That's exactly my point - devs when forced to introduce diversity ("there needs to be a Black, Asia, Muslim, gay, etc.") without a clear idea for how that character should contribute to the story will inevitably tokenize or objectify them, assigning them the "typical" role of drunk, thief, terrorist, etc. We should encourage them to do it properly, not to do it because they have to.
But this just loops back into only if the writing is good. The point of discussing these issues is not to force developers to always include minority representations, the point is to get people to acknowledge that certain issues exist and through that eventually get developers to realize that they should address these issues. That is not the same as forcing inclusivity. It is not a mandate. If Rockstar wants to make a story about three guys, or if Naughty Dog wants to make a story about a father, or if Bethesda wants to make a story about Doomguy, etc., then thats absolutely fine. I dont think anybody here is arguing that those things should go away. Stories with and about white male protagonists already exist and will and should always keep existing. Wed just like to also have stories about women, non-straight males, and other races and sexualities. If developers push to include minorities, should we encourage them to do it properly? Absolutely! Get more women and minorities working in the AAA studios! Should we criticize their work if they dont do it properly? Of course! But we should not avoid talking about issues or criticizing bad examples simply for a fear of bad writing, because bad writing already exists and it will never go away.
I'm with you in spirit OP about the lack of diversity/ overabundance of flawed arguments, but IMO it's exactly this tone of talking down to those who think differently that makes it difficult to change minds.
People who insist on a single ideological interpretation as fact, often about games they haven't even played or been released, don't seem to realize their own complicity in polarizing issues (I'm thinking of the Quiet 'controversy' here, which began well before the game released).
Just as all the flawed approaches you've highlighted don't work, neither IMO can elements separated from their context/larger structure be critiqued fairly or accurately. To me, it's a flawed argument to suggest that each and every instance of something people find 'offensive' comes from the same place/motive/purpose.
When we make sloppy generalizations, paint with too broad a brush, and forget context, we progressives can be guilty of presenting pretty flawed arguments ourselves (present company excluded). That, too, can hurt discussions of this sort. (Just my two cents.)
Of course, flawed arguments are not constrained to one side of a discussion. Its just that in this case, I feel that the arguments pointed out in the OP are brought up with such consistency across a variety of threads that it was worth discussing them specifically. I did not write with the intent to generalize, nor do I feel I did - I mostly tried to present the basic arguments and why they are flawed / how they are sometimes driven to extremes. I dont think - nor intend to imply - that all people making arguments like this do this for the same reasons or with the same purpose or intentions.
I can't think of many stories in games that require a specific gender to work either though, even in games with really well written characters and narratives it's rare they explore these characters in ways that would make a gender switch break anything.
Like, there are some very specific stories that could be told that would require a specific gender or sexuality or colour, but really the majority of characters in the majority of games could be gender/colour swapped forever without the stories being affected at all.
Take TLoU and make Joel a women and Ellie a boy, the same story could be told in the exact same way. Is a father's perspective different enough to a mother's that it would change things to the point the story loses impact? I don't think so (unless I'm missing some kind of important subtext).
Certain stories might not require a certain gender to work, but that doesnt mean that switching the gender of the main character would have no effect on the story. Changing the gender / race / whatever of a main character changes the way the audience perceives their actions and relationships. Im copy pasting a bit from a post I made in the 3% thread;
This is different from what we see in most games with a gender toggle, where one mostly neutral / genderless character is written and then male or female skins are applied to them. Most of those games do not have the character actually influencing the story. The player character in Fallout 4 for example does not exhibit any real character traits that influence the story; the story is shaped by player action / player choice, not by the character itself. These characters have no real agency; they are shaped and guided by the player. Written characters are not. Written characters are observed and perceived by the player, not shaped by them. This is why we can have a discussion on the morality of Joels actions at the end of The Last of Us but not about the morality of the player character nuking a town in Fallout. Joel is a character that made certain decision that lead to that final action while the fallout player character is completely controlled by the player that could have made any decision for any reason. Changing the gender of a written character changes our perception of that character by changing the context of their actions, even if these changes are relatively small for certain types of stories.
On the idea of mans story and womans story; some seem to interpret them as stories that need to specifically deal with the gender of the player character in a big way through major themes incorporated in the main story. I would disagree with that. Any story where you play exclusively as a male character is a mans story just as any game where you play exclusively as a female character is a womans story. Those are the lenses that you perceive the story through. Metroid is a womans story because it stars Samus. That her gender is not a major - or even minor - plot element in most of the stories ( *shoots nasty glare at Other M in the corner* ) does not make her story not a womans story.
Fantastic OP! Basically lays the issues I have against anti-diversity arguments bare. I want to go further in depth on the artistic freedom section, because this has been something that's been eating at my tits for a long time and I just want to vent about it. You covered the main points I would've made in my own topic, although there's one point I feel that tends to be overlooked in all of this:
The way "artistic freedom" is used as a bludgeon does nothing but devalue, infantalize, undermine, and insult artists.
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This post. It is good. I shall put a link to this post in the artistic integrity bit.
You made a lot of good and valid points, but this is not one of them. The entire topic of the thread was Ashley Judd calling the game industry (not the gaming community) hypocritical for their stance on GamerGate. Yet no one could come up with a single recent popular AAA game that was illustrative of said hypocrisy. Such false claims play into media stereotypes of the game industry and discourage women from entering it.
Amy Hennig (known best for her work on Uncharted) had the following to say on this issue:
(Source)
I fully support the work of someone like Anita Sarkeesian who backs up her criticisms with specific and clear examples. On the other hand, what Ashley Judd said is reminiscent of comments by Jack Thompson and many other cultural alarmists of decades past. They only muddle legitimate conversations to be had about video games (be it sexism or violence) with phony rhetoric.
Other than that, I agree whole-heartedly with your core arguments.
I disagree with your assessment of that thread.
As I see it, the thread was about her talk about harassment in online gaming communities. While some might find that one part of that one comment objectionable, it was not the main point she was making and the discussion should not have completely warped around speculation on it. I mean, someone posted a gif of Commander Shepard punching a reporter character and others jumped onto that to discuss whether it was sexist or not. Mass Effect was not mentioned by Judd. Discussing that gif as if that was what Judd was talking about distracted completely from the actual content of the talk.
Even if we ignore that the comment was not central to her talk, its not like the comment is grossly wrong. Some examples were brought up in the thread. GTA V was brought up and people argued how the possibility to fuck and then kill female prostitutes didnt count. The Tomb Raider reboot had overly gory and violent death animations and new Lara went through a lot of physical abuse throughout the game ( not necessarily from other characters, but also in general from the environment and story; probably consciously done by the developers considering their we want the player to protect her statement ). Other examples I can think of from the top of my head not brought up in the thread; God of War: Ascension had a trophy called Bros before Hos, which was awarded to the player after violently murdering one of the female antagonists ( note: the level of violence was not the problem considering the context of the series, the trophy name and its implication were ). The wife character in Shadow of Mordor is basically there to be killed immediately to motivate the male main character. Quiet was horribly burned and basically forced to be subject to an experimental parasite which prevented her from speaking and came with some convenient side-effects to justify having her be half-naked all the time. In Watch_Dogs, assassins messing up their job and putting the main characters niece into a coma ( and eventual death ) is the catalyst that gets the plot going. Clara, the main female ally is gunned down near the end of the game to force an emotional moment. The main characters sister is basically there so she can get kidnapped to make the plot move forward.
These examples exist and to say that they dont or technically dont matter or how it really isnt as bad as I think she says is just not a compelling point for discussion. It is also worth noting that we are working with exclusively the literal interpretation of maim and dump. She could have been referring to a more general issue with the representation of women, or the lack of effort from publishers to clamp down on anti-woman sentiments in their communities,
but this is also in the end completely irrelevant as we are now speculating on and picking apart a part of a comment that was not central to the talk as a whole or the issue it was trying to raise. The comment can be seen as overly generalizing, but again; it wasnt the main point of her talk, so to expect her to go in-depth on it and then warp the discussion entirely around her not going in-depth on it is odd to me.
