Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

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Lucifer
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Lucifer »

Light wrote: I could only find evidence to the opposite. Looking it up, I find that men have advantages in strength, run faster and have a quicker reaction time. Of course this isn't all men over women, but averaged.
The difference, actually, is hormones. FTM transsexuals that take hormones develop the same "abilities" as men.

Also, keep in mind, the actual differences only matter in weight training. In all other sports, including combat, there are too many traits that make an individual better regardless of gender. Even so, many women can compete side by side with men in weight training.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Z-Man »

Bytes wrote:But anyway, that side skips the point I was making entirely, which is that men want one thing, and women want another.
Nope. There is far more overlap than there are differences. Why would it be otherwise?
Bytes wrote:I never even say I agree that this should be the status quo.
Sorry it hit you then, but stating the status quo and NOT saying it should be changed generally is considered agreeing with the status quo. Also known as the "It's part of Gaming Culture!" blanket defense.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Bytes »

sinewav wrote:
Bytes wrote:First off, there are many male targeted games where the hero is a muscular guy in skimpy clothes.
This is in line with the "I'm not racist I have black friends" argument, and it misses Z-Man's point. In those games there is probably only one choice. You can be Conan the Barbarian or not play.
I have yet to meet someone with black friends who is racist, kind of defeats the point. (So long as it's an anti-black racism, but I imagine that argument just translates to whatever accusation they're defending). Just saying that as arguments go, it seems a reasonably solid one to me. Please correct me if this is in fact some kind of 'classic' argument which is in fact a code phrase for something different.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say about there being only one choice, could you please clarify the point you're making here. What does there only being one hero choice, like most games, have to do with the point I made?

Z-Man wrote:
Bytes wrote:But anyway, that side skips the point I was making entirely, which is that men want one thing, and women want another.
Nope. There is far more overlap than there are differences. Why would it be otherwise?

As being of the same species, I would expect a reasonable degree of physiological similarity, which was all that comic pointed out, but they don't necessarily contribute to psychological discrepancies between genders which would be the main deciding factor in what games they want to play.

Bytes wrote:I never even say I agree that this should be the status quo.
Sorry it hit you then, but stating the status quo and NOT saying it should be changed generally is considered agreeing with the status quo. Also known as the "It's part of Gaming Culture!" blanket defense.
So you say sorry, then seem to be trying to accuse me with the same thing again?
I'm not sure whether it's telling that you seem to have stopped trying to argue with me, and instead are just trying to find flaws with my writing style...

Regardless, I feel like we're trying to achieve the same thing here anyway, but are just coming at it from two different angles. We both want games to me made available that are more suited to female players. You suggest the standardisation of all games to be gender non-biased. I'm suggesting that maybe having games targeted at one or the other would work better. This would certainly not be all games, there is, despite your attempts to convince me that I feel otherwise, an overlap in interests and so of course there will be a lot of games that interest both genders.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Z-Man »

Pre-amble: Just explaining here, no accusations.
Bytes wrote:
sinewav wrote:
Bytes wrote:First off, there are many male targeted games where the hero is a muscular guy in skimpy clothes.
This is in line with the "I'm not racist I have black friends" argument, and it misses Z-Man's point. In those games there is probably only one choice. You can be Conan the Barbarian or not play.
I have yet to meet someone with black friends who is racist, kind of defeats the point. (So long as it's an anti-black racism, but I imagine that argument just translates to whatever accusation they're defending). Just saying that as arguments go, it seems a reasonably solid one to me. Please correct me if this is in fact some kind of 'classic' argument which is in fact a code phrase for something different.
The classic exchange goes like this:
User 1: You dirty digger!
User 2: Umm, racist much?
User 1: What? No, far from it! In fact, I'm friends with a black guy and he is totally cool if I call him digger!
(**** forum censorship in this case)
Faulty because a) it's just one guy and b) even in the remote case that User 1 has no racist thought whatsoever, he still is promoting racist language.
In this case, the parallel would be mostly a); yes, there are some games where the male hero wears less than he probably should be wearing, but those are vastly outnumbered by sensibly armored guys and less sensibly dressed women. And at least Conan is wearing good boots and trousers; I was more thinking along the lines of a male stripper. Add a cowboy hat, if you will.
Bytes wrote:I'm not sure what you're trying to say about there being only one choice, could you please clarify the point you're making here. What does there only being one hero choice, like most games, have to do with the point I made?
Having the two choices, "want to be like them" male and "want to **** them" female characters, next to each other amplifies the silliness. Having just one character of any kind can more easily be justified by artistic freedom, "that is the main character, and we want to tell his/her story". There are limits to that excuse, obviously.
Bytes wrote:So you say sorry, then seem to be trying to accuse me with the same thing again?
No, I was just trying to explain how I got to the conclusion you were saying what I thought you were.
Bytes wrote:Regardless, I feel like we're trying to achieve the same thing here anyway, but are just coming at it from two different angles. We both want games to me made available that are more suited to female players.
Yes. I was under the impression you wanted to segregate women gamers into some corner. Here, play your Bejeweled and Horse Adventures and Menstruation Simulator 2015 and leave us doing manly man stuff. Which would be bad.
Bytes wrote:You suggest the standardisation of all games to be gender non-biased.
Not quite; I want diversification. Manly man games are allowed to exist, and Mario is still allowed to always save the Princess, because trope-y as it is, that's what he does, and neither are really characters in the first place. But I'd like game developers to include believable female characters instead of the pinups they so often choose. Alyx Vance? More of that, please (sans the little maybe-love-interest vibe). Or heroes who just happen to be female and no big deal is made of it, like Jade from Beyond Good and Evil.
Bayonetta and Lollipop Chainsaw are also allowed to exist (haven't played either yet), by the way, and they are more on the positive side: at least, both are empowered.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Bytes »

Just wait until Magic Mike: The game comes out :lol:

I'm still at a loss as to what I can do here though, short of actually writing these arguments down and actually sending them to the gaming companies. As far as I can see it's up to the gaming companies to recognise that the market is out there, even if I'm hard pressed to believe that a money grabbing corporation such as Microsoft is deliberately ignoring a large market because of sexism. You'd have thought if it existed then they'd be exploiting the **** out of it.
I don't believe that the majority of gamers out there hold the view that women should be kept of games because that's a 'male thing'. Then again maybe I just play games with nice communities, never been on xbox live...
Anyway, my point being that I don't think gamers are sexist to the point of not wanting gaming to be accessible to women, they just object to people who are wanting to water down the games they currently enjoy that are clearly male targeted. My example being that a publisher wouldn't take the menstruation articles out of a comsmopolitan magazine (you brought up the topic :P) they'd make a specifically male targeted magazine to deal with boobs and continue printing stuff like new scientist which is accessible to all.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by sinewav »

Bytes wrote:Anyway, my point being that I don't think gamers are sexist to the point of not wanting gaming to be accessible to women, they just object to people who are wanting to water down the games they currently enjoy that are clearly male targeted.
You mean take out the sexisim you enjoy so much?
Bytes wrote:My example being that a publisher wouldn't take the menstruation articles out of a comsmopolitan magazine (you brought up the topic :P) they'd make a specifically male targeted magazine to deal with boobs and continue printing stuff like new scientist which is accessible to all.
Magazines are a bad example because the diversification is already achieved in that industry. There are magazines tailored to every possible interest. This is not true of the gaming industry. That's what half this thread is about.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Lucifer »

Bytes wrote: I'm still at a loss as to what I can do here though, short of actually writing these arguments down and actually sending them to the gaming companies. As far as I can see it's up to the gaming companies to recognise that the market is out there, even if I'm hard pressed to believe that a money grabbing corporation such as Microsoft is deliberately ignoring a large market because of sexism.
Don't buy or play sexist games. Simple. Be one of the guys that makes the market for sexist games disappear out of thin air. Play games that aren't sexist, and play the shit out of them.

Don't ever take the position in a discussion on the topic that it's just the way it is and you have to accept it to be able to game. If you find you have to give up gaming entirely, maybe find a new hobby. Some things are more important than having fun.
You'd have thought if it existed then they'd be exploiting the **** out of it.
The market does exist. I have two daughters that play video games, and they don't play the sexist crap. I have a wife that does the same. They'd like to play some of these other games, but they feel insulted just looking at the commercials. Now, you could argue that a crossdresser's family isn't exactly an average group, but just like there are millions of women who secretly want to dress their husbands in women's clothes and **** their brains out, there are millions of women who don't want to be insulted every single time a game trailer comes on TV.
I don't believe that the majority of gamers out there hold the view that women should be kept of games because that's a 'male thing'.
If I had a nickel for every time I've heard a male gamer say that <this game> or <that game> is too manly for women, I'd fund the arma kickstarter myself.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Bytes »

sinewav wrote:
Bytes wrote:Anyway, my point being that I don't think gamers are sexist to the point of not wanting gaming to be accessible to women, they just object to people who are wanting to water down the games they currently enjoy that are clearly male targeted.
You mean take out the sexisim you enjoy so much?

I think we're confusing breasts being inherently sexist, with breasts being in every game being sexist. Breasts being in a game doesn't make it sexist. And, although I don't play these kinds of games, I imagine the answer to your question sine would be yes, I imagine gamers do enjoy pretending to be a hero rescuing the pretty girl. Obviously a male gamer wouldn't be able to relate as well to playing as a girl rescuing the pretty guy.
But, as was pointed out in those trope videos which started this all off, the problem isn't the content itself so much as the lack of diversity in the content.

Lucifer wrote:
Bytes wrote: I'm still at a loss as to what I can do here though, short of actually writing these arguments down and actually sending them to the gaming companies. As far as I can see it's up to the gaming companies to recognise that the market is out there, even if I'm hard pressed to believe that a money grabbing corporation such as Microsoft is deliberately ignoring a large market because of sexism.
Don't buy or play sexist games. Simple. Be one of the guys that makes the market for sexist games disappear out of thin air. Play games that aren't sexist, and play the shit out of them.

Don't ever take the position in a discussion on the topic that it's just the way it is and you have to accept it to be able to game. If you find you have to give up gaming entirely, maybe find a new hobby. Some things are more important than having fun.
I was asking for how I can help, but asking people to stop buying games they enjoy simply won't work. I don't even buy these games but I can tell you that much, which is why the majority of feminists are getting no traction in their campaigns, they're asking for things that won't happen.

You'd have thought if it existed then they'd be exploiting the **** out of it.
The market does exist. I have two daughters that play video games, and they don't play the sexist crap. I have a wife that does the same. They'd like to play some of these other games, but they feel insulted just looking at the commercials. Now, you could argue that a crossdresser's family isn't exactly an average group, but just like there are millions of women who secretly want to dress their husbands in women's clothes and **** their brains out, there are millions of women who don't want to be insulted every single time a game trailer comes on TV.
Well, if the market does exist, then I don't know why the companies are holding back so much, it really confuses me.
And the problem here then seems to be advertising standards as opposed to game content. Maybe we have different advertising regulations in the UK (I think you're American but can't remember, sorry), I can't remember any sexist game adverts, lots of CoD style adverts with explosions and such (I'm aware of the whole lack of female characters in CoD, again a game I don't play, but for the purposes of the advert I don't think you'd notice) but no outright sexual adverts. Then again I watch practically no live TV so I maybe miss a lot of this stuff. Is this kind of game advert focussing on female sexualisation more common in America?

I don't believe that the majority of gamers out there hold the view that women should be kept of games because that's a 'male thing'.
If I had a nickel for every time I've heard a male gamer say that <this game> or <that game> is too manly for women, I'd fund the arma kickstarter myself.[/quote]

Fair enough, as I said I'm not very prominent at all on gaming forums and such.


The main obstacle I see with this whole process is that many male gamers are under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that what feminists want to do is destroy their game genre and replace it with something utterly 'PC', when the only feasible solution is to accommodate all types. Of course there can be some games where the male hero saves the female princess, and of course it can happen the other way around. As long as both story lines are allowed to exist people should be satisfied, and that is the message that female gamers need to promote.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by ConVicT »

Unless anyone can prove that the "male" characters in games are anatomically correct, then I could easily say they are very butch "females"
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

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Bytes wrote:Well, if the market does exist, then I don't know why the companies are holding back so much, it really confuses me.
They're trapped in the same circular logic. For example, Naughty Dog was very surprised to find out the company doing focus tests for them for "The Last of Us" has not even invited female players, apparently assuming their opinion would not be valid anyway. So they fixed that.
Bytes wrote:The main obstacle I see with this whole process is that many male gamers are under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that what feminists want to do is destroy their game genre and replace it with something utterly 'PC', when the only feasible solution is to accommodate all types.
(*cringes a little at the use of "feminist" here*) Yep. And here is where you all can help. When the topic comes up, rectify that misconception. Point out the advantages for all gamers if games are made with more well-rounded (haha) characters of all genders and, while we're at it, races. It has been pointed out by some that there are more blue and green women in games than black women, and that may very well be true. Everybody should want a more diverse gaming landscape, nobody's favorite thing is going to go away. It works best in small, personal conversation such as this one or with friends. Cultural changes need to spread mouth to mouth.

And yes, as Lucifer says, to get the message to developers, the old technique of voting with your wallet should work. Petitions or writing to them without context probably less so.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Bytes »

The weird thing is that apparently female gamers are voting with their wallet (or purse) and yet the companies don't seem to have noticed.
And yes a boycott would work in the long term, but the difficulty is convincing the male gaming community that not buying games they want to buy is in their interest. Basically your appealing to the moral side of a gaming community which, if forums and hype is anything to go by, they don't actually possess, or at least pretend not to.

2 things I can think of is a) Approaching high profile male pro gamers such as top level LoL players and asking for their support. If you can sway these kind of people to promote this it will do a million times more good than the youtube anti-trope videos.
b) And I'll admit this would be the more tricky and unlikely, would be to garner support of some large groups such as 4chan who occasionally take up these kind of moral causes.

Lastly, and this is a semantic point, I'd agree that using feminist there is cringy, but I'm not sure what the better word to use is. The word feminist is one that I imagine conjures up negative images for a lot of male gamers. Possibly the word equalitarian would be better but even that sounds like the kind of highly regimented system that gamers feel opposed to. I know people shy away from the use of tags do denominate groups of people but it is the way that groups of similarly minded people are recognised and having one that doesn't sound so aggressive would help immensely.


Of course, I'll do as you suggest and try and change the mindset of people towards this, but the problem it isn't really brought up at all. This would be where high profile gamers would come in, just to bring it into actual conversation.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Lucifer »

Bytes wrote:The weird thing is that apparently female gamers are voting with their wallet (or purse) and yet the companies don't seem to have noticed.
And yes a boycott would work in the long term, but the difficulty is convincing the male gaming community that not buying games they want to buy is in their interest. Basically your appealing to the moral side of a gaming community which, if forums and hype is anything to go by, they don't actually possess, or at least pretend not to.
I suppose women withholding sex from these guys won't work since they already don't get any...
Lastly, and this is a semantic point, I'd agree that using feminist there is cringy, but I'm not sure what the better word to use is. The word feminist is one that I imagine conjures up negative images for a lot of male gamers. Possibly the word equalitarian would be better but even that sounds like the kind of highly regimented system that gamers feel opposed to. I know people shy away from the use of tags do denominate groups of people but it is the way that groups of similarly minded people are recognised and having one that doesn't sound so aggressive would help immensely.
What's wrong with humanist? What's wrong with wanting to see humanity actually represented by the games sold? Not necessarily every game. I realize there's a market for sexist games, and that goes both ways, too. A small group of women would religiously purchase every misandrist game produced. But the largest demographic will either not care or will really enjoy games that treat all sexes reasonably and equally.
Of course, I'll do as you suggest and try and change the mindset of people towards this, but the problem it isn't really brought up at all. This would be where high profile gamers would come in, just to bring it into actual conversation.
Then bring it up. Refer to other parts of this thread to see several of us jumped in and made an issue out of what was said. :)
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Bytes »

Lucifer wrote: I realize there's a market for sexist games, and that goes both ways, too.
I don't believe that the games themselves are sexist. Porn isn't sexist and what some of these games are is basically soft porn with a playable storyline. The fact that the companies aren't offering female targeted versions is what is sexist.
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Lucifer »

Bytes wrote:
Lucifer wrote: I realize there's a market for sexist games, and that goes both ways, too.
I don't believe that the games themselves are sexist. Porn isn't sexist and what some of these games are is basically soft porn with a playable storyline. The fact that the companies aren't offering female targeted versions is what is sexist.
Uhhh, what porn are you watching? Most of it is extremely sexist...

Nobody's saying "create games targetted at females". They already DO that. What we're saying is "quit making most games unaccessible to women by insulting them at every opportunity".

I'm reminded of a standup comic who was Hispanic, talking about science fiction. He said he was scared of the future, because there aren't any hispanics in science fiction! (The routine was before Voyager)

I'm worried about the Zombie apocalypse, because it looks like the only women will be zombies!
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Re: Education! (Split from Drawing Game)

Post by Bytes »

Well I think a lot of women watch and enjoy the same porn, but it's difficult to call it sexist when the point of it is to show off women in a way that is sexually appealing to men. Sure there is a lot of misogynistic porn but that's it's own genre and if there is one thing going for porn, it's that it's diverse.

I'm confused then, I thought that's what Z-man was asking for. If that kind of thing offends you, don't reach for the top shelf. I suppose you'd argue that there is very little bottom shelf but if there are already products there suitable for women and the consumer base is there, then the market will grow. And yes it will possibly need help and publicity to make the companies see the market.
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