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[Painguy]

Can someone explain GG to me? I still have no idea what the hell everyone is yelling at each other about. Do I want to know? Lol

 

[Lime]

These are my thoughts.

They're very different and require different approaches both long and short term.

Gamergate is a result of coddled consumers who have been marketed to and catered to for years if not decades through the games industry's ingrained sexism, homophobia and racism (in both a structural and explicit sense). It's also a result of games journalism never ever taking a stance against their readership and failing to include different voices and not speaking up when confronted with sexism/racism/homophobia.

The games industry and the games media were even worse when they remained silent and neutral during Gamergate's organized hate campaign. In the immortal words of Leigh Alexander: "When you decline to create or to curate a culture in your spaces, you're responsible for what spawns in the vacuum."

 

[yunbuns]

So the male pixels don't matter, only the female ones? That seems kinda...sexist.

Joke post?

Can someone explain GG to me? I still have no idea what the hell everyone is yelling at each other about. Do I want to know? Lol

The short answer is
-Ex boyfriend posts shit about Zoe Quinn (a game dev) online
-4chan gets ahold of the post and decides to harass her
-They decide to make it look like she was having relationships with media members to get 'publicity' - again this is just to justify the harassment and was totally baseless
-This somehow becomes a huge group that realises they can harass people under the guise of protesting for 'ethics in games journalism'.
-Some innocent people get suckered in by that slogan but most of them are quintessential 4chan trolls out to upset people and spark shit
-Hatred of women in the games industry is the golden thread tying the whole thing together

I haven't followed it since the start as it bores and annoys me but that was the genesis of it all. Can't put it all more concisely than that.

 

[Lime]

Well, we need specific examples because I don't understand what she's asking for here


Most AAA games are violent, and if devs don't include women in their games then that's gender discrimination.

Sex is getting away from the point.

This was the assertion from Ashely Judd: "You’re still making billions of dollars off games that maim and dump women for sport". And let's not conflate it with how games are sold on the sexual representations of female characters.

Which games, specifically, are making "billions of dollars off games that maim and dump women for sport"?

Read chrominance's post:

I'm guessing this thread is going to go badly, so maybe this is futile, but I think when she says "main and dump women for sport," she's not literally saying "games where you, playing as the protagonist, go around maiming/dumping women solely because it is fun." I don't want to speak for her, but my interpretation was that it was meant in a more general sense: games where women are maimed as part of the story, that happen to be presented as entertainment. An example of this is the women in refrigerator trope where the death, injury or attack of a female character that's close to the protagonist drives the narrative forward and gives the protagonist a reason to take action. It's not that you're supposed to literally enjoy watching a woman get maimed, it's that the story requires that a woman get maimed to fuel the revenge fantasy that you ultimately play out for entertainment purposes.

She's not wrong. Variations on that trope (i.e damsel in distress) are used as justification in tons of games, including ones we consider fundamental to the medium like Mario.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

Jesus the responses to this are awful.

 

[Arkage]

I don't think so, personally. It's just a bit of fanservice, one that plenty of people seemed to disapprove of, as is their right, but one that I personally enjoyed while playing the game, in the same way I imagine I might have enjoyed Gladiolus's design if I were gay.

It's cheap, sure, but does it signify dislike of women? I can't see that.

I agree there's a lot of word confusion in this thread. People using words in various ways for different reasons with different intents. I would say she was a sexualized in a way that tends to encourage misogynistic behavior, especially for the young teenager boy crowd - but it's correlation, not necessarily causation. The more women are represented as sexual objects (Cindy certainly qualifies), the harder it becomes for a women, or any female character, to move beyond that initial, culturally ingrained stereotype.

Also, if Gladioulus' balls were half hanging out of a default speedo outfit, you might have a point when comparing him to Cindy's breasts popping out of her shirt at all times. But that isn't the case.

 

[Shadow Broker]

Who is Ashley Judge?

You'll be amazed what you'll find threw a Google search and you're not cool.

 

[HStallion]

Sexual objectification is not misogyny. Misogyny is a dislike or hatred of women.

Something like DoA Xtreme 3 is not misogynistic or even sexist in any way, for example.

Now I haven't played DoA Xtreme 3 but you could argue that in the context of the greater gaming community its a very one sided game among a lot of one sided games. I personally can't think of a sports/mini game collection that focuses on hot dudes in speedos playing sports and being eye candy. If there were as many games as those perhaps something like DOA wouldn't stand out nearly as much but I think the case can be made for the fact that this often pandering to one side and one side only.

Much the same with an argument about the GTA games could be made. There aren't really many open world games with females leads in general, let alone ones where they can pick up random male escorts, fuck them, get health back for it and then murder them immediately after to take their money... or just for the hell of it. This is starting to change thankfully but it still stands that the representation in general for women in these kinds of roles, while unsavory to the more uptight out there, are still lacking in general. Even in Red Dead Redemption there is a trophy for kidnapping a woman, hot tying her and the leaving her on train tracks to be killed by an oncoming locomotive. Its obviously a bit joking and taking into account the very common trope in Westerns but again, there isn't really an option to do this from the other side and not saying there should be directly in RDR but there aren't any other games that really do this either. Its very one sided in many cases and even if they are small, they start to add up over time.

So even if DOA isn't about beating up women or anything so obvious as that, it exists in a world where there aren't many games that do the things from the opposite end of the spectrum, let alone on the scale of DOA Xtreme.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

I can't believe this thread got completely derailed by one little comment.

 

[Basketball]

Go home Ashley Judd, you're drunk. Stick to music please.

I think you're getting confused with that Azealia Banks chick who's in Final Fantasy.

Spoiler

who tf is Azealia Banks

 

[mjp2417]

I can't believe this thread got completely derailed by one little comment.

I can

 

[yunbuns]

Spoiler

who tf is Azealia Banks

A chicken killer.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

I'm pretty sure Kratos is an equal-opportunity killer. Him not killing women would be sexist, actually.

The majority of the killing Kratos does is on enemies who fight back, whatever the game is a brawler. I'm thinking more of examples like when he uses a topless slave girl, who hasn't attacked him and is otherwise completely helpless, to hold open a door for him, condemning her to die when it closes on her afterwards. It's pretty gratuitous, even for that franchise.

 

[Lime]

Can someone explain GG to me? I still have no idea what the hell everyone is yelling at each other about. Do I want to know? Lol

Organized hate campaign back in 2014 consisting of fragile bigots who couldn't handle women existing in video games. It's basically an amalgamation of MRA / Trump voters / alt-righters / neo-nazis / fascists who read Breitbart and jump through irrational hoops to justify their ingrained bigotry against women, racialized minority groups, and LGBTQ.

Basically, video games culture have a sexism and racism and homophobia problem for many years, and when people, especially women, were speaking up about this, they got terrorized and harrassed by this organized group, while the "neutral" and "moderates" were standing by and watched while people were chased out of the industry.

 

[inky]

The Tomb Raider reboot is pretty infamous for the many creepy, moaning, death scenes of Lara Croft.

I mean, I hate those games and it does come along as kind of creepy, but that series is meant to be "empowering" and I wouldn't argue it is misogynistic in its approach, just very poorly written and tone deaf.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Edit. Yep. Looks like I did misunderstand misogyny

 

[Hades Hotgun]

so its ok if its Leon in RE4 for example but not if its Lara?

I assume she meant GTA games because it was so entirely vague, and her message is on point, but the wording is poor, probably for a lack of knowledge on the subject.

How do you draw that comparison?

Leon dies gruesome deaths, in an over the top, campy zombie game.

Lara dies gruesome deaths, while moaning in a completely out of place and sexual manner, in a game which attempts a more serious and grounded narrative.

Huh? I dont get this argument. The whole game was violent as fuck. So yeah, Lara has some uncomfortable death scenes but she also mows down hundreds of men with pretty equally violent finishing moves like stabbing them in the neck with arrows, blasting them in the chin with a shotgun, or shooting them execution style point blank in the face with a pistol

But none of those men who she kills begin moaning like Lara does. No one is going to confuse their death cries with the sound of a person having an orgasm.

 

[Ralemont]

Read chrominance's post:

That post is an attempt to transform the statement into something different. "Violence against women for story reasons" isn't equatable to "violence against women for sport" which is the claim.

I don't mind if we also want to talk about more viable examples in this thread but I don't think we can avoid casting a side eye at her actual statement.

The reason some people are focusing on her statement is because it's a radical and bold claim and deserves to be respected with actual discussion, not "well this might be what she really meant and even if it's not let's talk about other stuff instead."

 

[fhqwhgads]

I think all of us can agree her specific quote isn't exactly correct, but let's not act like it completely invalidates her argument and that the game industry is a perfect bastion of equality for women.

Also, you do realise that the "But this happens to men as well in games!" is exactly like All Lives Matter? Come on, it's a lazy excuse to shut down criticism.

 

[Mael]

Good thing no one came here to defend MGSV yet...

 

[Eidan]

Sexual objectification is not misogyny. Misogyny is a dislike or hatred of women.

Something like DoA Xtreme 3 is not misogynistic or even sexist in any way, for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogyny

Sexual objectification is a form of misogyny. This is the first time I've ever seen someone try to argue otherwise.

 

[Arkeband]

How is that about rape? The trophy itself is Kill the Poseidon Princess and the tagline is, I didn't do it but I wish I did. As in, "I didn't kill her because it was the heavy door and her getting caught in the gears that killed her but I wish I had killed her directly."

Not saying that's a great thing to wish for but it's certainly not referencing rape.

...The context is you just walked into Poseidon's harem as the game subverts expectations and subjects you not to a sex minigame as you'd assume, but has you kill them.

Your interpretation of this achievement's semantics require Kratos to not consider throwing someone into a grinder an act of killing but that the grinder somehow stole the kill from him. C'mon son.

 

[Stallion Dan]

Damn that sounds harsh. I haven't been following gamergate but what are some examples of games that do this? Mostly RPG anime games?

GTA, few other open world games.

Most games shy away from female enemies unless they demons are whatever.

Edit- I gotta stop hitting reply and not posting for ages.

 

[Plum]

I can't believe this thread got completely derailed by one little comment.

It got derailed because she put out a hypothesis instead of a statement by not giving any examples to back up her claims. If she did people could agree, disagree, whatever; instead we get people confused as to who she's pointing out, people speculating about who she's pointing out and people disagreeing with those speculations. It's just not a great quote and doesn't lend itself well to discussion no matter how much you agree with her (I do, but that's literally all I can say as I don't know what she means outside of that). Even without the maiming comment she could mean anything ranging from online harassment in multiplayer games to the depictions of women in singleplayer ones.

 

[Nerazar]

Now I haven't played DoA Xtreme 3 but you could argue that in the context of the greater gaming community its a very one sided game among a lot of one sided games. I personally can't think of a sports/mini game collection that focuses on hot dudes in speedos playing sports and being eye candy. If there were as many games as those perhaps something like DOA wouldn't stand out nearly as much but I think the case can be made for the fact that this often pandering to one side and one side only.

Much the same with an argument about the GTA games could be made. There aren't really many open world games with females leads in general, let alone ones where they can pick up random male escorts, fuck them, get health back for it and then murder them immediately after to take their money... or just for the hell of it. This is starting to change thankfully but it still stands that the representation in general for women in these kinds of roles, while unsavory to the more uptight out there, are still lacking in general.

So even if DOA isn't about beating up women or anything so obvious as that, it exists in a world where there aren't many games that do the things from the opposite end of the spectrum, let alone on the scale of DOA Xtreme.

Yeah, but (nearly) every West-RPG lets you play as a woman and basically do all those things and if it's not possible, there's a mod for it. The Mass Effect example also breaks down after you realize that it might be a female Shepard punching that reporter. Does that change the perception of the game? Is it suddenly a good thing to make that decision in the game if it's a woman punching a woman?

 

[Alienous]

Read chrominance's post:

I think that's a wishful intepretation of her statement. "You're still making billions of dollars off games that maim and dump women for sport" -> 'You're using tropes that use women as disposable objects to push a video-game narrative forward', and I'm not sure that was the intent of what she said.

 

[Sephzilla]

"games that maim and dump women for sport"

I agree with her on a bunch of the stuff she's saying, but I can't think of any mainstream game that does this

 

[SolidSnakex]

The majority of the killing Kratos does is on enemies who fight back, whatever the game is a brawler. I'm thinking more of examples like when he uses a topless slave girl, who hasn't attacked him and is otherwise completely helpless, to hold open a door for him, condemning her to die when it closes on her afterwards. It's pretty gratuitous, even for that franchise.

It's a theme of the series. The most famous example of it is actually in the original God of War. One of the puzzles requires Kratos to push a caged Spartan soldier up a slope and into a fire where he's burned alive. The entire time he's begging for his life. And in that room there's another Spartan soldier lying on the flood dead with a suicide note next to him noting that he simply couldn't go through with what Kratos had just done. You unlock a trophy in the remaster called "Totally Baked" once you complete it.

 

[Sinfamy]

We're a monolith.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Misogyny?

Are there many misgynistic games out there?

Do most games objectify women? No doubt. But unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning of the term misogyny, I don't think that's accurate.

The objectification of women is rooted in misogyny. It devalues women as people and reduces them to an object for male pleasure.

 

[Funyarinpa]

There's nothing remotely wrong with Dead or Alive Xtreme. It's softcore titillation for a straight male audience. There's nothing inherently sexist or misogynistic about that. It doesn't portray itself as anything else, and it features no sexual violence (or sexual conduct besides voyuerism) at all.



It's weak but it's well-intentioned, at least. They wanted to make a great female hero, they didn't exactly succeed. But she's there, and she's the hero, and she does awesome stuff, and she's female. That alone is good. The fact that her character is poor could be down to a whole range or reasons. The recent Rhianna Pratchett interview showed just how complicated writing a character for games is, even with the best of intentions.

Agreed with all you are saying ITT. A game can be made, in whole or in part, to titillate a specific audience and that's okay.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

I can't believe this thread got completely derailed by one little comment.

It's a women saying critical things about video games. Anonymous men on the internet can't help but pick a part such a basic if needed statement.

 

[ar4757]

GG was indeed some total bull shit.

That said I'm not really on board with the rest of her point here. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense or really apply to the environment of current Western games

yup, and I doubt she even is aware of the super niche Japanese games that do this, you know, the vita games

 

[SapientWolf]

Read chrominance's post:

I'm still curious as to what games she's talking about, as the refrigerator trope isn't very common in games. It's more of a lazy comic book plot device. And the phrase "for sport" heavily implies player input.

She might be referring to GTA, but I'm not sure what the solution would be other than removing all women NPCs. The franchise is built on player freedom combined with tools of destruction.

 

[Crimson_Echidna]

I can't believe this thread got completely derailed by one little comment.

It's like clockwork. Rather than address the actually intent of what she was saying, it's far easier to play the semantics game because then you can dismiss her point while still appearing to be "reasonable."

 

[Basketball]

I mean lame reboot Lara moaning

well how much of the blame should go to her shitty voice actress.


Best/Classic Lara died in pretty bad ways minus the blood (eaten alive/burned/impaled/shot ... you name it)

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

The objectification of women is rooted in misogyny. It devalues women as people and reduces them to an object for male pleasure.

Yup. I edited.

 

[Mael]

I mean lame reboot Lara moaning

well how much of the blame should go to her shitty voice actress.


Best/Classic Lara died in pretty bad ways minus the blood (eaten alive/burned/impaled/shot ... you name it)

Yup the blame is totally on the voice actress and not the director who required this of the actress...

 

[hiim_haz]

Jesus the responses to this are awful.

Adds more weight to her point

 

[Harlequin]

But none of those men who she kills begin moaning like Lara does. No one is going to confuse their death cries with the sound of a person having an orgasm.

I think a lot of that is a matter of interpretation TBH. People thinking that her moans sound sexual just because they're female moans and the context they usually hear female moans in is probably porn. If you had a male character moaning as much and as loudly as she does, I don't think there'd be nearly as many people saying it sounds sexual simply because it'd be a male voice doing the moaning. (That being said, I do think that she moans and whines too much in the game but that's more because I find it annoying, not so much because I think it sounds sexual. But then I generally don't like the TR reboot games or any of Crystal Dynamics' interpretations of Lara Croft... even though the outfits they're putting on her nowadays are certainly less ridiculous than what she used to wear.)

 

[Basketball]

I think a lot of that is a matter of interpretation TBH. People thinking that her moans sound sexual just because they're female moans and the context they usually hear female moans in is probably porn. If you had a male character moaning as much and as loudly as she does, I don't think there'd be nearly as many people saying it sounds sexual simply because it'd be a male voice doing the moaning.

. good point

 

[Lime]

Sexual objectification is not misogyny. Misogyny is a dislike or hatred of women.

How isn't sexual objectification misogyny?

I think that's a wishful intepretation of her statement. "You're still making billions of dollars off games that maim and dump women for sport" -> 'You're using tropes that use women as disposable objects to push a video-game narrative forward', and I'm not sure that was the intent of what she said.

I'm still curious as to what games she's talking about, as the refrigerator trope isn't very common in games. It's more of a lazy comic book plot device. And the phrase "for sport" heavily implies player input.

She might be referring to GTA, but I'm not sure what the solution would be other than removing all women NPCs. The franchise is built on player freedom combined with tools of destruction.

(sexualized) violence against women is a thing in video games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i_RPr9DwMA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DInYaHVSLr8

Read:

Developers regularly utilize the brutalization of women's bodies, and especially the bodies of female prostitutes, as an indicator of just how harsh, cruel and unforgiving their game worlds are.
In some of the most pernicious examples, dead or mutilated female bodies are used to decorate virtual game environments as a way to invoke a sexually charged creepy mood or edgy atmosphere.

[...]

Well, the pattern of utilizing women as background decoration works to reinforce the myth that women are naturally fated to be objectified, vulnerable, and perpetually victimized by male violence. These games also tend to frame misogyny and sexual exploitation as an everlasting fact of life, as something inescapable and unchangeable.

This dominant narrative surrounding the inevitability of female objectification and victimhood is so powerful that it not only defines our concepts of reality but it even sets the parameters for how we think about entirely fictional worlds, even those taking place in the realms of fantasy and science fiction. It's so normalized that when these elements are critiqued, the knee-jerk response I hear most often is that if these stories did not include the exploitation of women, then the game worlds would feel too "unrealistic" or "not historically accurate".

What does it say about our culture when games routinely bend or break the laws of physics and no one bats an eye? When dragons, ogres and magic are inserted into historically influenced settings without objection. We are perfectly willing to suspend our disbelief when it comes to multiple lives, superpowers, health regeneration and the ability to carry dozens of weapons and items in a massive invisible backpack. But somehow the idea of a world without sexual violence and exploitation is deemed too strange and too bizarre to be believable.

The truth is that objectification and sexual violence are neither normal nor inevitable. We do not have to accept them as some kind of necessary cultural backdrop in our media stories. Contrary to popular belief, the system of patriarchy has not existed for all of history across all time and all cultures. And as such it can be changed. It is possible to imagine fictional worlds, even of the dark, twisted dystopian variety, where the oppression and exploitation of women is not framed as something expected and inevitable.

When we see fictional universes challenging or even transcending systemic gender oppression, it subverts the dominant paradigm within our collective consciousness, and helps make a more just society feel possible, tangible and within reach.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

It got derailed because she put out a hypothesis instead of a statement by not giving any examples to back up her claims. If she did people could agree, disagree, whatever; instead we get people confused as to who she's pointing out, people speculating about who she's pointing out and people disagreeing with those speculations. It's just not a great quote and doesn't lend itself well to discussion no matter how much you agree with her (I do, but that's literally all I can say as I don't know what she means outside of that). Even without the maiming comment she could mean anything ranging from online harassment in multiplayer games to the depictions of women in singleplayer ones.

I'm not focusing on who she's pointing the finger to with that quote. Her argument is that the entire industry is just laying low in the midst of GG doing their thing.

 

[prag16]

Maybe you two should read the entire thread.

I have. What of it? It's basically a bunch of people telling you they don't think your examples are valid. What further context are we missing? My original point and questions still stand.

 

[plasmawave]

...The context is you just walked into Poseidon's harem as the game subverts expectations and subjects you not to a sex minigame as you'd assume, but has you kill them.

Your interpretation of this achievement's semantics require Kratos to not consider throwing someone into a grinder an act of killing but that the grinder somehow stole the kill from him. C'mon son.

That is quite a stretch.

 

[Nerazar]

The objectification of women is rooted in misogyny. It devalues women as people and reduces them to an object for male pleasure.

Males and females get objectified in the process of creating a game. Those people you interact with in the game? Objects. And you decide what happens with them. I don't really feel devaluated with that process and I personally couldn't care less if there are women out there who get some pleasure out of killing male characters in games (you kill a lot(!) more males than females in almost every setting) - that is the beauty of the medium.

So while I see that authors would have to open up their writing a little bit, I don't see that game devlopers are actively hating women while making their visions come true. If anything, game publishers are to blame for not stepping in and moderating toxic behavior online. And of course all of us who encounter it while playing without reacting to it.

 

[Mael]

I'm not focusing on who she's pointing the finger to with that quote. Her argument is that the entire industry is just laying low in the midst of GG doing their thing.

Well....is that wrong?

 

[Van Bur3n]

Also, Ashley Judd is aiming in the wrong direction. She needs to aim her vitriol at publishers, not the game developers. Her heart is in the right place but she doesn't seem to understand the industry well enough to know how it works.

This is how I feel. She doesn't seem to come off as too informed. Especially with the "maim and dump women for sport" part. That latter part sounds like the same garbage we've heard before from people who know little of the industry.

 

[notaskwid]

Nice job proving her point.

 

[hiim_haz]

Well....is that wrong?

Absolutely, don't know how this can even be questioned.