Damsel in Distress - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Retr0gamer · 02-08-2013 1:32pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee8RgbS9ESE

Makes some good points. I very much doubt that any game developers actively hate women and it's more than to being in their early twenties, male and the lack of maturity that goes with that.

johnny_ultimate · 02-08-2013 1:54pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I very much doubt that any game developers actively hate women and it's more than to being in their early twenties, male and the lack of maturity that goes with that.

This isn't about actively hating women, that's the whole point. It's just about all these deeply engrained cultural tropes that we can take active steps to address. Again, I'd tend to differ somewhat from the militant feminist view that there's a direct cause and effect relationship between representation and action, although there obviously is some anthropological truth in all that jazz (not well addressed by these videos, and that's easily her least convincing argument). To me, what's provocative and well-handled in her videos is the simple identification of deep-rooted systems and representational trends within gaming, and in that sense I think her argument is based on well-presented evidence. As said, I thought the indie game segment here was excellent and thought-provoking deconstruction. Like she points out repeatedly, we can identify and acknowledge flaws while still fundamentally appreciating the end product - it's the same with her arguments.

Retr0gamer · 02-08-2013 2:19pm

It's still taken her three 30 minute videos to say not an awful lot and point out something that would be very obvious to any well adjusted gamer. All she has really done is said that the damsel in distress trope is painfully over used in games and her 'research' has involved finding lots of games were this is evident. Thanks for that statement of the obvious Anita but where is this all going and why is it a problem? Those are the real questions she should be asking but so far I feel they are beyond her capabilities of covering. What I'm saying is I wish someone without an agenda that can do a far better job of analysing this topic would do it. The fact that she is rising to and addressing the troll bait of the feminism vs facts videos shows a real lack of professionalism.

richymcdermott · 02-08-2013 4:04pm

This all seems like an exploitation on Anita part for her personal gain and thee idealsation that videogames is making male gamers misogynist is ludicrous.

There have been strong female characters in videogames for years but like almost every other medium forcing something just to appease to certain demographic hurts the art and the freedom on what we can or cannot choose because no matter what someone out there is going to be offended.

Characters that come to mind that show womens dominance are

Alys Brangwin ( Phantasy star 4 )
Alis Landale (Phantasy star )
Ellie (Last of Us )
Elena (Uncharted)

and not to forget maria from silent hill 2 who soul purpose is to torment and destroy james sunderland through out the whole game.

Should their be more female protagonist ? yes but as long as it fits the developers game they want to make and not force something onto themselves.

It does seem like she is doing this for own own agenda and videogames should be the least of peoples worries for how women are portrayed. Model magazines and actress advertisements have made alot of teenage girls starve themselves putting themselves down cause of what they are been brainwashed.

Star Lord · 02-08-2013 4:39pm

Add the first ones that come to my head to that list:
Samus Aran
Jill Valentine
Alexandra Roivas
Vanessa Z. Schneider

Retr0gamer · 02-08-2013 4:59pm

Yes it's a male dominated industry but then again it's because women aren't studying game design or want to work in the games development industry and really that's due to a negative attitude and view that women have of videogames. I'm doing a game design course myself and only 1 of our devs is female and in the app dev course we have only 1 other female developer. It's not male dominated because women are being discriminated against, most developers would love to get more females in to give a different point of view, it's male dominated because of a lack of female graduates and a lack of females that are looking for work in the industry.

Edit - now my post seems stupid because the previous poster deleted their post

richymcdermott · 02-08-2013 5:15pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Yes it's a male dominated industry but then again it's because women aren't studying game design or want to work in the games development industry and really that's due to a negative attitude and view that women have of videogames. I'm doing a game design course myself and only 1 of our devs is female and in the app dev course we have only 1 other female developer. It's not male dominated because women are being discriminated against, most developers would love to get more females in to give a different point of view, it's male dominated because of a lack of female graduates and a lack of females that are looking for work in the industry.

Edit - now my post seems stupid because the previous poster deleted their post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo

ancapailldorcha · 02-08-2013 5:24pm

I'm amazed that noone's mentioned Alyx Vance as an example of a strong female character yet.

Andrew76 · 02-08-2013 5:30pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Yes it's a male dominated industry but then again it's because women aren't studying game design or want to work in the games development industry and really that's due to a negative attitude and view that women have of videogames. I'm doing a game design course myself and only 1 of our devs is female and in the app dev course we have only 1 other female developer. It's not male dominated because women are being discriminated against, most developers would love to get more females in to give a different point of view, it's male dominated because of a lack of female graduates and a lack of females that are looking for work in the industry.

Edit - now my post seems stupid because the previous poster deleted their post

What was the video about that he posted? Never heard of the chap's name, sounded Russian maybe. Shame he deleted is post.

I'm not sure about the lack of female graduates unless you're referring to just your course or specific gaming related courses? Back when I did programming in college there were tons of females studying it, most of them very clever indeed.

What would help is a female version of Notch, some female indie dev to come along and make a successful game (and hopefully not follow Mr. Fish's lead). Put women in gaming on the map so to speak.

jill_valentine · 02-08-2013 9:06pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Yes it's a male dominated industry but then again it's because women aren't studying game design or want to work in the games development industry and really that's due to a negative attitude and view that women have of videogames.

I studied computer science with an eye towards videogame design for a bit. I love videogames very much. One of our two alternating second year programming lecturers was notorious for his belief that girls can't code. His attitude was clearly evident in the fact that in the room full of students, the ten or so females got a disproportionate amount of hassle when it came to new coding concepts or problems. Even the lads noticed it, and revelled in it - if somebody was going to be asked a tough question and get a hard time when they got it wrong, it was going to be one of the girls. Eventually, it became routine that the girls would avoid the lectures they knew he was involved in and do their own study, placing them at an obvious disadvantage when it came to exam time. In other words, his belief that girls aren't natural programmers was ultimately self fulfilling - it created such a passive aggressively hostile environment that they didn't want to be involved. He "won."

And that's not an isolated anecdote. Women are, still, a minority in the gaming industry, and while an element of that is indeed likely because there is a perception that "games aren't for girls" - the industry itself is still doing its damnedest besides to squeeze that minority even further. Just as with TV and movies, fewer women behind the screen makes for fewer women on it - and fewer again being represented in any meaningful, useful context.

The presence and quality of female characters in lead roles, lead roles that aren't directly reliant on other male authority characters, serve as distinct characters rather than bouncy boobsy baubles is actually declining. Again, the trajectory of Jill Valentine is a sad example of that. The new, jiggly titted Lightning is another. Lara Croft is a rare reversal of the trend.

Women compose upwards of 40% of the online videogame market and that number's going up - but you'd never know it from the marketing, which either clearly prioritises males or even aims at them to an exclusionary extent. Yorkie style marketing.

We keep being told, too, by industry idiots that "women don't sell" in videogames, but... based on what? Even considering how few female-led videogames there are out there, that statement doesn't actually seem to be backed up by anything tangible. It's a convenient excuse that sounds nice and rational and objective, but drill down into it and there doesn't actually seem to be any discernable relationship between female leads and IP successes at all. Yes, most of the big sellers are male-led - but most videogames period are male led, so that means SFA unless you weight it against those qualifying factors. It's a mantra that seems to have taken such a deep root that nobody ever really questions it, nobody ever really thinks too hard about it.

What we do have numbers to support is in marketing - “Games with a female only protagonist, got half the spending of female optional, and only 40 percent of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually,” Zatkin said.

"With under 30 games with exclusively female protagonists, and those games receiving much smaller marketing budgets than games with variable genders or male leads, it's hard to draw any conclusions about the impact of gender on sales or reviews. "

A quote from that Kotaku article sums the problem there neatly -

@smgrissom

#1reasonwhy Because the metrics team was shocked to discover that girls liked our game at all. Weren't even trying for that "demographic"

The videogame community, like many other arms of the entertainment industry, still has this weird psychological barrier where it views women as an optional, niche demographic. A nice bonus. Instead of what they are - 50% of their maximum potential paying public. 50%. It's absolute madness for somebody in a commercial arena to treat half the wallets waiting for them as an afterthought. Madness.

Male viewers and players often don't see the problem just because they aren't tuned to see that "absence". Just as I, as a white person, am not always aware of the surreal lack of anybody of colour on something like Friends. A closer example of that would be how male viewers and reviewers hardly ever notice or comment on the giant reality failure at the heart of Modern Family that seems absolutely bizarre to female viewers, for instance, or how shocked they tend to be about how few movies pass the Bechdel test.

It is absolutely bananas that a game series featuring over one hundred playable characters over ten years can feature only one female - nine years ago, btw - without that having long ago firing up the absurdity siren all over the landscape. To me, that just goes to show how conditioned we are to accept it, to the point that we don't even notice how crazy it is anymore. Meanwhile...

The commonly accepted wisdom about videogaming and women is frequently false and often self fulfilling, but it's so often repeated that people treat it as true. That's not necessarily "hating" women in itself, it's just an unwillingness to think about it. And hey, it's kind of a bummer to think about, I get it. And that's not a diss on men, but maybe instead of automatically adopting a defensive position and trying to find reasons why she's wrong, it might be worth thinking about where she might have a point.

Instead of saying "Well, videogames aren't the only market guilty of it, the effect probably isn't that bad!", and putting our energy into brushing it off as an issue, maybe we could just hold our hands up, agree that it's Bad Thing, and start thinking about where videogaming could start taking steps to sort its own gaff out rather than running to shore up the barricades in its defence.

Retr0gamer · 02-08-2013 9:25pm

jill_valentine wrote: »

I studied computer science with an eye towards videogame design for a bit. I love videogames very much. One of our two alternating second year programming lecturers was notorious for his belief that girls can't code. His attitude was clearly evident in the fact that in the room full of students, the ten or so females got a disproportionate amount of hassle when it came to new coding concepts or problems. Even the lads noticed it, and revelled in it - if somebody was going to be asked a tough question and get a hard time when they got it wrong, it was going to be one of the girls. Eventually, it became routine that the girls would avoid the lectures they knew he was involved in and do their own study, placing them at an obvious disadvantage when it came to exam time. In other words, his belief that girls aren't natural programmers was ultimately self fulfilling - it created such a passive aggressively hostile environment that they didn't want to be involved. He "won."

And that's not an isolated anecdote. Women are, still, a minority in the gaming industry, and while an element of that is indeed likely because there is a perception that "games aren't for girls" - the industry itself is still doing its damnedest besides to squeeze that minority even further. Just as with TV and movies, fewer women behind the screen makes for fewer women on it - and fewer again being represented in any meaningful, useful context.

The presence and quality of female characters in lead roles, lead roles that aren't directly reliant on other male authority characters, serve as distinct characters rather than bouncy boobsy baubles is actually declining. Again, the trajectory of Jill Valentine is a sad example of that. The new, jiggly titted Lightning is another. Lara Croft is a rare reversal of the trend.

Women compose upwards of 40% of the online videogame market and that number's going up - but you'd never know it from the marketing, which either clearly prioritises males or even aims at them to an exclusionary extent. Yorkie style marketing.

We keep being told, too, by industry idiots that "women don't sell" in videogames, but... based on what? Even considering how few female-led videogames there are out there, that statement doesn't actually seem to be backed up by anything tangible. It's a convenient excuse that sounds nice and rational and objective, but drill down into it and there doesn't actually seem to be any discernable relationship between female leads and IP successes at all. Yes, most of the big sellers are male-led - but most videogames period are male led, so that means SFA unless you weight it against those qualifying factors. It's a mantra that seems to have taken such a deep root that nobody ever really questions it, nobody ever really thinks too hard about it.

What we do have numbers to support is in marketing - “Games with a female only protagonist, got half the spending of female optional, and only 40 percent of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually,” Zatkin said.

"With under 30 games with exclusively female protagonists, and those games receiving much smaller marketing budgets than games with variable genders or male leads, it's hard to draw any conclusions about the impact of gender on sales or reviews. "

A quote from that Kotaku article sums the problem there neatly -

The videogame community, like many other arms of the entertainment industry, still has this weird psychological barrier where it views women as an optional, niche demographic. A nice bonus. Instead of what they are - 50% of their maximum potential paying public. 50%. It's absolute madness for somebody in a commercial arena to treat half the wallets waiting for them as an afterthought. Madness.

Male viewers and players often don't see the problem just because they aren't tuned to see that "absence". Just as I, as a white person, am not always aware of the surreal lack of anybody of colour on something like Friends. A closer example of that would be how male viewers and reviewers hardly ever notice or comment on the giant reality failure at the heart of Modern Family that seems absolutely bizarre to female viewers, for instance, or how shocked they tend to be about how few movies pass the Bechdel test.

It is absolutely bananas that a game series featuring over one hundred playable characters over ten years can feature only one female - nine years ago, btw - without that having long ago firing up the absurdity siren all over the landscape. To me, that just goes to show how conditioned we are to accept it, to the point that we don't even notice how crazy it is anymore. Meanwhile...

The commonly accepted wisdom about videogaming and women is frequently false and often self fulfilling, but it's so often repeated that people treat it as true. That's not necessarily "hating" women in itself, it's just an unwillingness to think about it. And hey, it's kind of a bummer to think about, I get it. And that's not a diss on men, but maybe instead of automatically adopting a defensive position and trying to find reasons why she's wrong, it might be worth thinking about where she might have a point.

Instead of saying "Well, videogames aren't the only market guilty of it, the effect probably isn't that bad!", and putting our energy into brushing it off as an issue, maybe we could just hold our hands up, agree that it's Bad Thing, and start thinking about where videogaming could start taking steps to sort its own gaff out rather than running.

Thanks. In a single post you've said far more than Anita has in her three videos. I so far haven't noticed any discriminating evidence against women in the industry but then I've only been in it 9 months and again it's an isolated case. My problem is Anita isn't and hasn't really adressed anything you've just mentioned and I find this kind of stuff far more important than pointing out the games where female characters are treated poorly.

johnny_ultimate · 02-08-2013 11:57pm

jill_valentine wrote: »

The commonly accepted wisdom about videogaming and women is frequently false and often self fulfilling, but it's so often repeated that people treat it as true. That's not necessarily "hating" women in itself, it's just an unwillingness to think about it. And hey, it's kind of a bummer to think about, I get it. And that's not a diss on men, but maybe instead of automatically adopting a defensive position and trying to find reasons why she's wrong, it might be worth thinking about where she might have a point.

Instead of saying "Well, videogames aren't the only market guilty of it, the effect probably isn't that bad!", and putting our energy into brushing it off as an issue, maybe we could just hold our hands up, agree that it's Bad Thing, and start thinking about where videogaming could start taking steps to sort its own gaff out rather than running to shore up the barricades in its defence.

This, I think, is part of the fundamental concerns I have with the receptions the videos have received. Even before the videos were put up, Anita was subject to repeated rape threats and other forms of extreme, aggressive sexism - even if this was from a very small minority, IMO it terrifyingly brings to the forefront the kind of thing that happens when anyone even suggests trying to confront or discuss some of these issues. Even so many much more well-adjusted gamers have been so dismissive I'm left a tad concerned.

To me, the benefits of identifying the tropes discussed by Anita are so apparent and in more general terms raising awareness of how much more exciting gaming would be if we didn't just keep falling back on the same old systems and representations. Confronting them could only possibly making gaming a far more interesting, welcoming and varied medium for absolutely everyone, benefiting even those who have no interest in more in-depth gaming criticism or analysis. That's why I have to admit to a little frustration when I see the points laughed off or tossed aside, or even dismissed on the basis of one or two points while ignoring twenty much more intriguing others.

Counter her arguments, disagree with her approach, filter out some of her more militant viewpoints: as much as I appreciate the series, I do not think Anita Sarkeesian is not the greatest thing to ever happen to journalism, games or otherwise (I am disappointed how few other writers are willing to analyse games on this sort of level, though) and rebuttals and responses are only to be encouraged. But it's absolutely important to not dismiss or ignore the issues she's brought to the fore, for reasons positive or negative.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I so far haven't noticed any discriminating evidence against women in the industry but then I've only been in it 9 months and again it's an isolated case. My problem is Anita isn't and hasn't really adressed anything you've just mentioned and I find this kind of stuff far more important than pointing out the games where female characters are treated poorly.

There's a significant difference between criticism of an industry and content-based criticism, even though they are interrelated. This series is based primarily on content analysis (even if it takes some brief and occasionally underwhelming sidesteps into anthropology / more sociological feminism), as is the case in other more evolved cultural criticism spheres. It's all well and good calling for an expose or detailed analysis of the industry itself - and, hands up, I'd love to read / watch that too, no question - but that needs to exist beside discussion and analysis of the 'text' itself. A feminist from an academic background is going to be primarily concerned with the latter, while I'd expect a very different approach from a site like Gamesutra (although they do dip into more critical spheres from time to time). I guess this is a fundamental difference between you and I: I'm coming from this solely as a player, whereas you also have a more pronounced interest in the mechanisms of the development industry (as well as, of course, being a player too).

Both forms of writing can exist side by side, and some fantastic journalists can weave the two strands together expertly. But in film writing for example I know there's very often the great publications and writers who focus on industry matters, and the great writers and publications that focus on the films themselves. I'm sure I don't even need to point out I come from a more cultural criticism background (I'd be more willing to commit my time to a 5,000 word essay on a director I like than a 5,000 word investigative journalism piece on the NSA, even though I'd fully acknowledge the latter is more important to society at large) but I think both approaches are an important part of a healthy landscape.

Retr0gamer · 03-08-2013 12:59am

MY only problem is that it's a really bad thesis. She's presenting it as a sociological study and even doing a ciriculum at the end of it for teach it. All she has done is pointed out the blatantly obvious, there's sexism trends in the portrayal of videogames. That isn't new or interesting however. It's why this is and it's social implications that are important and she hasn't addressed this at all. All she is giving is her opinion on the matter, an opinion that she has not backed up with any form of research or sociological study. It's just terrible scientific research. It would be like a dissertation on say Birth of a Nation pointing out how racist it was but not explaining why it was like this by looking at society at the time and the social impact such racism had on popular culture. It would be a pointless and vapid statement of the obvious.

Even worse than that is how she is presenting it. Stating she is a feminist shows she is taking this from a feminist point of view with all the ulterior motivations and preconceptions that entails. If this was a proper scientific study it would be from an objective point of view and her conclusions wouldn't be drawn for preconceptions but from research. Even if she is approaching it objectively it's very unprofessional and damaging to her research it state this.

Another worrying thing is despite having a masters thesis (I think it's a masters) she hasn't backed up any of her conclusions with anything from peer reviewed journals. Sure there's probably very little on games but there's mountains on sexism in film and literature. If she is going to be taken seriously she needs to back it up because otherwise it's just her opinion she is spouting which means nothing.

I'm not dismissing anything she is bringing up, there's a hell of a lot there that could be discussed or researched and would be very interesting and prehaps eye opening. My problem is that Anita is just a dreadful researcher and it's very worrying that it seems she is going into this without an objective view that will colour any findings. You might as well be getting a an opinion on evolution from a creationist.

johnny_ultimate · 03-08-2013 1:42am

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If this was a proper scientific study it would be from an objective point of view and her conclusions wouldn't be drawn for preconceptions but from research. Even if she is approaching it objectively it's very unprofessional and damaging to her research it state this.

Ah, but it is not a proper scientific study because feminism is not a science. What exactly it is is a huge question - an ideology, a cultural movement, whatever, but it's not a hard science. Cultural theory is very much based on readings and interpretations as well as 'evidence'. They're very different stands, and while certainly there are verifiable scientific methods involved in communications or cultural research, read a thesis from a feminist graduate and a chemistry graduate and you have two completely different beasts on your hands.

Another worrying thing is despite having a masters thesis (I think it's a masters) she hasn't backed up any of her conclusions with anything from peer reviewed journals. Sure there's probably very little on games but there's mountains on sexism in film and literature. If she is going to be taken seriously she needs to back it up because otherwise it's just her opinion she is spouting which means nothing.

Peer reviewed journals? In a youtube series? I think this is where our expectations vary wildly. Yes, there is some basic sociology and evidence gathering here, but it's not a dry academic paper - it's meant as an argumentative piece directed at a mass audience, not a piece of peer-reviewed research. I have a masters, for example, but I don't typically cite peer-reviewed articles when writing a film analysis, even though some the ideas I might draw on are from an academic background. Anita's argument to me is "here's some clips, here's my reading" and that's a perfectly valid line of argument given the context.

A Youtube video series is point blank not a journal article - yes, it will draw on some general theory and existing research (cultural theory is not completely divorced from the sciences when it comes to research) but as someone from a science background I definitely think you're expecting something very, very different than I am from a media & communications background. Stating her allegiances in no uncertain terms gives her the leeway to make some personal commentary because she's working in a completely different sphere than academia, and aiming at a completely different audience. More philosophical arenas like feminism are never going to strictly conform to the methodology in more rigidly scientific fields - and we wouldn't have as vibrant and engaging an intellectual space if they were forced to.

Retr0gamer · 03-08-2013 2:04am

Well while I'd accept personal opinion on a film analysis this is a completely different beast and if it's not really approached in a scientific manner then any 'research' she is conducting isn't really research and it doesn't rise above any other ranty opinion piece on youtube which are a dime a dozen. I really don't see where all that kickstarter money is going because it's very poorly researched, if you could even call it that.

Maybe I am looking for more than just being entertained. So far all I've seen from Anita's series that cost so much is 3 ranting opinion pieces that say absolutely nothing about the issue, and offer no conclusions or evidence to back them up. It means absolutely nothing. It might as well be another Angry Joe opinion piece.

As for bringing in peer reviewed journals, you can just cite some stuff to back herself up, she doesn't have to bore us all to death or at least give links in the description. That wouldn't be too hard and would actually show some real research was actually done because if you're not backing up your findings with peer reviewed papers it's not research, something Anita seems to be so proud of. Sure it's meant to appeal to the mainstream but that also doesn't mean it has to be awful as well. Daragh O'Brien on Science Club is doing a good job of showing how that can be done.

Maybe I'm just annoyed that she is getting so much exposure for doing such a bad job on a topic that would interest me. Again as each video appears it seems to be a huge missed oppurtunity.

johnny_ultimate · 03-08-2013 2:32am

You keep mentioning evidence and research... What exactly are you looking for may I ask? To me, she's laying our a thesis - thus far, "the damsel in distress is an overused trope in videogames" and some commentary on the same - and providing 100+ example of why this is so and signifies a trend (plus exceptions and all that jazz). Yes, it has taken her over an hour to get there (too long, no doubt), but there is evidence there in terms of content analysis which is very much the focus. Certainly if she kept pushing a sociological angle - like if she kept coming back to a "violent video game player = wife beater" slant and didn't back it up with hard facts - I'd be right with you, and I'd also love to see her give more time to exceptions (but time is clearly a premium here). As is, I think she's done a good job of laying out the various complexities of the damsel in distress trope which is the core focus. We obviously disagree on its effectiveness and indeed its worthiness.

And I can only stress once again I do not think her presentation is flawless (her attempts at humour particularly have been fairly awful, and some arguments are unconvincing of fade into nothingness). Certainly if a more articulate writer or presenter came along with a more robust analysis Id be right there for that ****.

But here's the somewhat depressing rub: there are very, very few journalists out there addressing these topics in the depth they deserve, so flaws and all (not that there aren't some, of course, and a couple Im quite fond of), Anita is hopefully paving the way for a more open and hopefully more effective discourse. I have no doubt there are wonderful voices out there, either hidden or yet to emerge. Lets hope eventually they'll be gifted the stage to robustly analyse what's wrong and right with gaming: whether that's gender representations or the myriad of other worthy topics.

jill_valentine · 15-08-2013 3:48am

jill_valentine wrote: »

It is absolutely bananas that a game series featuring over one hundred playable characters over ten years can feature only one female - nine years ago, btw - without that having long ago firing up the absurdity siren all over the landscape. To me, that just goes to show how conditioned we are to accept it, to the point that we don't even notice how crazy it is anymore. Meanwhile...

Call of Duty: Ghosts Features Female Soldiers in Multiplayer

Welp, it's a start.

Retr0gamer · 16-08-2013 7:10pm

It's one step forward.

Here's a massive running jump backwards:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-16-fan-harassed-writer-jennifer-hepler-leaves-bioware

Assholes.

I'd hope anita brings this up.

Myrddin · 17-08-2013 12:27pm

From the source above,

She had received death threats, had her family and children threatened and found herself the figurehead of a raging debate about how fans treat game makers in an age of unprecedented access brought on chiefly by Twitter.

Absolutely sickening.

CiDeRmAn · 17-08-2013 3:14pm

Yeah, find that sort of thing disgraceful regardless of the gender or creed of the person on the receiving end.

I wonder what kind of abuse those working in game development come in for overall, especially from losers who imagine the net lends them anonymity, and hence the nasty crap they spout, imagining impunity, scumbags every one of them.

o1s1n · 17-08-2013 3:33pm

Japanese game developers had the right idea when they were signing off on credits in games under aliases.

fergalr · 17-08-2013 5:30pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's one step forward.

Here's a massive running jump backwards:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-16-fan-harassed-writer-jennifer-hepler-leaves-bioware

Assholes.

I'd hope anita brings this up.

I don't think this solely a 'women in video games' issue; abuse of game creators seems to affect all sexes.

This is a pretty interesting article on the topic, when mentions her quitting as one incident in the general issue: http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/15/4622252/plague-of-game-dev-harassment-erodes-industry-spurs-support-groups

Although possibly (probably?) abuse from certain quarters is much more severe if the target is a woman.

Its also worth noting that she didn't quit because of the abuse:

When asked if the harassment led to her depature, Hepler told Polygon "No, leaving Bioware was for family reasons. I am going to be working on a text book on narrative design among other game-related freelance projects."

Assuming that's true, it dispels the narrative that 'the trolls won'.
Thats a good thing; its better if abusive people don't feel they get power by being abusive.

That whole thing is very sad. There was some good writing in dragon age 1&2. Its awful if someone who was part of that was made to feel anything other than welcome and valued in the industry. They should feel like a champion - not a hate figure - for helping video games to 'grow up' a bit.

The only thing I didn't like in that article is the coverage of the ME3 ending. There should be no abuse of the creators, but its absolutely fair to criticise the end product, if the creators misstep. Without making it personal.

But if people are playing a game that they feel personally engaged in - which is partially the point - its easy to see how things spill over. Still, thats not an excuse for anyone abusing anyone. The gaming community needs much better norms on this issue.

Maybe other parts of society had to learn the norms for criticising media, too. Once upon a time people rioted outside plays in dublin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Playboy_of_the_Western_World#The_.22Playboy_Riots.22

Still, at the moment, online gaming norms seem pretty broken across the board.

I remember once playing a game of Counterstrike on a public server, and a female player started talking on her mic; several guys started giving her abuse just because she was a female. I was trying to explain "this isn't on"; but I cant say I was really surprised - it is sort of the norm in that community, which is terrible. Probably what needs to happen in a situation like that is some sort of action by the community - by all the other players - to show that being a dick isnt cool - ideally being kicked from the server. But people don't take that kind of action.

In other communities, e.g. RTS games, you meet people who start into awful abuse of their teammates - typically in order to compensate for their own inadequacies, in my experience. What do you do with people like that? Try explain to them that they are misdirecting their anger? Occasionally that works, but generally not. A large part of the problem, in my experience, is that they are young, and, frankly, still stupid. But such people take their cues from the community norms around them, which need to be better.

A discussion of online abuse of game creators, e.g. on twitter, seems to dovetail with the wider discussion about abuse on social media in general. Personally, I wouldn't like to see censorship, nor would I like there to be no ability to comment (pseduo-)anonymously online.

Hard to know what to do absent just waiting for everyone to grow up. Maybe media such as twitter are flawed currently, allowing anyone to get into the discussion on a hashtag; maybe there needs to be better ways of particular communities collaboratively deciding what content gets surfaced and buried, to stop extreme opinions hijacking the discourse.

CiDeRmAn · 17-08-2013 7:11pm

Regarding the empowerment of trolls, I saw it with the release of Tintin in the states, they lashed into it, before even seeing it, and when it failed to make the intended impact on the us market they were given full credit, and it only made the scum ready to do it all again.
As far as I am concerned the same thing happened to Cloud Atlas, despite it being really good.

Retr0gamer · 17-08-2013 7:27pm

I found Dragon Age 1 and 2 to have some really poor and immature writing. Even still it doesn't warrant any abuse.

I think the problem with online communication is the anonymity of it all. People have an avatar to hide behind and would never act that way in real life. For some people it's real fantasy fulfillment without the social repercussions, they can say what they've always wanted to say and can get away with it because nobody knows who they really are so it any backlash will not spill over into their real life. It's those social repercussions that stop us all behaving like the bellends we see online.

The whole Mass Effect 3 ending thing was really sad. It wasn't exactly well written, it was a typical fantasy tale but with a futuristic coat of paint rather than being sci-fi. And yet when it had a crap ending people went utterly bonkers over it. It was insane. It's not like games, TV series or films haven't had weak endings before just look at Halo 2, Lost etc. Mass Effect 3 just came along at the wrong time during a perfect storm of internet anonymity and idiotic fanboy entitlement that realised it had a voice on the internet that it really shouldn't have.

When I finished Mass Effect 3 after this had all died down I was disappointed with the stupid ending but the game series was hardly worth getting invested in and I moved on to the next title. I really could not understand the rage over it considering up to that point it had provided a few hours of great entertainment.

Bioware should not have given into the fanboy rage on that one because now they think they hold all the power and it has given them an ego. It's also lead to the popularity of stuff like Angry Joe on youtube, or as I call it bottom of the barrel humanity.

fergalr · 17-08-2013 8:51pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I found Dragon Age 1 and 2 to have some really poor and immature writing. Even still it doesn't warrant any abuse.

The writing was patchy in places, but well above the standard of most games I've played.

They did some interesting things with branching story - depending on the players actions, there were plenty of different ways small parts of the story could go, but the narrative still felt cohesive to me. Also, I found the characters more interesting; plenty of grey.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think the problem with online communication is the anonymity of it all. People have an avatar to hide behind and would never act that way in real life. For some people it's real fantasy fulfillment without the social repercussions, they can say what they've always wanted to say and can get away with it because nobody knows who they really are so it any backlash will not spill over into their real life. It's those social repercussions that stop us all behaving like the bellends we see online.

One framing:

There's three things that stop people yelling and raging at someone they don't like, in public, offline:
1) An enlightened view: Knowing that you'll hurt the other person, so choosing to contain your emotions; treat others like you want to be treated etc.
2) Less enlightened, but socially aware: You will quickly run out of friends if you yell at people on the street; lose social capital, be shunned socially.
3) For the malevolent sociopaths: You know that if you rage at someone on the street, the police will eventually come and take you away.

Online, we are pretty much relying on 1) at the moment.

In the wider debate, a lot of people want to introduce 3, sanction; but what we really need is more of an equivalent to 2 online.

E.g. on twitter, it should be harder to get a platform - unless you are getting upvotes etc. you probably shouldn't get heard so much.

Rather than moving to a system where the police are running around trying to censor every idiot on the internet, which seems to be what a lot of people are calling for.

We might need a bit of that enforcement, though, if people are making credible threats, or harassing (some of the stuff that goes on is over the line).

In general, though, I kind of believe that people have some sort of a right to express their feelings online, even if the feelings are negative.

But I think it should just be easy to ignore those feelings. And there should be good social norms about when criticism or disagreement goes over a line and becomes personal - whatever about twitter, that is certainly missing from gaming.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The whole Mass Effect 3 ending thing was really sad. It wasn't exactly well written, it was a typical fantasy tale but with a futuristic coat of paint rather than being sci-fi. And yet when it had a crap ending people went utterly bonkers over it. It was insane. It's not like games, TV series or films haven't had weak endings before just look at Halo 2, Lost etc. Mass Effect 3 just came along at the wrong time during a perfect storm of internet anonymity and idiotic fanboy entitlement that realised it had a voice on the internet that it really shouldn't have.

So, separate from a discussion about abuse which is bad: I understood the backlash about ME3 (if not how it manifested).
Parts of ME were exceptionally well written for video game - e.g. the krogan story with its different endings, told between the three games, was some good storytelling. That's pretty difficult to do, to have a narrative that branches different ways, but is consistent; I wouldn't like to be trying to write it.

A lot of the ME trilogy was very well told, and then they dropped the ball right at the very end, and that's why people were disappointed.

I actually think its a good thing that gamers now get disappointed when the writing drops the ball at the last minute.
And its good that there was a fuss about it online - this gives feedback to game creators.

Just as long as the feedback doesn't cross the line into abuse.

(You mention Halo2 and Lost - those were also very poor in parts, but that doesnt really change anything. Actually, I think halo2&3 were very overrated...)

Retr0gamer wrote: »

When I finished Mass Effect 3 after this had all died down I was disappointed with the stupid ending but the game series was hardly worth getting invested in and I moved on to the next title. I really could not understand the rage over it considering up to that point it had provided a few hours of great entertainment.

Bioware should not have given into the fanboy rage on that one because now they think they hold all the power and it has given them an ego. It's also lead to the popularity of stuff like Angry Joe on youtube, or as I call it bottom of the barrel humanity.

Giving in to rage is bad - but I think listening to your fans is good (when you've genuinely dropped the ball; there's an 'artistic integrity' argument that could apply if the fans were just being silly).

KeRbDoG · 27-08-2013 9:00am

On related news, anyone see the "Game Girls" article in the Irish Independent today? Page 38/39

Damsel in Distress - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

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