Sexism in video games.

[The Serbian Empire]

More stupid than intentionally misspelling "Conglaturations"?

It's a video game reference, right on topic.

Holy smokes, the typos make me laugh my ass off into lower orbit.

[Orham]

Holy smokes, the typos make me laugh my ass off into lower orbit.

Trying to play that game (Ghostbusters) would make most people throw their controller into orbit.

[Blayere]

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.

[The Serbian Empire]

Holy smokes, the typos make me laugh my ass off into lower orbit.

Trying to play that game (Ghostbusters) would make most people throw their controller into orbit.

And Huey Lewis probably didn't like the theme song.

[DrakoBlaria]

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.

And they chose to name her Bonnie....

[Agymnum]

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.

And they chose to name her Bonnie....

I don't get what you're trying to say here.

[Blayere]

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.

And they chose to name her Bonnie....

What about Bonnie, huh? Don't be hating on Bonnie. She is the best. Everybody knows it!

[Hathradic States]

You still play reach and Black Ops?

Reach: Hell yes. I don't like Halo 4 that much, and I wanna make Legend before I leave.

Black Ops: I alternate between it, BOII, and MW3 for my Call of Duty fix. Normally, though, it's Fallout or Skyrim. *loves RPGs*

[Orcoa]

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.

I agree with this!

Was I not the only one who fell in love with Bonnie during my time during RDP?

She was the perfect package! She was tough, was independent, and she was pretty cute as well :3

[DrakoBlaria]

You still play reach and Black Ops?

Reach: Hell yes. I don't like Halo 4 that much, and I wanna make Legend before I leave.

Black Ops: I alternate between it, BOII, and MW3 for my Call of Duty fix. Normally, though, it's Fallout or Skyrim. *loves RPGs*

Why dont you like Halo 4?

And they chose to name her Bonnie....

What about Bonnie, huh? Don't be hating on Bonnie. She is the best. Everybody knows it!

Sounds like pimp advertising

[Orcoa]

It's much easier to point to Ivy from the Soul series as an example of crossing that line.

Ugh, yes. I like the Soul series as fighting games, but there are times when I just can't stand playing them anymore because of how ridiculous most of the women, and especially Ivy, are.

(On the bright side, I am REALLY GOOD as Talim, whom I started playing initially specifically because (a) her boobs are a vaguely plausible size relative to the rest of her frame, rather than being giant balloons attached to a stick-figure body and (b) she gets to fight in actual pants rather than a miniskirt or a damn dominatrix costume. She still has to fight in what appears to be a tiny tube top, but I'll take what I can get. *sigh*)

I smell a fellow Soul player.....

I DEMAND A CHALLENGE!

[Blayere]

Reach: Hell yes. I don't like Halo 4 that much, and I wanna make Legend before I leave.

Black Ops: I alternate between it, BOII, and MW3 for my Call of Duty fix. Normally, though, it's Fallout or Skyrim. *loves RPGs*

Why dont you like Halo 4?

What about Bonnie, huh? Don't be hating on Bonnie. She is the best. Everybody knows it!

Sounds like pimp advertising

Just something that someone I used to know said.

[Grand Britannia]

You still play reach and Black Ops?

Reach: Hell yes. I don't like Halo 4 that much, and I wanna make Legend before I leave.

Black Ops: I alternate between it, BOII, and MW3 for my Call of Duty fix. Normally, though, it's Fallout or Skyrim. *loves RPGs*

black Ops?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak.

[Hathradic States]

Reach: Hell yes. I don't like Halo 4 that much, and I wanna make Legend before I leave.

Black Ops: I alternate between it, BOII, and MW3 for my Call of Duty fix. Normally, though, it's Fallout or Skyrim. *loves RPGs*

Why dont you like Halo 4?

This is why:

*is sprinting*

*sees blue guy*

*stops*

*has to wait two seconds to shoot again*

*is dead*

That, and the armor sucks.

[Hathradic States]

Reach: Hell yes. I don't like Halo 4 that much, and I wanna make Legend before I leave.

Black Ops: I alternate between it, BOII, and MW3 for my Call of Duty fix. Normally, though, it's Fallout or Skyrim. *loves RPGs*

black Ops?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak.

Zombie mode is fucking awesome.

But, again, I prefer RPGs. Fallout, Skyrim, Neverwinter Nights, etc.

[DrakoBlaria]

Why dont you like Halo 4?



Sounds like pimp advertising

Just something that someone I used to know said.

Was he a pimp?

[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.

[Arkinesia]

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)

Because it's Call of Duty... It's the game where those who claim to be gamers go, regardless of gender, ethnicity or age, it's the default, go-to game for "gamers".

Oh jesus christ.

This thread exists exactly because of closed-minded people like you.

[Blayere]

Just something that someone I used to know said.

Was he a pimp?

She* and no. Some inside joke I wasn't in or from some tv show. She was doing it in a southern accent and saying it really fast.

[DrakoBlaria]

I honestly doubt that 51% of CoD players are female

[Free South Califas]

Women are also not served well by annoying "girl gamers" who really make a point of making sure you know they're female. It only makes all women in video games targets for trolls because they know that women attract white knights like lightning rods.

This is an odd bit of collective victim-blaming from an unexpected source.

[DrakoBlaria]

Women are also not served well by annoying "girl gamers" who really make a point of making sure you know they're female. It only makes all women in video games targets for trolls because they know that women attract white knights like lightning rods.

This is an odd bit of collective victim-blaming from an unexpected source.

Lol.... victim blaming.

[Edlichbury]

I'm as big fan of my video games. I love them. And I feel a bit free to say that the games I play most frequently don't suffer from sexism nearly as much as standard ones. But even then, there is this nagging feeling.

My first real game, at least one that I remember playing frequently, was Pokemon's Silver for GameBoy Color. It was a great game. There appeared to be little sexism to concern yourself with. There's no love interest to save, the character can be a boy or a girl. It was a great game, and a simple time.

Then Zelda came. I love Zelda, even though I'm horrid at it. But interestingly, as many point out, women have no role in the game. In this hero's quest, the only time women really do anything is to give him some kind of mystical help. Women have two roles: give the hero something or be something for the hero to attain.

But perhaps where I saw the best example of how some games "grow out" of sexism was Fire Emblem. See, I constantly, like any respecting player, attempted to sort out the best strategies and units right away. It wasn't until the end of the game, on the recap, that I discovered just how well the game had done. My top performing characters were a mixture, and while the male protagonist Ike still went on his quest to save a damsel princess, the females represented certainly weren't messing around. It's also notable that the arguably most powerful nation is not only led by a girl, but also a young yet powerful girl.

Today, I play mostly nation builders. Things like Civ 5, Tropico, and Europa Universalis. Civ 5's record is pretty good, all things considered. England, China, Byzantium, the Celts, Carthage, Spain, Austria, Russia, and Portugal all have female leaders. While that's only 9 out of 43 total civilizations, considering the historical lack of female leaders they've done rather well. Tropico, like Pokemon, allows you to pick a male or female leader. Europa's leaders are only useful for traits, but women can have equal of better traits than men.

From my perspective, I see why games so often fail at avoiding sexist behavior. The games that arguably avoid it best are all games where gender is treated as gender. No attempts to make "a strong female character" or a "female action-hero." Instead, they take the approach that the gender is completely irrelevant to gameplay. A "strong female character" is simply a strong character. No penalties or bonuses for gender. And the problem is that without allowing the player to design their character, which can come at the expense of other areas of gameplay, developers are left with few options to ensure the differences between the genders are as limited as possible.

But I think the biggest insight on this front was Crusader Kings. Since you play as a feudal lord, the game plays it as realistically as possible. Women, by and large, do not inherit titles when men can. Women have worse relations with their male vassals, which is basically all of them. Rulers with female heirs have worse relations with vassals. Women rarely secure matrilineal marriages, and the default gives the father control of offspring as part of his dynasty. There is no way, outside of mods, to reverse the gender gap and give females the upper hand in succession. Females also cannot serve as part of the official council, though they can serve as the unofficial post of spymaster, nor can they receive many of the honorary titles. In Merchant Republics, women are outright barred from succession and the option of arranging a matrilineal marriage isn't even discussed with the current Patriarch. Yet, Crusader Kings is not any more sexist than to be expected, as to depict the society and political landscape of the Feudal Era required them to give women lesser roles.

I don't think video games are any more sexist than society. I think society, in all forms of media, are sexist. But I don't see video games particularly standing out in sexism compared to TV or literature. And personally, I think video games became sexist because of how media had already entrenched itself in sexist views. Perhaps the solution is even to take the approach of Crusader Kings, and openly point out that systematic and institutionalized sexism exists and was heavily present in the past. An open discussion about the ramifications of the underlying sexism in the "damsel in distress" trope might be exactly what games, and media in general need. A few brave people taking those underlying messages that women are helpless and need saving and drawing those thoughts to their logical conclusions might end it.

But certainly, this isn't an issue video games alone have. And quite frankly, video games even handle sexism a lot better than most other forms of media. But it's still a battle.

[Mostrov]

Crusader Kings

Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Civilization? Realistic?

top lel (Sorry too tempting)

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I don't really want to get into a debate because I see this as pretty silly in all honesty. I've read about most sides and I think both sides are missing each others arguements a little, I think you'd find that most of these so called 'ebil gamers' are quite pliable to change so long as you aren't trying to impose it over systems artificially, nor do they mind changes in the slightest.

And of course these same gamers really, really resent the fact that they are stereotyped as neckbeards and other things and laughed at, which sort of backs them into a corner and naturally they are disinclined to reasonable.

[Nationalist State of Knox]

It's all you can expect in a community that is majority male.