man this thread is aids, im out

Yup when discussion is to be had the feminist supporters always run and claim some other reason.

Random youtoobz ejaculation is not discussion.

I'm actually pretty impressed with this forum. On a poker forum of mostly men, only chipchip, who self-admittedly has problems with women and is completely in the dark about female efforts to contribute to the gaming industry, and sputnik come out full-****** against the betterment of our industry.

TwoPlusTwo, I am impress

really dumb strawman

Today we learned this is the video games-related version of bringing up the Civil War in Politics, which regardless of the context will cause racists/Southern apologists to come out of the woodwork to defend the noble action of seceding from the United States in defense of states' rights, completely ignoring the whole slavery part.

For video games, it's men defending their right to be misogynist dickwads.

Discussion? You've reduced to simply posting videos that (shockingly) debate this popular topic. Of course there's room to be critical, but you're completely dense to think that these "re:" videos completely nullify any argument.

If anything, the amount of voices on both sides of the aisle is only solidifying the fact that it's an important discussion to be had. There are uninformed parties on both sides of the discussion, but that doesn't make it any less valid of a talking point.

You can be anti-feminist. There are many shades of it and naturally more radical sects are met with distaste, but this is no different than any other movement for change. But to deny the blatant sexism and objectification of women in most (not all) video games is simply ignorant. Lay down your hate of feminism for a moment and realize it is a huge movement with many different beliefs coupled under one flag. Not everyone is burning bras, most simply want some even footing with men in fields where males have been needlessly dominant for ages.

Instead of arguing against the feminist movement (which isn't even what we are talking about, we're discussing the idea of sexism in video games), please explain why you think video games, in general, fairly treat and represent both males and females across all genres.

You can be against sexism (of both genders) without being "a feminist" or any label, for that matter.

Edit: a bit behind the punch, posting on my phone intermittently. kudos to Low Key and goofy

Jish - you have some great points. My only word of caution would be to never let the opponents of feminism define the term feminism. I should think the reasoning behind this is self-evident.

Given the whole, "but men are stereotyped as strong, badass mother****ers," argument, I'd equate it more to the reverse discrimination/white rights movement. But yours is good too.

tbh i havent played arkham asylum which is the only example of sexism which has been brought up so far that i have noticed so i dont even know any specific examples of what these overly sexist games are.

goofy, Low Key- what the **** guys. Y'all dropping the ball here.


sputnik-

Seriously what is it with socially awkward people and spamming links to Youtube? You'd think they'd be more comfortable with writing than videos.

wrt "sexism" in male characters - don't think that's quite an accurate way of describing it.

The badass, improbably large muscled protagonists in video games are characters written by men, for men; they are an embodiment of male fantasy, that we all wish we were those badass mother****ers who could destroy anything.

The ridiculously-proportioned female characters in lots of games are, similarly, a male fantasy written by men, for men. Early Lara Croft (haven't played the new TR, dunno if she's gotten better) was A HUGE PAIR OF TITS. THAT'S ALL. Her ginormous rack was on the cover of like every gaming magazine, specifically because it was a ginormous rack, solely there to be ogled by adolescent dudes in its polygonal glory.

It is correct to say that the former category is stupid and not doing gaming any favors on the intelligence front, but I don't know if it's necessarily sexist. The latter? Yeah that's turrrible.

actually when i was in highschool i had a neighbor ask to borrow my ps because she wanted to play tombraider and be the super hot girl who kicks ass. suggesting that just because lara has a huge rack its a sexist portrayal of her is not correct imo. these are not just male fantasies... many women want to be the large breasted girl who kicks ass as well.

boob jobs probably fit in here somewhere.

also at that time giving her a huge rack was an easy way of showing that she is ridiculously hot. at that point graphics had not progressed enough make her face alone show that.

a. i was being sarcastic and intentionally narrow to fit that goal
b. there are approximately zero prominent feminists that equate watching porn with sexism. that doesn't mean that feminist circles can't be concerned about it without immediately going "OMG YOU MUST HATE WOMEN YOU FREAK"

goofy- As another example, professional wrestling appeals to an almost exclusively (putatively) heterosexual male demographic and it's full of enormously jacked shirtless dudes glistening with baby oil.

BGP- Yo man if you can't think of any examples of sexism in games within 30 seconds of sitting down, you're the sexist at the table.

Edit: Oh jesus I just saw your Tomb Raider anecdote. Never mind.

tbh i mostly play rpgs and can think of lots of positive examples and few negative.

otuer genres might not be like that.

edit: if your argument is literally going to be that any character with a big rack is sexist then thats just stupid

Yeah whats up with all of these awkward people that cant click a youtube link and watch it for the sake of discussing? Its almost like they arent really looking for a discussion but only want to tell others they are wrong(or stupid cause they arent very good at writing).

well, to be fair, i've only played like 5 games in the past 10 years, so for me, pinpointing occurrences other than "wtf is bayonetta wearing" is hard.

I'm on the ipad today fly, too much work to find and post that gif.

No words. Should have sent a poet.

RPGs, I think, tend to have better portrayals of women, if not simply because they have less transparent/more developed characters. There's still a load of stuff that despicable. Take the FF games. Wtf is Rikku wearing? What does that have to do with her as a person or character in the game? What is the point of her outfit other than "make men drool?"

A discussion of what? How "Men's Rights" weirdos are awful? We know that.

goofy started this thread off with a pretty good quote that was frank and intelligent commentary about the immaturity of the video game industry, but nobody really seems to want to talk about that. Instead it's mostly been an Asperger's contest between you and BGP. I don't know who is winning that contest, but I can say for sure that everybody else is losing.

and yet you are unable to make an argument except for a character from several generations of gaming ago which is sexist because she has a big rack.

You're standing on a beach asking why no one will point out where the sand is.

if you think portraying a girl as sexy confident smart powerful and adventerous is sexist then you have some problems with how you view women and are in fact sexist imo.

lol, awesome. Didn't think bgp would beat Sputnik to the "people who want equality are the sexists" line, but there you go.

Anyone interested in some real life stuff about this issue should check out this story by one of the folks working on Hawken.

please explain what is sexist about accepting that a girl can be sexy smart and powrful all at the same time instead of just throwing out your ridiculous analogies and posting dumb insults.

so far your argument is “well sure she is a character that is intelligent powerful and beautiful but she has boobs ffs! clearly sexist”

And btw what did you mean when you posted “i havent read your edit yet though” what edit were you referring to?

Well, except for the Batman game that came out last year.

The issue here is that you're not going to agree that anything specific is sexist. Sure, in the abstract you'll probably acknowledge that sexism may exist, but when the chips are down, well, Low Key is the real sexist for naming an example. So of course we're never going to get you to agree that it's a problem that is common in video games, you don't think it's a problem at all.