France considers new ratings and incentives to combat sexism in video games

Those classifiers are always about the portrayal of violence or sex. Something that is clearly there or not there. So does this mean the game has to feature active portrayal of a character being sexist to get the label? What about a game like DoaX3? No one behaves sexist in that game, but I somehow suspect people would want to give it a sexism label.

And as mentioned previously, what about a game like Bayonetta where people are pretty split on it?

You don't have these kind of problems when labeling violence.

Yeah, I bet Heavy Rain would automatically get flagged for sexism with the Madison scenes. Throw in Witcher 3 despite it having strong female character types.

Heck, just label all games sexist if it doesn't have a playable female character.
 
Games aren't artistic creations, they're commercial products. It's not a museum painting, it's an Ikea canvas.

Case in point: an artist wouldn't give a shit about his vision costing him prime time advertising space. The marketing department for a company would.

This isn't censorship, it's an incentive scheme designed to push profit seeking economic agents into using their products as a vehicle for positive values - by making it economical to do so. "Pretty please don't be sexist" won't cut it but for a company these are precisely the kinds of rules which matter.

If you still want to make a game where you save and enamour preteen-looking Lolis, feel free - just with no help from government and no chance of advertising it when kids are watching.

The faux outrage from people standing up against the censorship of art surprise me not because of their intractable principles but because they actually believe there's a semblance of artistic integrity in the production of big budget video games.
 
I don't have the anwser for that. But people who will rate the games will certainly discuss it and come to their conclusions. If you disagree you can still buy the game.

The fact that there are ambiguous games doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying to label the clearly sexist ones and try to incentivize good portrayals of women.
This is very nice and all, but withholding incentives and giving R ratings can be disastrous to a studio and when this is dependent on a subjective appreciation of what is sexist or not by a small group of people, I can see how this could be quite troublesome.
 
I guess I'm just wondering how including a specific criteria (portrayal of women) constitutes censorship when other criteria doesn't.

I suppose if any of the criteria that are based on the work's content/message then it could be argued to be censorship. (Not necessarily saying that I personally think it is or isn't, just that that's the base requirement of what needs to happen for people to start arguing it could be censorship.)
 
The games can still exist. They will simply be labeled and the government will not pay them. Nobody is stopping you from buying your beach volley simulators.

Yeah and this part is important. The games can still exist, they aren't outright stating what can and cannot be sold.

The only part here that really sticks out to me as poor taste is not even allowing advertising of the product. I don't see that as justifiable at all. I'm not so sure that is something they should have a say in at all. If the company has the money, and they buy the add space I don't see why they can't be allowed to advertise.
 
People are saying this will only be applied to video games to justify their support of it but it's actually a very slippery slope that can turn to many other things out there. This is the way censorship begins.
 
The only question I have is will this type of labeling transfer over to movies? Music? Comics? Book? Why stop at games.

Sure. It probably should transfer to other media. I don't think the government should support an artist that is sexist or racist either. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done for games.

This is very nice and all, but withholding incentives and giving R ratings can be disastrous to a studio and when this is dependent on a subjective appreciation of what is sexist or not by a small group of people, I can see how this could be quite troublesome.

R rating games are sold in the same places as every other game. And adults buy them. It's hardly a problem. GTA is the most successful franchise in history and it's an R rated game.
 
I don't have the anwser for that. But people who will rate the games will certainly discuss it and come to their conclusions. If you disagree you can still buy the game.

The fact that there are ambiguous games doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying to label the clearly sexist ones and try to incentivize good portrayals of women.
Are games rated AO18 not sold in many marketplaces or online stores? Would that not make it more difficult to purchase Bayonetta 2 if it is deemed sexist? I don't know how France works,
 
I don't have the anwser for that. But people who will rate the games will certainly discuss it and come to their conclusions. If you disagree you can still buy the game.

And there you have the issue with something like this. No one is going to have the answer to that. At least with the law that Sweden was trying to push (one that would notify viewers that the movie past the Bechdel Test) there was standard that needed to be met for it to get there. There was something that no one could disagree with even if they didn't like the law. Just like with the ESRB. If you've got blood flowing and body parts flying around, then such a game is going to be met with a M rating and "Intense Violence" and "Blood and Gore" labels. Those aren't opinion situations, those are factual aspects of the games. That's not going to happen here. And that's why it's something that should pass.
 
Games aren't artistic creations, they're commercial products. It's not a museum painting, it's an Ikea canvas.

Case in point: an artist wouldn't give a shit about his vision costing him prime time advertising space. The marketing department for a company would.

This isn't censorship, it's an incentive scheme designed to push profit seeking economic agents into using their products as a vehicle for positive values - by making it economical to do so. "Pretty please don't be sexist" won't cut it but for a company these are precisely the kinds of rules which matter.

If you still want to make a game where you save and enamour preteen-looking Lolis, feel free - just with no help from government and no chance of advertising it when kids are watching.

The faux outrage from people standing up against the censorship of art surprise me not because of their intractable principles but because they actually believe there's a semblance of artistic integrity in the production of big budget video games.

This basically says anything intended to be sold by its creator is not art, which disqualifies music, film, and literature as well. You're also comparing a plastic art like painting to what is usually a narrative art, which are two completely incomparable mediums.

People who say things like this would benefit from even a single media studies class, because it's extremely misguided. Media and art are not mutually exclusive. Anything that potentially carries a message or meaning, independent from intent, is an artistic production. This not an opinion, this is definition.

Which is why conversation is worth having.
 
Are games rated AO18 not sold in many marketplaces or online stores? Would that not make it more difficult to purchase Bayonetta 2 if it is deemed sexist? I don't know how France works,

I'm not French but I don't think so. GTA is promoted on PSN EU just like any other game. Or on Amazon or something like that.
 
Sure. It probably should transfer to other media. I don't think the government should support an artist that is sexist or racist either. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done for games.



R rating games are sold in the same places as every other game. And adults buy them. It's hardly a problem. GTA is the most successful franchise in history and it's an R rated game.
GTA is the exception, there's a reason why most publishers avoid R ratings.
 
And there you have the issue with something like this. No one is going to have the answer to that. At least with the law that Sweden was trying to push (one that would notify viewers that the movie past the Bechdel Test) there was standard that needed to be met for it to get there. There was something that no one could disagree with even if they didn't like the law. Just like with the ESRB. If you've got blood flowing and body parts flying around, then such a game is going to be met with a M rating and "Intense Violence" and "Blood and Gore" labels. Those aren't opinion situations, those are factual aspects of the games. That's not going to happen here. And that's why it's something that should pass.

The fact that I don't have an answer for that doesn't mean other people will. Even if I can then disagree. But I believe that there are people more qualified to make those calls than I am and I'm fine with that.
 
Those classifiers are always about the portrayal of violence or sex. Something that is clearly there or not there. So does this mean the game has to feature active portrayal of a character being sexist to get the label? What about a game like DoaX3? No one behaves sexist in that game, but I somehow suspect people would want to give it a sexism label.

And as mentioned previously, what about a game like Bayonetta where people are pretty split on it?

You don't have these kind of problems when labeling violence.

Someone behaving sexist in a game is not what makes a game sexist.

A game could be labelled sexist with a fair degree of reliability on scales like:
Does it feature traditional gemder roles?
Does it feature violence against women?
Are women objectified for no reason?
Are female characters given agency?
Is there a lot of damselling?
Etc.

Make a nice little index and you're good to go.

It's not rocket science, and labels already have room for exemplification so the customer can know why it got the rating (doa would get objectification for sure).
 
Dev: "It's sexist? But she does this, and that, and this, and that......"

Government: "It doesn't meet the criteria. She's problematic in this, and this, and that....."

Dev: "What are you talking about? We made her strong by doing this, and this......."

Government: "This character did not come out as good as you expected."

Dev: "FINE! WE'RE CANCELLING BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 2!"
 
The biggest issue in this is probably "what is sexism in art?". Assuming that we have a perfect system, or machine that can determine with nigh 100% accuracy whether or not something is sexist - and please don't comment on the implausibility of such a scenario, the point of it is to reduce the parameters of this thought experiment down so that we can focus on the concept of interfering with art - then I don't see much of an issue with this, at surface level at least.

One ideal that people seem to hold as absolutely necessary is freedom of expression. While holding that view, as art is by its nature - expression, freedom of artistic expression then follows naturally. Whether or not video-games are wholly art is an issue of itself of course, given their consumable nature as well as artistic one, akin to whether or not propaganda art is more or less art than that with a more organic, or natural aim. Taking video-games as art to reduce our parameters further, the biggest issue becomes - is freedom of expression necessary?

Now, say you had a preacher. Not necessarily a religious one, mind. And the teachings of this preacher were of racism - white supremacy, advocacy of serious discrimination due to race, segregation, etc.. Would you find such preaching to be favourable in society? Essentially, preaching that advocates racism, a concept that society has thankfully progressed towards finding deplorable and unacceptable. My response is certainly no. While I'm all for freedom of expression, when that expression begins to seriously infringe on someone else's rights and freedom - and while you have the right to offend, offense based on race is unacceptable in society - it becomes problematic, which is why racist outbursts are illegal in many countries, even if the actions (ignoring speech) aren't themselves racist.

Now, if you consider art to be expression - then you can certainly have art doing the same thing. You can have art, which has an expression which is wholly racist. While this is difficult to imagine with a painting, it's easier to conceive of within a film. And applying the same logical steps we've taken earlier, it now seems reasonable to ban, or at least penalise, it. As restrictions on freedom of thought should never be tolerated and artistic expression is much easier to avoid than someone spouting racist rhetoric in your face, the banline in the sand is much harder to draw, hence why penalties can be preferable. Penalties such as not giving tax credits. Alternatively, you can say that you don't want to penalise art, but such opinions should not be impacting a child (would you want a child to be adopted by a self-professed racist?) - hence you slap an age rating on it. Looking at it this way, you can see why such actions can be reasonable. Now we flip racism to sexism (doing this avoids having to distinguish between sexism and sexual freedom, as I've focused on negatively charged aspects of the -ism), and say that we don't want to promote sexist ideologies, so penalise them monetarily and don't allow them to be exposed to impressionable children.
 
People are saying this will only be applied to video games to justify their support of it but it's actually a very slippery slope that can turn to many other things out there. This is the way censorship begins.

No it isn't. You don't have the evidence to support this will turn into censorship. You are attempting to appeal to people with fear of something you don't even know is going to happen.

Some people in this thread continue to use the slippery slope argument, without even realizing it's a logical fallacy. That it has no value in this argument. Stop fear-mongering. You sound just like the fear mongers with same sex marriage: "Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples to marry, then the next thing we know we'll be allowing people to marry their parents, their cars and even monkeys." A does not necessarily lead to B.

If you're going to argue against this, talk about the draconian limitations of the advertisement, not the economical incentives for teams to develop a more equal representations in some games. If that threatens your masculinity, then you can say that "art is dying", but don't expect people not to call you out.
 
How do you actually enforce and police that?

How do you determine which games are sexist, on what grounds, and what is a positive portrayal?
 
I really don't think anything will come out from this. Not the first time this has been a possibility, and not the first time it's shot down because there's no details about how the tax bonuses would really work and how the criterias would be really decided.

The video game industry tax break in France are already pretty terrible and badly decided, should be fixed before this (while they work on this and get a clear idea of what they really want).
 
How do you actually enforce and police that?

How do you determine which games are sexist, on what grounds, and what is a positive portrayal?

It would certainly be difficult that's for damn sure. Especially in terms of handing out the negative consequences. I mean for example people can't even decide if Bayonetta is sexist or not. There are arguments for and against it everywhere
 
Nobody is saying that games that primarily feature men/male characters are wrong or bad or worth less.

They're simply saying that games that feature women are worth more.
 
I don't agree with it but if this is going down...

Maybe there's hope for financial incentives for games that promote a positive image of non-white races? I would love to see more diverse MC in games, not just gender specific.

Get a higher rating if your game is perceived as racist/having racist subtext. IMO, more Latino/Black/Asian-empowering games would be welcome. Is that next up, or is racism like that only prevalent in America?
 
Does US PSN or Amazon differentiate GTA, COD and such from non r Rated games? Do physical stores?

No. They all display openly to the public next to other games that are rated differently. You'll sometimes be recommended M rated games even when you were just looking through E rated games.
 
Does US PSN or Amazon differentiate GTA, COD and such from non r Rated games? Do physical stores?
AdultOnly18+ games are banned in physical stores or won't carry them if I remember correctly. Different from M rated games. I think the big example was the hot coffee mod scandal in GTA (PC).

GTA5 is still rated M, for context.

Course I could be wrong about this. Someone can feel free to correct me.
 
I'm all for strict laws to keep violent or sexual games away from children. That's where it ends though. If a developer wants to create a mature game where you are nothing but a pair of massive bouncing breasts, then that's his business.

As an adult I know what i am playing is fantasy. I don't take what i see and do in a video game, back into the real world with me when i am finished. And i think any adult that does, needs to go and see a doctor.
 
I'm all for strict laws to keep violent or sexual games away from children. That's where it ends though. If a developer wants to create a mature game where you are nothing but a pair of massive bouncing breasts, then that's his business.

As an adult I know what i am playing is fantasy. I don't take what i see and do in a video game, back into the real world with me when i am finished. And i think any adult that does, needs to go and see a doctor.
World isnt that easy friend

You know politics, twitters, yada yada
 
Nobody is saying that games that primarily feature men/male characters are wrong or bad or worth less.

They're simply saying that games that feature women are worth more.
I'd honestly say it's games that don't treat women as a cardboard cutout have benefits to be made rather than the time immortal easy sale of a 16-39 year old straight male demo sexist power fantasy
 
What the fuck is this?



This is virtually enforcing censorship of art. This would also absolutely hurt Japanese games, which always tend to be very sexist.

Using Feminist Frequency as a positive example is a terrible idea too. Regardless of FF's intentions, the execution has been a disaster more often than not.

Sexism in society (not just video games) must be solved through discussion, education, and a shift in cultural interests. Not with laws. You can't force people into being smart and tolerant. You really shouldn't force art into being politically correct either.

I hope this gets modified into being something actually useful and well-executed, because the current propositions sound offensive.

It's not either or, you can push laws while educating.
 
I'm all for strict laws to keep violent or sexual games away from children. That's where it ends though. If a developer wants to create a mature game where you are nothing but a pair of massive bouncing breasts, then that's his business.

As an adult I know what i am playing is fantasy. I don't take what i see and do in a video game, back into the real world with me when i am finished. And i think any adult that does, needs to go and see a doctor.

They are debating incentives to make fantasies more welcoming.

Not to take your fantasies of men and women being nothing but bouncing breasts away.
 
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