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[Black-Wind]

I'd advise watching the whole thing before you assume what it's about.

Watched it annnnnd shit didn't get any better!

"Men can't be expected to write from the female prospective" lol, what are books, TV shows and movies? SOMEHOW games are the "Wut do you expect?!?! Men know men shit lol" thing where as people in true and accepted "forms of art and entertainment" have no problem doing research and writing content from a different perspective. They LOVE that shit.

Why is this an either-or thing? Why can't white dudes working at companies respond to this criticism in turn by doing what creators do in other fields? Will that not result in more girls and women seeing that they're accepted and welcomed/ respected in the culture? Will that feeling not lead to more women wanted to play and make games?

Male creators should be able to and expected to "write for something that's not a white male" and it would be GREAT if more women made games.

 

[……forgetit]

There is a huge problem with sexism in video games and under representation of Women and minorities, we need more female, black, Hispanic, and other minority characters, but I fell like this video sends the wrong message because it highlights many games that get it right as examples of getting it wrong, especially the last of us and sunset overdrive in my opinion.

 

[cafemomo]

western games are usually at the fault of this

 

[RockTurtle]

Just looking at the responses to this post tells you why...white men have a self worship issue.


(Worship at the alter of self or your idealized self and everything will be fine and dandy)

well that's not stereotyping and condescending at all

 

[cm osi]

http://www.pewinternet.org/2008/09/16/part-1-2-basic-gaming-hardware-and-games-played/


FYI From a pew study.

so rpg who almost always have female characters are only 26%

uh-uh

 

[toastyToast]

Because the people bankrolling the games don't want to take any risks. Although, there must be some serious money in both the male and female markets. Need to find that balance

 

[ambientmystic]

You mean this hasn't changed yet?

With all the ways to get games made today, why aren't more women making games and selling them to other women?

I assume that's what we're talking about.

Yep, you'd have thought with the many avenues of bucking the traditional male dominated publisher funding model, e.g. via Kickstarter, a game featuring a woman/minority as a lead character could get easily funded if there was actually overwhelming demand for such a game.

Start one, and watch the millions roll in from underrepresented female/minoritiy gamers yearning for an alternative experience that would speak to them and their perspectives.

Mainstream pubs would then be forced to take note of the millions they'd be losing out if they continue to marginalize those groups and eventually be forced to make them front and center in the spotlight.

Win-win.

 

[Funchameleon]

western games are usually at the fault of this

glorious nippon. praise be *faces east and bows head in silence, reciting gamer pledge*

 

[Gotchaye]

"If you want something done right, do it yourself."

I think that is how the saying goes.


Why does this not apply here? Is gaming exempt from this rule? Why are people who are a minority in this industry complaining about being a minority?

It is up to you to create a larger presence. The majority cannot be held accountable for being a majority.

Wait, why not? We hold majorities accountable for being majorities (this is an awkward phrasing, but I"m not sure what else you could mean) all the time.

There are situations where it makes sense for something to be distributed among groups according to how many people are in each group. That's basically how food should work, for example - each person regardless of the size of the groups they're each members of should have more-or-less the same amount of food.

But in other contexts, especially when the thing being distributed is something that can be shared, we want to distribute it so that each group has an equal share. We don't think that Christians in the US should have more right to freedom of religion than other groups just because they're in the majority. Actually, because of their political power, Christians in the US have a special responsibility to be sure that they're not privileging their own religion when they get laws passed.

And media is something that can be shared. I don't see that there's a principled argument supporting the idea that if a market is 80% male then 80% of protagonists ought to be male. The problem is that each particular male in the market ends up with four times as many games catering to them as each particular female. That's not fair.

This idea that people can't even complain that what they want done isn't being done if they're not willing to roll up their sleeves and do it themselves is of course just silly. That's simply not a response that makes sense to a criticism of a market like this. If I think modern games are too "filmic", it's just stupid to tell me that I don't have a right to complain if I'm not willing to go and make the games I want to see. The difference here is that female gamers who want better female representation in games have much more reason to complain than just "I prefer something different".

 

[Neiteio]

Why is this an either-or thing?

It shouldn't be an either/or thing.

More male content creators should try making characters that appeal to both genders.

And more women should try to be content creators themselves.

The phenomenon described in the video with which you take issue isn't even conscious. It's just inevitable that if the vast, vast, vast majority of content creators are one way, a proportionate percentage of their work will be likewise.

So more women do need to get involved making games. That being said, it's still valid and worthwhile to encourage male content creators to try and branch out into characters and characterizations that will resonate with women, as well.

This applies to all other diversity issues, as well. We should ask content creators to consider gay characters, minority characters, etc, even if they think they may be clumsy in handling them. But we should also encourage people who actually fall into those groups to join the industry and have a direct hand in creating content. Because when they come from a certain walk of life, it will naturally be more intuitive for them to represent it.

 

[Lyriell]

well that's not stereotyping and condescending at all

It's okay for people to point at white males and lump them into one horroble group ya know... .


You know how Hitler had poor opinions on one ethnic group? WELL DONE on repeating his mistakes.

 

[freakzilla149]

More women should get into game development.

 

[toastyToast]

Why is Castlevania represented by a female when there's only been one sole female protagonist?

 

[DangerousDave]

western games are usually at the fault of this

Depend of how you make the selection. If you choose the right american games you'll have a great diversity in gender, races or species, and if you choose the wrong japanese games you'll have plenty of clonic teenage student male guys.

 

[jtenma]

western games are usually at the fault of this

You know, I like that picture because it shows how confused that person is. If you are going to do a comparision side by sidelike this, at least use humans vs humans, and not humans vs every random japanese made...thing.

For crying out loud, there is A SERVBOT on here.

Spoiler

Why not show who is under the helmet?

THIS HAS to be sarcasm!

 

[RockTurtle]

Depend of how you make the selection. If you choose the right american games you'll have a great diversity in gender, races or species, and if you choose the wrong japanese games you'll have plenty of clonic teenage student male guys.

and also you could end up with nothing but scantily clad female characters.

BUT THATS A WHOLE OTHER ISSUE FOR SARKASSIAN

 

[213372bu]

Just looking at the responses to this post tells you why...white men have a self worship issue.


(Worship at the alter of self or your idealized self and everything will be fine and dandy)

That's racist as fuck and I'm not even White.

Seriously dude, I'm not even the type to get offended about things like this, but to say this isn't the best way to fix a problem in any case.

 

[ishibear]

I actually don't disagree with what you're saying (other than perhaps how you interpreted what I'm saying). I agree that each gender is capable of identifying and representing the other, and I never said people shouldn't ask for men to try and do just that for women. I'm just saying that the industry would improve in this respect if more women were making games, as well. People can identify with others from other walks of life, but sometimes the results would be more expedient if people from those walks of life tried their hand at it directly. I really do believe that if more women made games, they'd see better representation.

Are you familiar with that incident involving the female game developer who was sent a string of sexually aggressive messages by a guy trying to get game info from her? I can't remember who the guy was but he was involved in the industry and there was a lot of victim blaming directed at her for a variety of reasons.

I wasn't a member on here around that time (I saw it on another site where it was discussed) so I don't know if it was talked about on here but if anyone knows differently, it would be great if they could help me out here.

 

[Orayn]

Hostile implies there some sort of an active campaign against minority people/characters.

Well, it depends on what you mean. There's an indirect, financial campaign against them in the form of publishers who turn down games whose main characters they don't view as marketable. They may not be preventing those creators from trying, but they're certainly preventing them from getting much of a chance to succeed.

 

[Kater]

western games are usually at the fault of this

A bit hyperbolic, but it really shows the cultural difference.
Funny too.

 

[Neiteio]

Are you familiar with that incident involving the female game developer who was sent a string of sexually aggressive messages by a guy trying to get game info from her? I can't remember who the guy was but he was involved in the industry and there was a lot of victim blaming directed at her for a variety of reasons.

I wasn't a member on here around that time (I saw it on another site where it was discussed) so I don't know if it was talked about on here but if anyone knows differently, it would be great if they could help me out here.

I'm afraid I don't recall that incident. Maybe someone else here knows what you're talking about?

 

[Xenon]

Has Anna published any game related articles outside of her feminist angle? I still don't buy that she cares about the medium outside of that point of view. Maybe she did when she was younger but I'm not seeing it now.

 

[conman]

This has everything to do with white (straight) men dominating development, production, marketing, and the business side of the industry. Only when that changes will we see real and substantial change made in the content of games. Now that we're finally beginning to see that changing, the conversation is changing rapidly. Sooo heartening to see.

It's all about what happens behind the games, not just the finished products we see in front of us.

 

[Authority]

I actually don't disagree with what you're saying (other than perhaps how you interpreted what I'm saying). I agree that each gender is capable of identifying and representing the other, and I never said people shouldn't ask for men to try and do just that for women. I'm just saying that the industry would improve in this respect if more women were making games, as well. People can identify with others from other walks of life, but sometimes the results would be more expedient if people from those walks of life tried their hand at it directly. I really do believe that if more women made games, they'd see better representation.

Good to know and my bad. That "surely" didn't sit with me right.

Anyway to answer your question - Will it improve quality? Yes it will but there are right ways to go about it and certainly that youtuber does not do that.

"Men are not doing a good job at representing women and you can't expect them to"

Now if women in general feel that a shit-ton needs to change or a shit-ton is missing and no matter what men do is not enough (not enough games only for women i.e), then yeah they should step up in the sense of becoming video game producers. Depending on the context of your argument, you should either talk the talk (be more proactive) or walk the walk (produce video games).

But that is not about that.

 

[Funchameleon]

Guys I reckon if women want women in games more women should make the games. I'm casually ignoring the countless complex social factors that make even being a candidate for the AAA industry very difficult for women--much less rising to the ranks of creative director or getting anything but a young-straight-white-male targeted game funded

 

[Kater]

Are you familiar with that incident involving the female game developer who was sent a string of sexually aggressive messages by a guy trying to get game info from her? I can't remember who the guy was but he was involved in the industry and there was a lot of victim blaming directed at her for a variety of reasons.

I wasn't a member on here around that time (I saw it on another site where it was discussed) so I don't know if it was talked about on here but if anyone knows differently, it would be great if they could help me out here.

I'm afraid I don't recall that incident. Maybe someone else here knows what you're talking about?

Aye, you mean the whole scandal around Josh Mattingly harrassing a (female) dev on Facebook, right?
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=759413

 

[Green Biker Dude]

This has everything to do with white (straight) men dominating development, production, marketing, and the business side of the industry. Only when that changes will we see real and substantial change made in the content of games.

It's all about what happens behind the games, not the finished products we see in front of us.

any minority is free to organize itself and make their own games. there are plenty of successful indie games in recent history. examples: ftl, transistor, bastion, minecraft, hotline miami, rust etc

if there's a market and the games are good, people will follow

otoh, it's easy to complain on the internet and it requires no actual investment, so there are "news" about this every other week

 

[WrenchNinja]

Why is that any time the absurd ratio of white dudes to minorities is brought up, some asshole starts writing up a list of games with minorities in them and then says everything is fine and dandy

 

[tokyostomp]

western games are usually at the fault of this

Nick Ramos from Dead Rising 3...

Well it's official, Hispanics are white.

 

[akaoni]

Are you familiar with that incident involving the female game developer who was sent a string of sexually aggressive messages by a guy trying to get game info from her? I can't remember who the guy was but he was involved in the industry and there was a lot of victim blaming directed at her for a variety of reasons.

I wasn't a member on here around that time (I saw it on another site where it was discussed) so I don't know if it was talked about on here but if anyone knows differently, it would be great if they could help me out here.

Was that the one with the creepy guy who also did dating advice videos?

EDIT: Someone got it already.

 

[jtenma]

Wait, why not? We hold majorities accountable for being majorities (this is an awkward phrasing, but I"m not sure what else you could mean) all the time.

There are situations where it makes sense for something to be distributed among groups according to how many people are in each group. That's basically how food should work, for example - each person regardless of the size of the groups they're each members of should have more-or-less the same amount of food.

But in other contexts, especially when the thing being distributed is something that can be shared, we want to distribute it so that each group has an equal share. We don't think that Christians in the US should have more right to freedom of religion than other groups just because they're in the majority. Actually, because of their political power, Christians in the US have a special responsibility to be sure that they're not privileging their own religion when they get laws passed.

And media is something that can be shared. I don't see that there's a principled argument supporting the idea that if a market is 80% male then 80% of protagonists ought to be male. The problem is that each particular male in the market ends up with four times as many games catering to them as each particular female. That's not fair.

This idea that people can't even complain that what they want done isn't being done if they're not willing to roll up their sleeves and do it themselves is of course just silly. That's simply not a response that makes sense to a criticism of a market like this. If I think modern games are too "filmic", it's just stupid to tell me that I don't have a right to complain if I'm not willing to go and make the games I want to see. The difference here is that female gamers who want better female representation in games have much more reason to complain than just "I prefer something different".

I can't comment on whether Christians are a majority or not, I dont have those numbers handy. I also am not sure if you've factored in atheists as well. But what you're saying sounds about right.

Unfortunately...


These people (currently) making video games will NOT CHANGE. They WILL follow the money. They have had this mindset since video games have been a thing.

So the people who don't like it have two choices:

Stop playing video games.
Start making them.

Spoiler

<-- I hope they do this one. :c

Ta daa~!

Spoiler

I'm exaggerating a bit, but I'm still right.

 

[tuna_love]

western games are usually at the fault of this

Well this is just amazingly accurate.

 

[Thorakai]

Anita Sarkeesian really needs to watch this fucking video and then stfu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpJGkG1g-Lk

I don't like this. Why can't we ask male developers to be more conscious of the female characters they create AND promote more women in video games? He brushes off just how underrepresented women are in gaming by saying "See! There are some women in gaming who've done amazing things! You can, too!" There is some systematic/social factor at play here that is preventing women from pursuing more tech-oriented work. This isn't just restricted to gaming, and it isn't a phenomena that isn't well known. You don't just handwave the issue and tell people to try harder. That is going to take a loooong time.

In the meantime we can at least keep awareness up on the issue. Ed Boon has recently stated he is more conscious of the female characters he is creating for the new Mortal Kombat, acknowledging that he went overboard with the skimpy outfits last game. We have a bunch of developers rightfully jumping at Ubisoft for claiming that animating a female character would take too much work. And these are fixes that doesn't require you to have a PhD in the female mind (I'm not convinced its would take so much effort to write a single good character when games employ hundreds of employees at a time.) The attitude in the video just doesn't help anyone. It just shifts responsibility away from the people with the most power to get change started right now.

I haven't even gotten to the topic of racial/ethnic/gender/sexual minorities.

 

[daffy]

"oh white male devs, please create a woman we can be proud of". I'm tired of this shit.

 

[ishibear]

I'm afraid I don't recall that incident. Maybe someone else here knows what you're talking about?

Ugh, I wish I could remember most of it, but to give you the gist, the guy had a history of being this big creep and after she sent these messages to a friend, the friend went public with them and the lady dev remained anonymous during the course of the incident. He was saying creepy stuff like he would kiss her vagina and all this other weird shit for game info. She was really uncomfortable judging from her responses but because she didn't tell him to beat it, people were blaming her for everything.

 

[Authority]

Just looking at the responses to this post tells you why...white men have a self worship issue.


(Worship at the alter of self or your idealized self and everything will be fine and dandy)

Seriously re-edit. There is nothing wrong playing a character that is a reminder of your self, your sex, your culture, your nationality so do not even go there. Do not make posts of forcing white-guilt.

 

[The Librarian]

I can't comment on whether Christians are a majority or not, I dont have those numbers handy. I also am not sure if you've factored in atheists as well. But what you're saying sounds about right.

Unfortunately...


These people (currently) making video games will NOT CHANGE. They WILL follow the money. They have had this mindset since video games have been a thing.

So the people who don't like it have two choices:

Stop playing video games.
Start making them.

Spoiler

<-- I hope they do this one. :c

Ta daa~!

Spoiler

I'm exaggerating a bit, but I'm still right.

I want to see more women in videogames but I'm no position to make any. I can ask for more female protagonists if I feel there aren't enough.

 

[Neiteio]

RE: the difficulty of women joining the industry, what kind of obstacles do you guys see, and how can those obstacles be addressed?

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

They used the exact same picture for Murdered and Xcom lol.

 

[GorillaJu]

"Still?" As opposed to 6 months ago? Big change takes time.

 

[jtenma]

Nick Ramos from Dead Rising 3...

Well it's official, Hispanics are white.

Also, what "race" is Bayonetta? Witch?
Kong?
Klonoa?
Sol Badguy isn't Human...

 

[Lazyslob]

does this anita actually try and find a solution to these problems or find a way to get people to fix the way the industry is or does she just "HEY WHY IS THIS LIKE THIS" and sit back and watch people argue?

 

[Green Biker Dude]

Seriously re-edit. There is nothing wrong playing a character that is a reminder of your self, your sex, your culture, your nationality so do not even go there. Do not make posts of forcing white-guilt.

i like how it's ok to demand to play as a woman, or a black guy, or whatever, but it's wrong for the white male to want to play as a white male. there's a word for that... it's called hypocrisy

 

[GorillaJu]

does this anita actually try and find a solution to these problems or find a way to get people to fix the way the industry is or does she just "HEY WHY IS THIS LIKE THIS" and sit back and watch people argue?

I haven't ever seen her ask why it is like it is as a main point. She's highlighting the issues. Solving it is up to the developers.

 

[Funchameleon]

does this anita actually try and find a solution to these problems or find a way to get people to fix the way the industry is or does she just "HEY WHY IS THIS LIKE THIS" and sit back and watch people argue?

haha win. anita doesnt know how owned shes getting right here on these very forems

 

[jtenma]

I want to see more women in videogames but I'm no position to make any. I can ask for more female protagonists if I feel there aren't enough.

Sure, no one is saying you cannot ask, that is impossible to control anyway.

But the topic creator was inquiring "why"?

As in "Why" this is so [regarding white males].

 

[ishibear]

Aye, you mean the whole scandal around Josh Mattingly harrassing a (female) dev on Facebook, right?
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=759413

Yes! Thank you! (So it was talked about on here haha wow the page count...)

Neiteio, this should help with showing why so many women may not be so eager to get into the industry. Events like these are apparently not scarce either.

 

[Neiteio]

does this anita actually try and find a solution to these problems or find a way to get people to fix the way the industry is or does she just "HEY WHY IS THIS LIKE THIS" and sit back and watch people argue?

I'm not familiar with her work but I think it's perfectly valid for her to try and provide a voice for those affected by this issue. If articulated properly, it might connect with the right people and result in change.

But yeah, I generally prefer constructive dialogues that try to suggest a specific course of action. I haven't seen her stuff, though, so I don't know if she does this.

 

[Of All Trades]

A bit hyperbolic, but it really shows the cultural difference.
Funny too.

Except it really doesn't and was probably made as a sort of COINTELPRO device to discredit supporters.

 

[figadapaura]

Nick Ramos from Dead Rising 3...

Well it's official, Hispanics are white.

A lot of them actually are.