That's fine then, honestly.
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Dustin Browder apologizes for the RPS interview
- Thread starter Dawg
- Start date
That's fine then, honestly.
ITT: Malfurion is a monster thing, but NE female is a totally legit woman. Yeah, right.
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
I blame our dirty, dirty minds. We have to stop thinking about sex so much, before it's too late.
spandexmonkey
Banned
Helps to lump all women together, they all clearly find this demeaning. It really is this black and white.
Criticising a creative work and suggesting it could and should be better is not censorship. It can be censure.
I think the post I quoted was stupid and you should edit it. Right now it reads like you don't understand what censorship actually is...
That's me criticising your post and asking / pressuring you to change. If I worked for the government and used the power of the state to change it against your will, that would be censorship.
Off-Kilter
Banned
Spehornoob
Member
Asking tough questions is good. And Browder gave a good answer, if a bit shallow.
The fact that the interviewer went on a clearly biased rant afterwards was the annoying part. But classy move on Browder for apologizing, even if I don't think he needed to.
The fact that the interviewer went on a clearly biased rant afterwards was the annoying part. But classy move on Browder for apologizing, even if I don't think he needed to.
It doesn't, just an observation to the "all this half naked male stuff are big monster dudes". And I don't think you can dismiss it. It's more that guys understand the male power fantasy better than women, but often miss the mark of the female power fantasy being "they'll be ultra beautiful and powerful, and the way we'll portray this is for them to be revealing, but more so than our other female characters, so super revealing..." and you run into problems like Tera does where high level armor is essentially pasties and g-strings.
Wait, so having strong female characters is irrelevant if they fit some physical archetype?? All that matters is their physical appearance? Also, I think most women don't find this offensive. I'm sure some do, but you can always find something that upsets someone.
and so what's the solution? Should all game designers be mandated to put in female characters who, to their audience (and based on society's definition of beauty) aren't as attractive? I'm not sure that would help anyone.
This all seems silly to me. Feels like going to a Nora Roberts signing and yelling at her that all her male protagonists are too handsome and good in the sack.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
To get to work, I would assume. Wait. I might be thinking of a different kind of rabbit.
Anyway! I dunno, I wouldn't be apologizing for "gotcha" journalism so much as I would just try to be a company where females would feel more comfortable buying games from. And considering a large percentage OF lady gamers tend to play MMOs (and co-op/multi-player games in general), and Blizzard has the largest MMO, I think they're doing okay already. But you can always do better.
Pretty much this. This is the best way to handle it, imo.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, that's the thing that gets me. I guess the female gamers who like the outfit just aren't interested in empowering themselves according to Grayson?
Some Nobody
Junior Member
The problem feminists have when they try to address these comments is that they try to create some different form of equivalency. But they don't have to. Females are often portrayed in an oversexualized manner and any other way is so out of the ordinary that people have to point it out. There IS no equivalence for males because males simply aren't treated this way. You can pretend like you care when you see a good-looking, half-naked, muscular guy in ads or on television or whatever...but you really don't. Women do, and its because society has taught them to. Until we get away from that, there will continue to be a problem.
No, I'm not a feminist. Some shit's just obvious.
Because there's a difference between asking tough poignant questions and using an interview to begin proselytizing about the demise of values the modern game while implying that the person they are interviewing is part of that failure.
It's as if everyone in games media discovered the existence of feminism a few months ago and have now made it a purpose to include ideological and value based judgements to everything that passes under their nose.
There's an art to asking questions.
I have no problem with the topics being discussed, and it sucks that these "interviews" are so controlled that they stop being interviews, but someone doing something different doesn't mean it's noble or good.
It's just like the college freshman who just discovered the existence of transcendentalism or Randian garbage and wants to incorporate it into every single writing and conversation that they have. It's nice to expand your horizons but you still sound like an amateur.
I laugh every time I read Trope in reviews as if the word and the context in which it was used is some novel thing that academics have let them in on. It's existence can be the basis of all critical thought. Has a trope? Game is "problematic" without any need to do anything other than make trite, surface-level remarks about a game that makes you "feel bad."
I guess my point is that doing something isn't better than nothing. Doing something well is what matters.
He's the first mortal druid, what do you expect? And if you knew his background, you would see how vulnerable and weak he was, how he was poisoned into a wake-less slumber for over a millennia, and how much he has been beaten. He is anything but a male power fantasy in how he's written, which is very grounded in his character.
I don't see how that's a problem. It's a wonderful fantasy world where pasties and g-strings allow her to defend herself much better than any plate armor ever could.
Full disclosure, I don't know any WOW lore, I am purely going off the designs at face value.
Ohyou.jpg
Sometimes I feel like half my department does is apologize non-stop. It's weird because companies are so large that the person making the decision that runs aground and the person apologizing for the same decision are never the same person.
On the point of the interview... It feels like this was a kind of awkward place to ask this question right? All the questions prior seem to be on point, gameplay, aesthetics, development... Then this question kind of comes out of left field, yeah? I find it amazing he even answered it at all, devs talking at their own big release stuff tend not to delve into social issues and how they correlate to their game, unless it was a survival horror title and the social issues were actually correlating to their game. What did that Rev3 guy say? "Gotta get them comments!"?
This is what is wrong with the media today. The interviewee just comes to expect softball questions and if the media simply does their job and asks some hard questions now they have people coming to their defense saying "He got blindsided out of nowhere with these questions! How dare they! Don't they know they have the privilege to even talk to this glorious Game God?!?!?!
staticneuron
Member
Some of these are not like the others.
Entertainment medium is an art form. An artform that can be taken from any point of view and any time period in terms of social construct. Do not try to blame society ills on an entertainment medium. The medium is not the cause, it is the reflection.
Well said!
What's funny is that I'm kinda being serious. It's a video game. It's not the real world nor is it an accurate reflection of the real world. In this video game world, women wear g-strings and pasties and go into battle. It is widely accepted and understandable. There are also monsters and magic, which are all also acceptable and understandable.
It's funny you mention that because back when WoW first came out, my gf got me playing it but would refuse to consider playing as any of the Horde races at the time (Orc, Tauren, Troll, Undead) despite the fact that they largely have better racial abilities specifically because she wanted play a female character that was at least somewhat sexy and at the time there was no such choice on the Horde side.
It was actually a problem for the game as a whole, because the majority of players wanted to play as the sexy races (human and night elf) and as such many of the servers were inordinately weighted towards Alliance players. Blizzard responded by giving the Horde the sexiest race (for both sexes) that they could come up with (Blood Elf).
Point being: a lot of people don't find sex disempowering. Quite on the contrary, and particularly in fantasy games where you're creating your own character, it's fun to be able to choose an aspirational form.
That's playing off the issue because it's centered around fantasy, which, if fantasy bucked the trend, would be fine. It doesn't though, in fact designs like these are so common place in fantasy settings that it's one of the most common excuses for basically only designing clothing for women that is entirely revealing. And again, if it was just one game, you could write it off as being one game, there are other games to play, but nearly every game does this, fantasy games especially. So where is the female gamer who doesn't want her character to be half naked or forced to fight with her tits out (sometimes literally) supposed to go? Why aren't there more choices? Why is the only option for women who want to play video games sexy or more sexy?
These are the questions that designers need to get asked.
And that's a fantastic point because I am not saying that people should stop following their artistic hearts. Tera has some fucking laughable female designs, but it also has some quite beautiful ones that aren't totally pandering. People need to be given more of a choice when it comes to the characters they play because sexy is relative. "Good" means a much different thing to you than it does to me, and in the gaming world, there are a huge number of women who aren't even catered to, let alone pandered to.
Spehornoob
Member
Can someone explain to me why half-naked, athletic women are oppressive while half-naked, chiseled men are a male power fantasy?
Maybe there's an element of sexuality and power fantasizing going on with how both genders are portrayed.
Maybe there's an element of sexuality and power fantasizing going on with how both genders are portrayed.
He implied that developers that actively try to be more inclusive on their games or go out of their way to create stronger minority characters are doing it because there is some personal gain in it.
Haunted
Member
Dustin loves his destructible rocks.
He certainly picked an awkward manner in which to ask the question. But to your point, what else is an interview for but to ask questions? Moreover, the surprising part of the exchange was his apparent unpreparedness to respond to a topic that is (a) at the forefront of discussion in gaming; (b) apparently especially problematic in the genre he's publishing in; and (c) in which his company has, at best, a lukewarm track record.
Though I suppose the fact that he wasn't expecting this line of questioning might be telling.
I'd like to point out what I found problematic for you and anyone else who shares your view, because I don't think I'm speaking just for myself.
"Were not sending a message to anybody. Were just making characters who look cool."
Character design decisions are meaningful and impart information about that character and the game they are in. A game like TERA Online most certainly sends a message.
"Were not running for President."
It seems to me like he's saying sexist representation doesn't matter because it's just a game. That is a horrible attitude to take. Almost half of all the people who play video games are women. It's important to keep an eye out for sexist design decisions not just to avoid alienating your potential audience, but to be a responsible media producer who doesn't want to contribute to a culture's sexist elements.
"Uh-huh. Cool. Totally."
The interviewer's point is completely dismissed at this point. How are we to expect Browder to act if there is an actual backlash to a future design decision?
Again, you are being interviewed, be ready for anything. Sorry, in real journalism, you don't get a script of the questions ahead of time and decide what question you lead in with or end the interview with. When the person getting interviewed does get those questions ahead of time, its a fluff piece of no substance. If the developer "didn't have enough time" to answer the question he should have said that the issue required more explanation and he would address at a later time.
Was about to ask the same thing. RPS telling me what I need to be offended by is getting old.
That's fair. Shutting the whole thing down in a very succinct manner like that probably would have been the best way to go at the time, though it would probably come off as pretty callous, and I bet RPS still would have written 2 follow up articles about the way the interview ended.
I'm willing to say that there are no winners in this fight, but I'm not going to excuse RPS's behavior because everyone being interviewed should be on their toes.
I believe that pop culture and media, amongst other things, shape our ideals and frames of reference. If pop culture and media is skewed one way (objectifying women, for instance), society will stop questioning these portrayals.
Who decides whether or not it's sexist, you?
He was unprepared for a debate.
He handled the actual question just fine. He was very honest in saying that they are just focused on making cool characters. What followed weren't questions, it was the RPS guy telling him why he was wrong.
Rex Griswold
Member
Yeah this is....no. I see where you're trying to go with this, but...
Blizzard is just as guilty of this stuff as any other game developer out there.
I understand the point that's trying to be made with this image, but that point is completely undermined unless it's stated that of all those images, I count four, maybe five, that are actually either in-game or official artwork by Blizzard. Most of it is fan art, including the most suggestive images.
My two cents on this matter: The question that RPS asked was a great question, and one that really does need to be asked more often. However, it's completely disingenuous to ask a deep question like that at the very end of an interview(especially when you know that you're running out of time). It doesn't help that the question devolved into a lecture on a soap box.
Journalism that brings out critical thinking and asks tough questions is wonderful. Asking those tough questions at the last minute, cornering someone and using "gotcha!" tactics, and lecturing your subject as opposed to actually letting them answer is NOT good journalism.
I agree on your point -- I just don't think Blizzard should be the primary target on that point because in their biggest game the choices are really quite abundant. In fact, if you really want a skimpy armor set for a sexy female character in WoW, you have to pick specific class and race combinations to achieve it. If you end up playing a caster, you'll probably be wearing robes and will never be half-naked. It's certainly not the case that you're constantly encountering scantily-clad female characters in that game -- unless some idiot is running around in their underwear it's pretty rare.
I think the reason we have people coming here asking questions like "I thought GAF wanted games journalists to act as something other than corporate PR" even though we all obviously know that the forum is thousands of people large is because nearly everyone in this entire thread is viciously defending Browder. There is a similar, stronger consensus on GAF on the quality of games journalism.
These are at odds, and that's why the question is being raised. Nobody disputes the fact that there are lots of differing opinions here. But there exists a consensus on many topics as well.
These are at odds, and that's why the question is being raised. Nobody disputes the fact that there are lots of differing opinions here. But there exists a consensus on many topics as well.
1. Both Diablo and Warcraft are set in midevil settings, where a lot of those types of armors (that were revealing) were pretty much the norm. And lore would be pretty friggin' important to learn about to see that most of the women depicted in said armor are pretty independent minded (there are normal shirts toons can wear underneath their armor in WoW if they so choose). Shouldn't it be up to the person wearing the stuff if they want to dress that way or not? Wouldn't that be beyond sexism and into the bounds of slavery at that point?
2. I don't see where people don't get that it wasn't just the "difficult question" that got this going, but it was the wording of the question and how many times did he reword the exact same fucking question when he didn't get the answer he wanted, all while already having the opinion he wanted, and tried to just get validation. I'm not sure how people cannot see that point we're making in that interview. Regardless of subject matter, and regardless of WHO he was, RPS had no right to try to bait an answer out of ANYONE like that! PERIOD!
2. I don't see where people don't get that it wasn't just the "difficult question" that got this going, but it was the wording of the question and how many times did he reword the exact same fucking question when he didn't get the answer he wanted, all while already having the opinion he wanted, and tried to just get validation. I'm not sure how people cannot see that point we're making in that interview. Regardless of subject matter, and regardless of WHO he was, RPS had no right to try to bait an answer out of ANYONE like that! PERIOD!
If he'd handled the question fine these topics wouldn't exist.
spandexmonkey
Banned
As someone who enjoys such content, it's really not as common as you make it out to be. Most western developers don't have it anymore, what was the last AAA western game that featured playable half naked women? It's mostly military outfits, full body suits or layers and layers of cloth thanks to Lord of the Rings. Sure some of WoW's npcs or promotional art may feature some cleavage, but ingame you have to find 9 year old armor to show some skin.
I think variety is already here if you want it (so many games nowadays...) and the best won fights recently are stuff like getting female soldiers in CoD. And personally, I feel if a game is going to jump into sexy town frolics, be equitable, sexy warrior lady next to side O beef brawn face is not cool (Rift). Or if the men gotta be gruff in full armor, so to the ladies (XCom). Thats just me though.
Eastern games on the other hand are like the last free range of sexy for the fun of it. And they seem to be at least starting to get more sexy men into the mix. Tera's castanics and high elves.
Whoever has the soundest reasoning. So yes, me. ;-)
Agreed. Blizzard is just the focus of this particular story as they're not innocent of it, but from the blizzard games i've played, they are a far cry from the worst offenders.
If we're looking at the MOBA game, the secondary female designs may be a little lazy, but the last thing I'd call them is hyper sexualized.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
It's good he apologized, hopefully the brigade will pass onto another target quickly. The quicker developers learn they will always be wrong when questioned, the better.
If you've ever been part of this sort of media circus time of interview, ie 'game just came out', 'trying to hype up sales pre-launch', or 'new asset drops, time to give exclusives to press outlets' then you usually have a room reserved at a large event dedicated to the game, with at least one or more PR representatives in the room with you. This is a good place to ask questions about the game, like availability, platforms, pricing, etc. The difference with these events is you often have to assume the role of your position and not your personal opinion.
But this sort of question I usually hear at either A) game developer conferences, or B) seminars by related industry events (like the Writer's Guild of America writing in video games award panel). This is a great place to ask people about making games and their personal philosophies, what they think is great in the industry and what they think is wrong. I've heard people decry working conditions here, explain the difficulty of gender equality in the workplace and their personal stories of succumbing to and overcoming difficulties in working for a large company in the course of making a game.
I find a discussion about gender ethics in a PR-laden hype show as out of place as a discussion about pricing and availability during a panel about how to avoid crunch through responsible scheduling. I've been in too many of these situations to say that the Blizz guy knew that question was coming.
During a Q&A of 'Lord of the Rings: Return of the King' , Peter Jackson was asked what the strangest question he was asked about the film was. He replied that he was asked in front of a crowd of journalists for Christian magazines and news outlets if Aragorn was the representation of Jesus Christ in the film. A savvy interviewee would say he should have expected it, given his audience and setting. But that was so far away from what he was expecting and what he had come to expect during his press junket that he was blown away by it. Sometimes a question just comes at you sideways, y'know?
Note: I have no problem with the question in and of itself, and it is something we have to be incredibly aware of and strike a great balance between creative license and cultural responsibility.