Since early last year, we have started to see more threads on NeoGAF discussing various representation issues in games. Threads about the representation of women and related issues like sexism, threads about minority and LGBT representation and people calling these issues out. Across these threads, I noticed that certain flawed arguments or disingenuous positions keep finding their way into these discussions, undermining them and ultimately steering discussions away from the actual issues. As it has become rather frustrating to try and point these things out in every single thread ad infinitum, I felt I should make this thread to address some of the more commonly used arguments and how they are flawed. I believe moving away from these types of arguments would go a long way in acknowledging the issues in the gaming industry when it comes to diversity and representation issues. I hope this thread might give some insight into why these arguments are flawed, or at the very least provide a basis for discussion on these arguments and others like them.
EDIT: While most of the examples I used relate to sexism and female protagonists, it goes without saying that representation issues are prevalent in the industry across race / sexuality / nationality / culture / religion / etc. and their intersections. I want to encourage you to search the web for articles on these issues. One article I will link here is Video Games' Blackness Problem, brought to my attention in this thread by Heart of Black.
One of the more popular arguments is that artistic integrity / creative freedom is important and that discussing diversity issues / criticizing developers for the content of their game or the statements they make infringes upon that artistic integrity. When a decision or statement by a developer is criticized for being insensitive / ignorant in regards to representation issues, someone will come in and say how they value creative freedom and how developers should be free to make any choice they want. This line of thinking implies that those criticizing the decision / statement are ‘against' creative freedom and singles out diversity issues and discussion of them as a form of censorship.
But why are discussion and criticism supposedly so specifically infringing on freedoms when it concerns diversity issues? In every creative medium, we have criticized and discussed creative decisions made by creators, criticized and discussed the impact of creative works, etc. That discussion itself does not tear down artistic freedoms. Criticism is not censorship. When George Lucas had the idea that Jar-Jar was ‘the key to all this', we criticized him, did we not? When he wrote dialogue about sand, he was criticized, was he not? Was that infringing on his artistic freedom?
And of course we criticize and discuss many, many, creative decisions made by game developers too. Bioware got criticized when the ending of Mass Effect 3 disappointed. Ready at Dawn got criticized for their use of black bars in The Order 1886 and their choice to make a cinematic game. Final Fantasy XIII got criticized for being linear. Adam Orth got criticized for his statements on always-online. Keiji Inafune and his Mighty No.9 got criticized for a whole slew of reasons, including a line in a trailer for the game. Why is criticism okay in those instances, but infringing on creative freedom when it's about diversity and representation issues?
If we look at the issue of sexism in particular, everybody generally seems fine with calling out Hideo Kojima when he says his sexualized characters will have the best story ( Late pre-post edit: Apparently not? ) or when he says ‘you will be ashamed of your words and deeds';
But then when Eiji Aonuma says this:
Or the marketing director of Final Fantasy XV says this:
Or when someone speaks out against the industry or brings an issue to light, then suddenly people come in and to say how developers have creative freedom and we shouldn't criticize them or talk about issues, because that somehow infringes on that freedom. This dangerously likens discussion of an issue and criticism to censorship and provides no real basis for further discussion.
Artistic integrity and creative freedom are important, but they are not shields to deflect criticism or discussion with and should not be used as such. If you want to invoke artistic integrity, first think about why you feel the topic at hand is so especially infringing on it and think about whether that feeling is justified or not. Is something actually damaging creative freedoms, or are you creating a straw man by assuming that criticism equates to wanting to ‘force' a developer to do something?
EDIT: This post by Nepenthe adds to this section by explaining why using 'artistic integrity' to deflect criticism devalues artists.
EDIT: I made a post clarifying why I included the Aonuma quotes + general Zelda discussion notes.
Also common are a range of arguments / comments based on the status quo, or rather people's perception of the status quo and a belief that it cannot or should not change.
Probably the most popular of these is the perpetuation of the myth that the gaming market exists overwhelmingly out of ( white ) men and that this means a female ( or black ) protagonist is not profitable or viable. There are several issues with this. First, the market is much less male-dominant than people often claim ( 'Active console gamers at 60/40 gender split, usage data & genre preferences revealed' for one example ). Second, the argument assumes that this market is static and that demographics cannot ( or in some cases even should not ) change. Third, it assumes the market acts as a monolith ( as in; all male gamers are not interested in a female protagonist and all white gamers are not interested in a non-white protagonist ). And fourth, there is no significant proof available to us that tells us having - for example - a female protagonist by itself makes a game less profitable.
Continuing with female protagonists as example; some people might be tempted to bring up past games with female protagonists - games like Bayonetta 2, Gravity Rush, Mirror's Edge 2, and Rise of the Tomb Raider - and point out how they did not sell well in comparison to AAA titles with male protagonists, but that glosses over the context in which titles like those were released. Bayonetta 2 and Gravity Rush were niche games on platforms with small install bases, with no significant marketing backing to speak of. Mirror's Edge 2 was poorly marketed and then released with little to no fanfare - to the extent that even some people here on GAF didn't know it had released. Rise of the Tomb Raider skipped the PS4 for a year and lost people who were disappointed with the Tomb Raider reboot. Etc. Nothing points to games like these failing because they have a female protagonist.
There simply have been no recent AAA releases with female protagonists to base this claim on. This is why it will be important to look at Horizon: Zero Dawn and The Last of Us Part II; two flagship AAA titles featuring a female protagonist with full marketing backing from a huge publisher ( thanks, Sony, and probably Naughty Dog for their work with The Last of Us ). If games supposedly are less profitable purely for having a female protagonist, then surely we will be able to see that impact in the performance of these games?
Another point for the ‘status quo'-category: comments on how we're already doing well and should ‘let the developers do their work'. These comments often point to a limited amount of positive examples to claim that the issue is not that bad. For example; saying ‘look at Horizon: Zero Dawn and the Last of Us Part II; they have female protagonists, we're doing fine!' while completely ignoring that we are only just now getting these AAA titles with female protagonists. Generally, there's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out and championing positive examples. The problem lies in that a lot of these comments use these positive examples to excuse negative examples or to attempt to dismiss the existence of an issue entirely. ‘There is no issue, because good examples exist.' / ‘This issue isn't that big, because some progress is being made'. This takes away from the discussion on the issue by trying to argue that the issue ‘isn't really that bad'. Instead of acknowledging the issue and discussing it, it becomes about negotiating how bad the issue is.  
One interesting tool that has found its way into diversity discussions is the shoehorn. Some people claim that campaigning for diversity and representation will lead to developers and publishers ‘shoehorning in' minority characters. Others voice their concerns about the writing of potential minority characters, going so far as to say that they are okay with minority characters, ‘but only if the writing is good'. This concern and talk about hypotheticals is used by some to argue against inclusion of minority characters.
One of the underlying problems with the ‘only ok if the writing is good' argument is that it holds non-male / non-white / non-straight characters to a higher standard of writing than male / white / straight characters. It imposes an arbitrary requirement for the inclusion of a minority character to be acceptable, whereas no such requirement is imposed on white / male / straight characters. It argues that they are not equal and that they should not be treated equally. A bland cookie-cutter white male protagonist is acceptable and in-offensive because it is seen as the ‘default', but a poorly written minority character is seen as unacceptable to the point that some argue against inclusion of them as a whole. Criticizing poorly written minority characters for their poor writing is absolutely justified, but arguing that minority characters shouldn't be included because they could possibly be written poorly is not. This double standard, this perception of the ‘white straight male default', is problematic.
Some push this idea further and say they are concerned that publishers will force developers to include minority characters in their games. These people seem to ignore the current reality, where some publishers outright reject game ideas for having a female protagonist; for example, Dontnod Entertainment had several publishers tell them that they could not have a female protagonist in Remember Me and said they faced similar resistance when trying to find a publisher for Life is Strange. Naughty Dog had to step in themselves during development of The Last of Us to get the research group to use female focus testers and faced resistance for wanting Ellie to be prominently featured on the cover. What they fear is already happening, just in a different way, and that is part of the issues we discuss that these arguments are attempting to push against. This also links back to the concerns about ‘artistic integrity'; if you are truly a champion of creative freedom, should you not stand here with us to speak out against this current culture in the industry?
On top of that, there's also a ‘general' layer of double standard in the sense that certain things are reflexively considered ‘pandering' by some. An LGBT+ character being open about their sexuality is ‘forced', yet nobody complains about characters being openly heterosexual. Why is the idea of LGBT+ relationships so particularly offsetting to some, while they accept the relationship between Nathan and Elena as normal?
This double standard is also a consistent factor in other arguments pointed out in this post. Characters having relationships is fine, but not if they aren't heterosexual, because that's ‘shoehorning' and ‘pandering' and ‘politics'. Criticizing developers for creative decisions is fine, but not when it comes to diversity issues, because that infringes on ‘artistic integrity' and ‘creative freedoms'. Games being political is fine, but not when it comes to representation issues, because then ‘it's shoving things down my throat'.
Another regular feature in diversity threads is people claiming that they ‘don't see race' and similar claims.
Some believe this ‘race-blindness' is a virtue; after all, it means that they see everyone as equal, and that is a good thing, right? The term is used by many with the intention to say ‘I am blind to race, therefore everyone should be treated equally' - something which does not seem controversial at first glance. The problem comes when this is used as an argument against diversity, inclusivity, or representation. Why would wanting everyone to be treated equally be an argument against those things?
The essence is that when some people say they ‘don't see race', it often instead means that they do not see racial issues. It is not that they want everyone to be treated equally, it is that they believe that people are currently already being treated equally. In this context, this argument is then used to argue against diversity and inclusivity, because those things are seen as things that break the ‘existing' equality. This sweeps existing issues under the rug while at the same time claiming to be on the moral high ground for ‘supporting equality'. It is not blindness to race, it is blindness to race-related issues. It is almost inevitable that someone takes the concept of ‘race-blindness' to its flawed conclusion.
By claiming to have moral high ground, the door is closed to further discussion, because if you argue against this, some will claim that those arguing for diversity or representation are actually the ones in the wrong because ‘they are dividing people by race or sex or orientation'. After all, if you truly think everyone is equal, then everybody is the same, and thus there is no point in arguing for more diversity or representation because it is not needed. This same basic way of thinking is what led to ‘all lives matter'. It shifts the blame of the issue existing onto the people who call the issue out.
See also: 2064: Read Only Memories devs tell Trump voters to skip their game and people claiming that calling out fascism is pretty much the same as fascism itself. A.k.a. ‘if you are truly tolerant, you should respect and be accepting of people who actively push policies that directly restrict your rights because all ideologies are equal'. It basically turns into 'no, you!'.
The concept of ‘colour-blindness' does not contribute positively to discussion or acknowledgement of issues. It is overwhelmingly used to excuse other flawed arguments by claiming to be on the moral high ground and in some cases it distracts from the actual issue by attempting to pin the existence of that issue on the party that calls it out.
There are plenty of articles and opinion pieces out there describing the many ways in which the general concept of ‘colour-blindness' is flawed ( Colorblind Ideology Is a Form of Racism for example ), which I also encourage people to check out.
Lastly I'd like to shortly touch on people shifting the discussion to being about the source of a story rather than the story itself. Whenever a diversity thread is discussing a report / opinion / remark from a source that is not NeoGAF, there are people who make an effort - either consciously or not - to discredit that source. In the Only 3% of games shown at E3 keynotes featured exclusively female protagonists thread, people tried to frame Feminist Frequency as ‘cherry-picking results', and in the recent Ashley Judd calls out gaming industry in TEDtalk for hypocritical stance on GamerGate thread, the entire discussion warped around a single comment she made and speculation around that comment. Any thread on diversity issues is likely to attract random ad-hominem attacks or people feeling the need to say they have non-relevant, non-specific ‘issues' with the source.
Now, to be clear; if there are legitimate problems with a source relevant to the issue being discussed, then it is absolutely right to point these out and discuss them. Actual problems can and should be a point of discussion. Most of the time though, it isn't actual problems being discussed; it is people making assumptions and projecting them back at the source. It is arguing about ultimately insignificant technicalities on how the source interpreted their data. It is people ignoring the broader point that is being made to attack a specific comment not immediately relevant to that broader point.
If the source is specific, they are ‘cherry-picking' and framed as biased. In the 3% thread, numerous people dropped in to talk about how they thought Fem Freq was too strict or how they should have included game X or game Y or how they were deliberately making the statistics ‘look worse'. This attitude served only to distract from the actual issue the statistics brought to light. Instead of talking about the lack female protagonists in gaming, they talked about how if only Fem Freq had added this game or counted that game differently, the percentages would have been slightly and ultimately insignificantly different. This also loops back into the ‘it's not really that bad'-argument.
If the source is not specific enough, the discussion gets bogged down with people making assumptions and discussing the possible details of what could have been meant. The Ashley Judd thread warped almost completely around a single part of a single comment she made in her speech on online harassment; ”...games that maim and dump women for sport.". Instead of looking at the larger issue, people began speculating about what games she might have meant with this one comment and then discussing whether or not those games were sexist. The discussion moved away from discussing the actual issue at hand - harassment in the videogame community and the lack of effort from the industry to do something about it - and formed itself around speculation on that one comment.
By attacking or attempting to delegitimize the source when there is no real basis to do so, the discussion moves away from talking about the actual issues. As a positive note; this ‘attacking the source' seems to have mostly disappeared from recent Tropes vs. Women ( Anita Sarkeesian / Feminist Frequency ) threads, though it can be debated whether that is because people realized that it was wrong to do so or because those people started to avoid these threads altogether.
I feel the arguments presented here have more or less the same end result; they distract from the actual issues at hand, whether intentional or not. I believe that these types of arguments hurt discussion on diversity and representation in videogames and think that moving away from using them - or discussing them in centralized thread like this - would go a long way to get certain people to acknowledge some issues in gaming / the industry / the community. Let's move towards acknowledging that certain issues exist, and use that as a platform for discussion instead of trying to argue that issues do not exist.
Great posts from other members;
Weltall Zero and Nepenthe on why it is so frustrating to have to point these things out.
EDIT: Enduin on the importance of introspection and understanding.
Other regular comments I did not point out in detail in this thread;
‘They should make their own games!' - Some people's belief that making AAA games is probably very easy and that if you have an issue you should just go make your own games while not addressing the root of the issue in the larger industry. Adds nothing to the discussion nor indicates a desire to participate in it.
‘Historical accuracy' - A point that can be of legitimate concern for a certain set of games, but in general gets thrown around too much to excuse for shortcomings in games that actually don't really care about historical accuracy at all. Double standard in that certain historical inaccuracies don't really seem to matter, but when it relates to minority representation it's suddenly not acceptable.
'Diversitypocalypse' - The idea that pushing for better representation will eventually lead to a scenario where literally every game has token representation front and center for every possible minority group. An extension of the ‘shoehorning' argument. Some knowingly or unknowingly use this as basis for a straw man ( ‘if you argue for diversity, this is what you want' ).
'Keep politics out of games!' - Recently picking up steam. Some people's belief that politics have no place in videogames, despite the fact that a lot of videogames are already inherently political. This singles out diversity and representation as ‘political issues' that should not be discussed. Often goes paired with a ‘not in my games'-mentality. Related thread on this by Nepenthe: Why Games Don't Feel Like Art.
EDIT: While most of the examples I used relate to sexism and female protagonists, it goes without saying that representation issues are prevalent in the industry across race / sexuality / nationality / culture / religion / etc. and their intersections. I want to encourage you to search the web for articles on these issues. One article I will link here is Video Games' Blackness Problem, brought to my attention in this thread by Heart of Black.
One of the more popular arguments is that artistic integrity / creative freedom is important and that discussing diversity issues / criticizing developers for the content of their game or the statements they make infringes upon that artistic integrity. When a decision or statement by a developer is criticized for being insensitive / ignorant in regards to representation issues, someone will come in and say how they value creative freedom and how developers should be free to make any choice they want. This line of thinking implies that those criticizing the decision / statement are ‘against' creative freedom and singles out diversity issues and discussion of them as a form of censorship.
But why are discussion and criticism supposedly so specifically infringing on freedoms when it concerns diversity issues? In every creative medium, we have criticized and discussed creative decisions made by creators, criticized and discussed the impact of creative works, etc. That discussion itself does not tear down artistic freedoms. Criticism is not censorship. When George Lucas had the idea that Jar-Jar was ‘the key to all this', we criticized him, did we not? When he wrote dialogue about sand, he was criticized, was he not? Was that infringing on his artistic freedom?
And of course we criticize and discuss many, many, creative decisions made by game developers too. Bioware got criticized when the ending of Mass Effect 3 disappointed. Ready at Dawn got criticized for their use of black bars in The Order 1886 and their choice to make a cinematic game. Final Fantasy XIII got criticized for being linear. Adam Orth got criticized for his statements on always-online. Keiji Inafune and his Mighty No.9 got criticized for a whole slew of reasons, including a line in a trailer for the game. Why is criticism okay in those instances, but infringing on creative freedom when it's about diversity and representation issues?
If we look at the issue of sexism in particular, everybody generally seems fine with calling out Hideo Kojima when he says his sexualized characters will have the best story ( Late pre-post edit: Apparently not? ) or when he says ‘you will be ashamed of your words and deeds';
But then when Eiji Aonuma says this:
”You know there's the idea of the Triforce in the Zelda games we make," he told Kotaku. ”The Triforce is made up of Princess Zelda, Ganon and Link. Princess Zelda is obviously female. If we made Link a female we thought that would mess with the balance of the Triforce. That's why we decided not to do it."
"...if we have princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do? Taking into account that, and also the idea of the balance of the Triforce, we thought it best to come back to this [original] makeup."
"...if we have princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do? Taking into account that, and also the idea of the balance of the Triforce, we thought it best to come back to this [original] makeup."
Or the marketing director of Final Fantasy XV says this:
”People say Cindy is too sexy, but they also want female party members. That seems contradictory to me."
Or when someone speaks out against the industry or brings an issue to light, then suddenly people come in and to say how developers have creative freedom and we shouldn't criticize them or talk about issues, because that somehow infringes on that freedom. This dangerously likens discussion of an issue and criticism to censorship and provides no real basis for further discussion.
Artistic integrity and creative freedom are important, but they are not shields to deflect criticism or discussion with and should not be used as such. If you want to invoke artistic integrity, first think about why you feel the topic at hand is so especially infringing on it and think about whether that feeling is justified or not. Is something actually damaging creative freedoms, or are you creating a straw man by assuming that criticism equates to wanting to ‘force' a developer to do something?
EDIT: This post by Nepenthe adds to this section by explaining why using 'artistic integrity' to deflect criticism devalues artists.
EDIT: I made a post clarifying why I included the Aonuma quotes + general Zelda discussion notes.
Also common are a range of arguments / comments based on the status quo, or rather people's perception of the status quo and a belief that it cannot or should not change.
Probably the most popular of these is the perpetuation of the myth that the gaming market exists overwhelmingly out of ( white ) men and that this means a female ( or black ) protagonist is not profitable or viable. There are several issues with this. First, the market is much less male-dominant than people often claim ( 'Active console gamers at 60/40 gender split, usage data & genre preferences revealed' for one example ). Second, the argument assumes that this market is static and that demographics cannot ( or in some cases even should not ) change. Third, it assumes the market acts as a monolith ( as in; all male gamers are not interested in a female protagonist and all white gamers are not interested in a non-white protagonist ). And fourth, there is no significant proof available to us that tells us having - for example - a female protagonist by itself makes a game less profitable.
Continuing with female protagonists as example; some people might be tempted to bring up past games with female protagonists - games like Bayonetta 2, Gravity Rush, Mirror's Edge 2, and Rise of the Tomb Raider - and point out how they did not sell well in comparison to AAA titles with male protagonists, but that glosses over the context in which titles like those were released. Bayonetta 2 and Gravity Rush were niche games on platforms with small install bases, with no significant marketing backing to speak of. Mirror's Edge 2 was poorly marketed and then released with little to no fanfare - to the extent that even some people here on GAF didn't know it had released. Rise of the Tomb Raider skipped the PS4 for a year and lost people who were disappointed with the Tomb Raider reboot. Etc. Nothing points to games like these failing because they have a female protagonist.
There simply have been no recent AAA releases with female protagonists to base this claim on. This is why it will be important to look at Horizon: Zero Dawn and The Last of Us Part II; two flagship AAA titles featuring a female protagonist with full marketing backing from a huge publisher ( thanks, Sony, and probably Naughty Dog for their work with The Last of Us ). If games supposedly are less profitable purely for having a female protagonist, then surely we will be able to see that impact in the performance of these games?
Another point for the ‘status quo'-category: comments on how we're already doing well and should ‘let the developers do their work'. These comments often point to a limited amount of positive examples to claim that the issue is not that bad. For example; saying ‘look at Horizon: Zero Dawn and the Last of Us Part II; they have female protagonists, we're doing fine!' while completely ignoring that we are only just now getting these AAA titles with female protagonists. Generally, there's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out and championing positive examples. The problem lies in that a lot of these comments use these positive examples to excuse negative examples or to attempt to dismiss the existence of an issue entirely. ‘There is no issue, because good examples exist.' / ‘This issue isn't that big, because some progress is being made'. This takes away from the discussion on the issue by trying to argue that the issue ‘isn't really that bad'. Instead of acknowledging the issue and discussing it, it becomes about negotiating how bad the issue is.  
One interesting tool that has found its way into diversity discussions is the shoehorn. Some people claim that campaigning for diversity and representation will lead to developers and publishers ‘shoehorning in' minority characters. Others voice their concerns about the writing of potential minority characters, going so far as to say that they are okay with minority characters, ‘but only if the writing is good'. This concern and talk about hypotheticals is used by some to argue against inclusion of minority characters.
One of the underlying problems with the ‘only ok if the writing is good' argument is that it holds non-male / non-white / non-straight characters to a higher standard of writing than male / white / straight characters. It imposes an arbitrary requirement for the inclusion of a minority character to be acceptable, whereas no such requirement is imposed on white / male / straight characters. It argues that they are not equal and that they should not be treated equally. A bland cookie-cutter white male protagonist is acceptable and in-offensive because it is seen as the ‘default', but a poorly written minority character is seen as unacceptable to the point that some argue against inclusion of them as a whole. Criticizing poorly written minority characters for their poor writing is absolutely justified, but arguing that minority characters shouldn't be included because they could possibly be written poorly is not. This double standard, this perception of the ‘white straight male default', is problematic.
Some push this idea further and say they are concerned that publishers will force developers to include minority characters in their games. These people seem to ignore the current reality, where some publishers outright reject game ideas for having a female protagonist; for example, Dontnod Entertainment had several publishers tell them that they could not have a female protagonist in Remember Me and said they faced similar resistance when trying to find a publisher for Life is Strange. Naughty Dog had to step in themselves during development of The Last of Us to get the research group to use female focus testers and faced resistance for wanting Ellie to be prominently featured on the cover. What they fear is already happening, just in a different way, and that is part of the issues we discuss that these arguments are attempting to push against. This also links back to the concerns about ‘artistic integrity'; if you are truly a champion of creative freedom, should you not stand here with us to speak out against this current culture in the industry?
On top of that, there's also a ‘general' layer of double standard in the sense that certain things are reflexively considered ‘pandering' by some. An LGBT+ character being open about their sexuality is ‘forced', yet nobody complains about characters being openly heterosexual. Why is the idea of LGBT+ relationships so particularly offsetting to some, while they accept the relationship between Nathan and Elena as normal?
This double standard is also a consistent factor in other arguments pointed out in this post. Characters having relationships is fine, but not if they aren't heterosexual, because that's ‘shoehorning' and ‘pandering' and ‘politics'. Criticizing developers for creative decisions is fine, but not when it comes to diversity issues, because that infringes on ‘artistic integrity' and ‘creative freedoms'. Games being political is fine, but not when it comes to representation issues, because then ‘it's shoving things down my throat'.
Another regular feature in diversity threads is people claiming that they ‘don't see race' and similar claims.
Some believe this ‘race-blindness' is a virtue; after all, it means that they see everyone as equal, and that is a good thing, right? The term is used by many with the intention to say ‘I am blind to race, therefore everyone should be treated equally' - something which does not seem controversial at first glance. The problem comes when this is used as an argument against diversity, inclusivity, or representation. Why would wanting everyone to be treated equally be an argument against those things?
The essence is that when some people say they ‘don't see race', it often instead means that they do not see racial issues. It is not that they want everyone to be treated equally, it is that they believe that people are currently already being treated equally. In this context, this argument is then used to argue against diversity and inclusivity, because those things are seen as things that break the ‘existing' equality. This sweeps existing issues under the rug while at the same time claiming to be on the moral high ground for ‘supporting equality'. It is not blindness to race, it is blindness to race-related issues. It is almost inevitable that someone takes the concept of ‘race-blindness' to its flawed conclusion.
By claiming to have moral high ground, the door is closed to further discussion, because if you argue against this, some will claim that those arguing for diversity or representation are actually the ones in the wrong because ‘they are dividing people by race or sex or orientation'. After all, if you truly think everyone is equal, then everybody is the same, and thus there is no point in arguing for more diversity or representation because it is not needed. This same basic way of thinking is what led to ‘all lives matter'. It shifts the blame of the issue existing onto the people who call the issue out.
See also: 2064: Read Only Memories devs tell Trump voters to skip their game and people claiming that calling out fascism is pretty much the same as fascism itself. A.k.a. ‘if you are truly tolerant, you should respect and be accepting of people who actively push policies that directly restrict your rights because all ideologies are equal'. It basically turns into 'no, you!'.
The concept of ‘colour-blindness' does not contribute positively to discussion or acknowledgement of issues. It is overwhelmingly used to excuse other flawed arguments by claiming to be on the moral high ground and in some cases it distracts from the actual issue by attempting to pin the existence of that issue on the party that calls it out.
There are plenty of articles and opinion pieces out there describing the many ways in which the general concept of ‘colour-blindness' is flawed ( Colorblind Ideology Is a Form of Racism for example ), which I also encourage people to check out.
Lastly I'd like to shortly touch on people shifting the discussion to being about the source of a story rather than the story itself. Whenever a diversity thread is discussing a report / opinion / remark from a source that is not NeoGAF, there are people who make an effort - either consciously or not - to discredit that source. In the Only 3% of games shown at E3 keynotes featured exclusively female protagonists thread, people tried to frame Feminist Frequency as ‘cherry-picking results', and in the recent Ashley Judd calls out gaming industry in TEDtalk for hypocritical stance on GamerGate thread, the entire discussion warped around a single comment she made and speculation around that comment. Any thread on diversity issues is likely to attract random ad-hominem attacks or people feeling the need to say they have non-relevant, non-specific ‘issues' with the source.
Now, to be clear; if there are legitimate problems with a source relevant to the issue being discussed, then it is absolutely right to point these out and discuss them. Actual problems can and should be a point of discussion. Most of the time though, it isn't actual problems being discussed; it is people making assumptions and projecting them back at the source. It is arguing about ultimately insignificant technicalities on how the source interpreted their data. It is people ignoring the broader point that is being made to attack a specific comment not immediately relevant to that broader point.
If the source is specific, they are ‘cherry-picking' and framed as biased. In the 3% thread, numerous people dropped in to talk about how they thought Fem Freq was too strict or how they should have included game X or game Y or how they were deliberately making the statistics ‘look worse'. This attitude served only to distract from the actual issue the statistics brought to light. Instead of talking about the lack female protagonists in gaming, they talked about how if only Fem Freq had added this game or counted that game differently, the percentages would have been slightly and ultimately insignificantly different. This also loops back into the ‘it's not really that bad'-argument.
If the source is not specific enough, the discussion gets bogged down with people making assumptions and discussing the possible details of what could have been meant. The Ashley Judd thread warped almost completely around a single part of a single comment she made in her speech on online harassment; ”...games that maim and dump women for sport.". Instead of looking at the larger issue, people began speculating about what games she might have meant with this one comment and then discussing whether or not those games were sexist. The discussion moved away from discussing the actual issue at hand - harassment in the videogame community and the lack of effort from the industry to do something about it - and formed itself around speculation on that one comment.
By attacking or attempting to delegitimize the source when there is no real basis to do so, the discussion moves away from talking about the actual issues. As a positive note; this ‘attacking the source' seems to have mostly disappeared from recent Tropes vs. Women ( Anita Sarkeesian / Feminist Frequency ) threads, though it can be debated whether that is because people realized that it was wrong to do so or because those people started to avoid these threads altogether.
I feel the arguments presented here have more or less the same end result; they distract from the actual issues at hand, whether intentional or not. I believe that these types of arguments hurt discussion on diversity and representation in videogames and think that moving away from using them - or discussing them in centralized thread like this - would go a long way to get certain people to acknowledge some issues in gaming / the industry / the community. Let's move towards acknowledging that certain issues exist, and use that as a platform for discussion instead of trying to argue that issues do not exist.
Great posts from other members;
Weltall Zero and Nepenthe on why it is so frustrating to have to point these things out.
EDIT: Enduin on the importance of introspection and understanding.
Other regular comments I did not point out in detail in this thread;
‘They should make their own games!' - Some people's belief that making AAA games is probably very easy and that if you have an issue you should just go make your own games while not addressing the root of the issue in the larger industry. Adds nothing to the discussion nor indicates a desire to participate in it.
‘Historical accuracy' - A point that can be of legitimate concern for a certain set of games, but in general gets thrown around too much to excuse for shortcomings in games that actually don't really care about historical accuracy at all. Double standard in that certain historical inaccuracies don't really seem to matter, but when it relates to minority representation it's suddenly not acceptable.
'Diversitypocalypse' - The idea that pushing for better representation will eventually lead to a scenario where literally every game has token representation front and center for every possible minority group. An extension of the ‘shoehorning' argument. Some knowingly or unknowingly use this as basis for a straw man ( ‘if you argue for diversity, this is what you want' ).
'Keep politics out of games!' - Recently picking up steam. Some people's belief that politics have no place in videogames, despite the fact that a lot of videogames are already inherently political. This singles out diversity and representation as ‘political issues' that should not be discussed. Often goes paired with a ‘not in my games'-mentality. Related thread on this by Nepenthe: Why Games Don't Feel Like Art.
