Sexism in video games.

[Conserative Morality]

Fuck values. You are talking about trusting giant corporations to spread good values independently of what makes them money. That's absurd.

Did you read the post?

Sexism does not make them money. You think people choose what video game to buy based on how sexist it is? Fuck no. I'm expecting corporations to not spread shitty values for the sake of spreading shitty values, because that's all it is at this point.

[Conserative Morality]

The post was wrong. The gradual homogenyzation of gaming is due to trying to appeal to as many people as humanly possible and that's exactly why they pander to the lowest common denominator. The improbably clad woman and aryan body builder are familiar archetypes that can be mass produced without much care and guaranteed to turn a profit.

Is that why the three Tomb Raider games before the reboot failed miserably? Really, all you're doing is trying to justify sexism without gain with bullshit claims about sexism in society that haven't been true since the 60s. As far as I'm concerned, you're worse than the Tumblr Social Justice Warrior types.

[Conserative Morality]

All morals are based on third party influences. Welcome to sociology

All morals are influenced by third parties. There's a difference.

[Conserative Morality]

OK. But the individual is formed by third parties. Literally.

An individual is both a part of society and apart from it. Whatever influences society brings upon a person, ultimately, they are responsible for themselves and their positions.

[Corrian]

I think the biggest problems I've seen with sexism is in online games. How often do you see online games with woman in skimpy, revealing "armor"? All I can think about is "Why the fuck would you wear armor that exposes your belly of all places?". Not only is it stupidly illogical (even for video games), it just clearly shows what they are trying to get at with it. It serves no purpose other then to make a sexualized female.

[Corrian]

Why are all boy bands filled with preety boys who work out and have good hair that attract young girls?

We're talking about video games, not boy bands, but I don't find those particularly any better.

[Corrian]

The interesting thing is I am a male gamer and I find girls who aren't all thrown in to look all sexualized in stupid armor more attractive then "Omg big boobs in half-naked armor"

[Corrian]

Some games aren't as bad. Some games celebrate women for their bravery or courage. Like Red Dead Redemption has some horrible depictions of prostitutes and other women that are always in need of help. The only woman in the game depicted well is Bonnie, who is depicted as capable of holding herself and respecting herself at the same time.

While I don't think it is all appropriate in that game, I feel the prostitutes are excused a LITTLE more because of the time frame of the game. But yeah, it does have a lot of "damsel in distress" stuff.

[Corrian]

There was a discussion about The Last of Us and I missed it!

[Creative Vikings]

Got my head cut off by an angry female Nord the other day.

The bad loser in me says that if anything, video games are a platform to broadcast hatred against males.
Oh, and that THEY ARE FREAKIN' VIDEO GAMES.

[Creative Vikings]

Oh, and that THEY ARE FREAKIN' VIDEO GAMES.

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? Both actually, which means it's an issue.

I'm an art photographer. You know it's not fair to trip me up with art philosophy, or any other art related subjects.
In fact, it's more fair if you don't mention art to me at all.

Got my head cut off by an angry female Nord the other day.

The bad loser in me says that if anything, video games are a platform to broadcast hatred against males.
Oh, and that THEY ARE FREAKIN' VIDEO GAMES.

If there were more important female characters in video games, then this wouldn't be an issue.

Aela the Huntress can't possibly garner that much defence points in that ancient bathing suit of hers.

[Creative Vikings]

I'm an art photographer. You know it's not fair to trip me up with art philosophy, or any other art related subjects.
In fact, it's more fair if you don't mention art to me at all.

Clearly you shouldn't be an artist, then.

You doesn't get joke?
Oh poo.

[Czechanada]

Well, we all know how console gamers can be. This will continuously occur until games aren't targeted towards them.

[Dakini]

Anyone else noticing the ad here that says "male gamers only"? With a picture of a sexually objectified woman of course.

The video game ads are the #1 reason I use adblock on this website.

So. Would anyone like to share their opinions or thoughts on this?

There's definitely a lot of sexism in video games.

Anita Sarkeesian has been doing a youtube series on the roles women play in video games, if you're interested.

[Dakini]

Oh, there's also this page which isn't actually talking about sexism in videogames, but it talks about how women are treated in the gaming community (via screencaps... I don't recommend reading if you're going to get depressed).

These pages don't specifically deal with video games, but there are some interesting uh.. costume and pose choices that show up in video games that also turn up on those pages (for being terrible).

[Dakini]

Yep. It happens.

My best advice is to ignore those games, as if they have to resort to selling sex to boost their sales they probably didn't put enough effort into their gameplay.

Of course I play pure ASCII Dwarf Fortress... so shiny graphics aren't exactly my thing.

Hehe. I play a MUD. So also no graphics.

[Dakini]

Oh, there's also this page which isn't actually talking about sexism in videogames, but it talks about how women are treated in the gaming community (via screencaps... I don't recommend reading if you're going to get depressed).

These pages don't specifically deal with video games, but there are some interesting uh.. costume and pose choices that show up in video games that also turn up on those pages (for being terrible).

I'm not sure if you've played multiplayer games like MW2, but they pretty much just go on whatever they can get. Those are some pretty dinky insults really.

Those... aren't all insults.


Also, I play a MUD. People aren't assholes in-game there.

[Dakini]

Oh, there's also this page which isn't actually talking about sexism in videogames, but it talks about how women are treated in the gaming community (via screencaps... I don't recommend reading if you're going to get depressed).

These pages don't specifically deal with video games, but there are some interesting uh.. costume and pose choices that show up in video games that also turn up on those pages (for being terrible).

I'm reminded of a couple of collegehumor videos.

WARNING- HARSH LANGUAGE

Nice.

[Dakini]

Those... aren't all insults.


Also, I play a MUD. People aren't assholes in-game there.

They are, there shock value insults, they're supposed to make your respond by insulting them so they can try to smash you.

Which is why a lot of them were delivered after the woman who posted the screencaps had beaten them horribly and not while they were playing together?

[Dakini]

Oh, there's also this page which isn't actually talking about sexism in videogames, but it talks about how women are treated in the gaming community (via screencaps... I don't recommend reading if you're going to get depressed).

These pages don't specifically deal with video games, but there are some interesting uh.. costume and pose choices that show up in video games that also turn up on those pages (for being terrible).

Ugh, I wanna puke. Where the fuck is all this creepy coming from? Jesus

Also: that video is extremely informative. I'll never look at Mario or Link the same way. Shit.

There's a series of them. I'm not sure how far along she's gotten (my thesis has got in the way of my youtube watching), but she got a lot of free publicity for her kickstarter because some sexist assholes started harassing and threatening her (and then a bunch of bloggers caught wind of it and were like "dude, not cool" and spread the word) so she expanded her originally planned series (and iirc, is releasing some educational material to go along with it).

[Dakini]

It's no different than movies or books (comic or otherwise). Sex sells. Since the majority of gamers are males ranging from the early teens and up into the forties, it only makes sense that companies use attractive women in order to advertise their products.

53% is not much of a majority.

Forty-five percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (19 percent).

Also, that doesn't excuse movies since women buy more movie tickets than men.

[Dakini]

Anita Sarkeesian has been doing a youtube series on the roles women play in video games, if you're interested.

Her video series is grossly ignorant of the real problem in games.

Women aren't involved in the business side as much as they need to be.

Women have been developing some of the best games ever (a woman produced Journey, which is fucking amazing, a woman wrote Portal's amazing dialogue, just to provide two shining examples), but they're just not involved enough on the business/marketing side to make a difference, which is disappointing to say the least.

I can guarantee that as more women inevitably get involved gaming, sexism will be on the decrease. Already, sexism is a bad business strategy, with some 48% of self-described “gamers” being female, as well as 51% of Call of Duty players.

(yeah, I don't know why 51% of CoD's fanbase is female either. I don't get it)

...I'm not sure that she's "ignorant of the real problem", but she's also a culture and media critic. She critiques the products. I'm sure she's aware that there are problems development-side (it would be hard not to be).

[Dakini]

Anyone else noticing the ad here that says "male gamers only"? With a picture of a sexually objectified woman of course.

Anyway, me, I'm not much of a gamer. Doesn't interest me. But you'd have to be blind not to notice that video games tend toward the sexist side. I've also frequently heard tell that gamer culture is highly misogynistic, from more than a couple of women gamers.

So. Would anyone like to share their opinions or thoughts on this?

Dr Pepper 10: It's not for Women.



Clearly its sexist.

Yes, it is. This isn't difficult.

[Dakini]

Damn good soda, though.

Diet soda is horrible.

It really is.

[Dakini]

53% is not much of a majority.

Forty-five percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (19 percent).

Also, that doesn't excuse movies since women buy more movie tickets than men.

Males are still the majority. Nevertheless, it's still down to the general assumption that males play more than females, and companies advertise accordingly. No?

An assumption that is becoming more and more incorrect?

Also, movies haven't changed, despite having a majority female audience since 2009. Women still only have about 30% of speaking roles in movies.