a choice between thinking "man, this guy also gets a lot of shit and I have empathy for that" and "how do I make this guy into the villain?" and you chose the latter.

You're doing the same thing as people who say "Anita is probably loving all this attention." Yes - that is one interpretation.

It's Twitter. People express things poorly as a rule. It would serve you well to read charitably and assume the best rather than the worst. I admit when I read that last (first? help, I don't understand Twitter!) tweet my first reaction is "hmm, is he throwing shade at other people?" But then I step back and ask is there another interpretation? And there is.

 

[Yagharek]

I'm not sure how that's relevant to anything when discussing how the information is presented and not the information itself.

It's relevant because given that type of threat, is only going to result in an emotive discussion and framing of those events.

 

[Terrell]

Are you joking? This is one of her claims that boggles my mind. If either gender is consistently portrayed as disposable in action games (and movies), it is male. I've played the Hitman games, and remember killing a lot of anonymous men whose only purpose in the games was to be killed. Very few women are targets or nameless 'grunts' in those games.

In games where both genders are portrayed as disposable, such as the Saints Row and GTA series, I would say that the theme/trope is "humans are disposable."

I've never encountered a game where women were portrayed as disposable but men weren't.

I understand that she is feminist and is approaching her project with her focus being only those tropes that concern women, rather than men. But you have to admit that that type of approach insinuates an indirect claim (though not explicitly verbalized) that women are 'picked on' more than men, when nothing could be further than the truth.

At least those men have a purpose.

Here's a good way of looking at it: if the disposable men were removed, such a game would have zero function. If the disposable women were removed, you'd still have a game to play.

That is the difference.

 

[ChawlieTheFair]

At least those men have a purpose.

Here's a good way of looking at it: if the disposable men were removed, such a game would have zero function. If the disposable women were removed, you'd still have a game to play.

That is the difference.

Doesn't make any sense and you are generalizing the point or what counts as purpose.

 

[atr0cious]

Are you joking? This is one of her claims that boggles my mind. If either gender is consistently portrayed as disposable in action games (and movies), it is male. I've played the Hitman games, and remember killing a lot of anonymous men whose only purpose in the games was to be killed. Very few women are targets or nameless 'grunts' in those games.

In games where both genders are portrayed as disposable, such as the Saints Row and GTA series, I would say that the theme/trope is "humans are disposable."

I've never encountered a game where women were portrayed as disposable but men weren't.

I understand that she is feminist and is approaching her project with her focus being only those tropes that concern women, rather than men. But you have to admit that that type of approach insinuates an indirect claim (though not explicitly verbalized) that women are 'picked on' more than men, when nothing could be further than the truth.

Here you go, someone already answered this exact response up thread:

My point is that hitman is not a game where you kill strippers, so her whole critique is basically a lie. She misrepresents games constantly to fit her narrative (or agenda). That's where I take issue. Me not caring about stories is an aside.

No. You're missing her point completely. You can't call her critique a lie when it's clear you didn't even understand it. Her point was precisely that this wasn't a game about killing strippers.

Her point here was that this kind of violence against women is used to decorate games, with the suffering and brutality aimed at women being just another bit of atmosphere like newspapers blowing across the street or faded paint.

And she showed example after example after example of exactly this sort of thing. As thought devs just have a "brutalised woman" brush they lazily paint across levels to give them the kind of gritty excitement they are after.

I must admit I've really failed to take this on board in the past. But I am very aware of this now. I have a seven year old daughter and even in the most innocent of games one can see the continual degrading depiction of women. Even the most innocent - in gameplay terms - racing game will often still have loading screens featuring hyper-sexualised women with enormous breasts, meanwhile the guys, well they are just guys in some clothes.

My daughter likes playing games, she's dipping her toes in the clean end right now. But I fear that much of the industry is still pumping shit into the sewer and I've no wish for any of my children to explore games deeper any time soon.

It's that women can't be killed while being something else other than a fragile object. In the Watch_Dogs example specifically, she shows how a male victim gets to fight back and even get a punch in, while the woman is always at the mercy of the attacker.

How many times in Hitman did you change into a female NPC's uniform and sneak around as them?

 

[Tellaerin]

How many times in Hitman did you change into a female NPC's uniform and sneak around as them?

...don't you find the image of a large bald man dressing in random womens' clothes to sneak around unnoticed a little immersion-breaking?

 

[Kelthink]

Doesn't make any sense and you are generalizing the point or what counts as purpose.

Both men and women are disposable in such games but it's almost exclusively men who have actual development; the women, at best, drive the plot.

 

[wonderdung]

I suspect his reaction to her stems form her tweet framing this as a "Women in Tech" issue, rather than a "Public Figures in Tech" issue. (Tweeting about it definitely not the best way to handle it - he could easily write about it longform and get a public platform given his experiences and get people to actually pay attention at this point in time.)

Anita isn't in tech to start with, she's a media critic.

 

[FunkyLounge]

I still can not believe the reactions of people to talking about video games on the internet. How close minded, insecure and dumb do you have to be to send death threats and harass others because of their opinion?

I would like to meet these people.

 

[Kelthink]

I still can not believe the reactions of people to talking about video games on the internet. How close minded, insecure and dumb do you have to be to send death threats and harass others because of their opinion?

I would like to meet these people.

Oh man, I bet you wouldn't. They'd smell terrible.

 

[Terrell]

Doesn't make any sense and you are generalizing the point or what counts as purpose.

How does that not make sense?

If you take the fodder out of a game like Hitman, you end up with a broken, boring and useless game. Take the women out, and all you have is less human set-pieces.

Purpose, when defined in the context of a video game, would be things that actually make a meaningful difference to the game itself. A stripper set-piece of no narrative or gameplay value being removed would hardly qualify.

 

[Weltall Zero]

ITT: Guys pretend to know what it is to be a woman receiving rape and death threats by people who know where she lives, and tell her how she should behave.

 

[Toothpic4]

And it's a fair point. There are idiots out there whose first response to anything they don't like is to spew death threats on the internet. It's all too common nowadays. Yet virtually none of those incidents have elicited the kind of collective outcry from the press that the threats against Anita Sarkeesian have. People being subjected to death threats and harassment from internet crackpots is something we ought to be up in arms over in general, not just when the victim's a woman and hot button feminist issues are involved.

Im gonna quote this again because, everyone seems to be skipping past.

Feminism means the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

When a lot of times male counterparts receive the same treatment, you never hear about it.
Instead of it being no female/male should have to go thru this, it should be no HUMAN should have to go thru this.

 

[Kinyou]

I still can not believe the reactions of people to talking about video games on the internet. How close minded, insecure and dumb do you have to be to send death threats and harass others because of their opinion?

I would like to meet these people.

Doesn't even have to be over an opinion.

Maybe it's just my perception but after twitter got more popular people seem to throw out shit like this much more easily.

 

[Lime]

Im gonna quote this again because, everyone seems to be skipping past.

Feminism means the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

When a lot of times male counterparts receive the same treatment, you never hear about it.
Instead of it being no female/male should have to go thru this, it should be no HUMAN should have to go thru this.

You implicitly make the conversation about "men" with your post, when this specific topic is about the problem of the treatment of women voices and bodies in the video game culture space.

EDIT: Also, there's a difference of harassment when your identity (gender, race, sexuality, etc.) is being targeted compared to general harassment.

 

[SEGIII]

I didn't exactly get "apathy" from his tweets, or mockery for Anita as others are pointing out. To me it looked like he was pointing out a double-standard in journalism.

I know nothing of this guy or what he has done, but I think that I agree.

 

[dead souls]

I know nothing of this guy or what he has done, but I think that I agree.

Wardell is a gross person, and the behavior he publicly admitted to during his scandal was vile and creepy.

Anyone paying attention to anything he says is wasting their time.

 

[Tellaerin]

You implicitly make the conversation about "men" with your post, when this specific topic is about the problem of the treatment of women voices and bodies in the video game culture space.

EDIT: Also, there's a difference of harassment when your identity (gender, race, sexuality, etc.) is being targeted compared to general harassment.

So pointing out that these incidents are treated differently by the press depending on the gender of the person being threatened doesn't reflect on "the treatment of women voices and bodies in the video game culture space"? I'd say it does.

I'd also argue that Sarkeesian's been targeted for harassment for what she's been saying, not just for being a woman. Feminism is a philosophy, not an innate human attribute like gender, race or sexuality. If a male-produced series along the lines of Tropes vs. Women started to gain traction amongst developers and the press, I'm pretty sure you'd be seeing a lot of the same ugliness directed at its creator right now. I doubt the media would be responding to that scenario with the degree of collective shock and horror on display now, though.

The bottom line is that Sarkeesian's been saying things some crackpots don't like, and those crackpots have reacted by threatening her life. It's reprehensible. But it seems like people are becoming outraged and fiercely protective of her because she's being portrayed as - dare I say it? - a damsel in distress. A defenseless young woman, besieged on all sides and driven from her home by aggressive, threatening men. That particular subtext plays to the very same instincts and biases that games using that trope do, so it's ironic that the press would invoke it here.

There's definitely cause for outrage here, but we should be outraged regardless of the victim's gender, rather than stressing how horrible it is because a woman's receiving death threats.

 

[kirblar]

ITT: Guys pretend to know what it is to be a woman receiving rape and death threats by people who know where she lives, and tell her how she should behave.

There is not a difference between a man and a woman receiving these same threats.

 

[DasMack]

In this case, I think the term fits. And I'm comfortable in denying their manhood. They're not men. They're angry boys, sometimes in a grown man's body.

uh oh your bigotry is showing jbourne, denying someone thier equality based on what? the fact that they want to explore the POSSIBILITY that this was manufactured? Wow you seem like a very resonable person with no prejudices of any kind.

As for the narrative in this thread, it seems to me that a lot of people posting here have decided to create a scapegoat out of this online culprit, associating them with being a "gamer", or how they must enjoy the so called "sexist, homophobic and bigoted" video game industry in order to make threats like these to anita. Maybe they are mentally unstable or are just a plain old pyschopath in general to make death threats to another human being... wait no thats not possible there are no psychopaths on the internet (Lena Kochman). Lol silly me how could i think such a thing they MUST be a male gamer who hates women. I mean its IMPOSSIBLE that anyone but a male gamer who hates women could make these threats right?

 

[Gestault]

there's a difference of harassment when your identity (gender, race, sexuality, etc.) is being targeted compared to general harassment.

It's easier to understand (and socially confront) targeted bigotry, but I think the justification doesn't mean a whole lot one way or the other to the person receiving irrational threats. The same act with different motivation won't feel different if the reasoning doesn't make sense in either case. People tend to already have the moral high-ground when they're receiving that type of harassment.

 

[ChawlieTheFair]

Both men and women are disposable in such games but it's almost exclusively men who have actual development; the women, at best, drive the plot.

Well no, at best the women would have development. And even then, development is driving the plot.

But what you have typed makes sense and is a valid argument, what Terrel typed didn't.

How does that not make sense?

If you take the fodder out of a game like Hitman, you end up with a broken, boring and useless game. Take the women out, and all you have is less human set-pieces.

Purpose, when defined in the context of a video game, would be things that actually make a meaningful difference to the game itself. A stripper set-piece of no narrative or gameplay value being removed would hardly qualify.

No, the purpose of something being in a video game is it's purpose. I could take out all the destroyed cars in fallout 3, I mean you can't drive them, you don't get things out of them, why even have them? I could take out all the trees in RDR, you can't chop them for wood, they rarely come up in the actual gameplay. They are there for, as Anita said, "background decoration". Because where would it stop? At what point does something becomes meaningless or unimportant to a game? We could make max payne 3 and everything could be made out of grey and white boxes, the same core gameplay would be there, the "point" of playing said game?

Edit: and further, different things could have more meaning for different people.

 

[Freeman]

There is not a difference between a man and a woman receiving these same threats.

Man can't be raped.

Wait... I think that's not how it works.

 

[atr0cious]

...don't you find the image of a large bald man dressing in random womens' clothes to sneak around unnoticed a little immersion-breaking?

Hitman looks down at a body and suddenly has their clothes, no such thing as immersion. And why wouldn't say a mafia household recognize Ignacio the gardener is now an Aryan prince? And why are the women only house keepers and in dresses, when even the stereotypical 'tomboy' has been around forever.

This is a call for more creativity if anything.

 

[Freeman]

How many times in Hitman did you change into a female NPC's uniform and sneak around as them?

You should send that idea to Kojima.

 

[Kazerei]

There is not a difference between a man and a woman receiving these same threats.

Often when a man receives death threats, it's his wife/daughter/sister/mom who gets threatened with rape

 

[Freeman]

Often when a man receives death threats, it's his wife/daughter/sister/mom who gets threatened with rape

And that makes it better how?

 

[Curufinwe]

Wardell is a gross person, and the behavior he publicly admitted to during his scandal was vile and creepy.

Anyone paying attention to anything he says is wasting their time.

It's very telling how easy it is for you to dismiss the false sexual harassment claims, and death threats made against Wardell. That guy's "creepy" so who cares what happened to him and his family.

 

[Kazerei]

And that makes it better how?

It makes it different

 

[atr0cious]

You should send that idea to Kojima.

I never kill anyone when I play them. How long did it take you to walk the river Styxx?

Those games give you every reason and choice not to kill anything, even the difficulty is balanced against killing, and yet people still do it. And that's entirely what those games are about. No one in those games is framed as good, and Snake is a terrorist throughout the series. Which is why Kojima was going to have him killed in the end.

And characters like the Boss and Olga are great.

 

[Disaster Nebraska]

It's very telling how easy it is for you to dismiss the false sexual harassment claims, and death retreats made against Wardell. That guy's "creepy" so who cares what happened to him.

This is what frustrates me. There's NO way that these threats could've been fakes (oh, goodness. I wish people lived in the real world where fake threats occur on a daily basis) and yet any scrap of evidence that it might have been faked gets marginalized or dismissed on the basis of who is bringing it up.

That's not discussion.

That's not equality, nor is it inclusiveness.

It reeks of a political agenda.

 

[Moon_frogger]

It's very telling how easy it is for you to dismiss the false sexual harassment claims, and death threats made against Wardell. That guy's "creepy" so who cares what happened to him and his family.

Well, to be fair I find zoe Quinn to be extremely creepy and I don't put much stock in what she says or does either

 

[Freeman]

I never kill anyone when I play them. How long did it take you to walk the river Styxx?

Those games give you every reason and choice not to kill anything, even the difficulty is balanced against killing, and yet people still do it. And that's entirely what those games are about. No one in those games is framed as good, and Snake is a terrorist throughout the series. Which is why Kojima was going to have him killed in the end.

And characters like the Boss and Olga are great.

I don't understand anything you are writing. It was just a joke that dressing as a woman to sneak around is something I could see Kojima doing.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Im gonna quote this again because, everyone seems to be skipping past.

Feminism means the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

When a lot of times male counterparts receive the same treatment, you never hear about it.
Instead of it being no female/male should have to go thru this, it should be no HUMAN should have to go thru this.

To many people, feminism is more about dismantling institutional oppression, which is highlighted in a way by men saying "what about men" in response to hearing a woman was so scared by an anonymous person who found her family's personal info and threatened to rape and murder her that she had to leave her house.

 

[Look! The Pie!]

Day by day, my hobby's dark underbelly gets more and more ugly. I don't agree with some of what Anita says, but nobody deserves to be hounded out of their home simply for trying to raise awareness of a big problem in the gaming industry. This might be controversial, but IMO anyone who makes a rape or death threat, serious or not, deserves jail time. Behaviour like this can completely mess a person up.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

uh oh your bigotry is showing jbourne, denying someone thier equality based on what? the fact that they want to explore the POSSIBILITY that this was manufactured? Wow you seem like a very resonable person with no prejudices of any kind.

As for the narrative in this thread, it seems to me that a lot of people posting here have decided to create a scapegoat out of this online culprit, associating them with being a "gamer", or how they must enjoy the so called "sexist, homophobic and bigoted" video game industry in order to make threats like these to anita. Maybe they are mentally unstable or are just a plain old pyschopath in general to make death threats to another human being... wait no thats not possible there are no psychopaths on the internet (Lena Kochman). Lol silly me how could i think such a thing they MUST be a male gamer who hates women. I mean its IMPOSSIBLE that anyone but a male gamer who hates women could make these threats right?

What are you doing here? You're playing some sort of game around plausibility and believability, but you're siding with the less plausible and believable scenario anyway.

 

[paperboywriter]

Who does that? I mean really, who goes out of there way to threaten other people online because of a opinion? It's ridiculous

 

[atr0cious]

It was just a joke that dressing as a woman to sneak around is something I could see Kojima doing.

He's way ahead of you.

He does something a little bit like that with the Raikov section, as Raikov is treated as Volgin's sexual object, and this leads to Snake being captured. I'd like to see how Kojima play with it more, and I really hope something comes of the chico/quiet saga.

 

[Artofwar420]

You know you can dislike somebody's opinions and NOT threaten their life, fucking idiots. Now we get lumped in as misogynists dickheads just because we also like video games. This whole thing is fucked.

 

[Bold One]

Too far internet.

Do these threats ever pan out? like has there been a case where someone actually carried out these threats?

just asking

 

[atr0cious]

Too far internet.

Do these threats ever pan out? like has there been a case where someone actually carried out these threats?

just asking

For the future, the term 'pan out' is used when you were hoping for something to happen.