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[Max White]

If I were teaching a class on, say, the history of Promethian figures in science fiction literature, I wouldn't include books that didn't include such figures.

Compare and contrast, it is a pretty standard analytic technique. If you want to give a history of video games it is pretty hard to give a counterpoint, but if you want to say why these video games are sexist, you need a leg to stand on.

[Xantalos]

Oh come now, do you mean to imply that in all of the electronic games medium, you can't find a single example of a game that isn't sexist?

She is doing an educational series on the usage, history and nature of certain sexist tropes within video games. Of which we have only seen the introductory video of one series focusing on one such trope.

If I were teaching a class on, say, the history of Promethian figures in science fiction literature, I wouldn't include books that didn't include such figures.

Would you include movies of that type?
Perhaps a movie that has the name in its title?
As it's title, perchance?

Joking aside, oh wow this thing. Uhh... I'll stay away from this.

[penguinofhonor]

Tropes vs Women only provides shallow criticism towards sexism. Pointing out that female characters from the 80's/90's is idiotic, considering that story meant little back then and they used simple character archetypes to focus almost entirely on the gameplay.

The fact that they were pretty much all male-focused archetypes building on stories that reinforced sexist stereotypes was completely by coincidence.

[Vector]

All right.  Do you know of any trans female main characters outside of dating games?  I don't.  Furthermore, I'm asking a specific question: for the "damsels in distress" category, what would you do?  Say: "Oh, look, this game has a woman who isn't in distress!  What a good job this game does" ?

What shall we do, then?  Ask politely with an appropriately self-humiliating gesture, so that everyone knows we're not to waste their valuable time and resources on little old us?  I'm not sure what there's left to do outside of "whine" and "complain."

What would suggest as a "different way" then? Because I can't think of anything else other than more women trying to get hired as game designers or something.

And, on top of that, it's hard to deny that Sex Sells. For every 50 RPS commenters complaining about Miranda's butt in Mass Effect, it seems there's another 5000 silent 13 year old boys who are still giving the companies money.

It's a lot easier if the onus of progress isn't always put on those who are actively being stepped on, so yeah.

Also, indeed sex sells.  I'd like to see another female gazey-game that isn't Metal Gear Solid, because I've never seen any others.  Acting like the entire market consists of the folks who are currently spending lots of money is really stupid.  Cater to the market that wants to spend money but doesn't have anything to spend it on, and you'll be doing better.

Either learn to deal with it, because it's really not that big of a problem. Or they can actually point out the poorly written characters, and suggest on ways to improve them. More females in the gaming community would help too, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon. If you're the minority, don't expect the majority to completely change their hobby because you don't particularly like it.

If you think that meaningful inclusivity is a "complete change," then perhaps you might understand why it is that big of a problem.

I want to imagine myself doing things other than being a trophy or a piece of ass or something to protect.

[MrWiggles]

My impression from her past series and this one that got butt load of money on kickstarter, is that its just going to be a diatribe of disgust. No real critical or useful examination.

[Max White]

All right.  Do you know of any trans female main characters outside of dating games?  I don't.

I do, it isn't what I would like to see but it is a start.
Actually I'm hesitant to even mention her because of how clearly sexist the character is, but still, honesty is honesty. Final Fight: Poison.

Also, is the Persona series a dating sim?

[Frumple]

All right.  Do you know of any trans female main characters outside of dating games?  I don't. 

I'm fairly certain there's been a couple of text-based ones along those lines. I mean, like one or two. Then a single-digit amount of experimental stuff related to it. From what I remember at least one or two of them were pretty specifically done by the MtF trans game developer whose name I've forgotten. One of her games was that female-protagonist upward scrolling jumpy thingy from a few years back. Pretty damn rare stuff, though.

[palsch]

Either learn to deal with it, because it's really not that big of a problem.

Except it is a problem for three huge groups.

1) The female gamers.
Women are only just a minority of gamers these days, and trends suggest they may become a majority this year. Sure, men still dominate in some genres, although mostly just as the target audience rather than an actual dominant demographic. These women exist and trying to pretend they don't requires actively shitting on them. If you don't believe me, read back your words from before. You are effectively telling women who game that this isn't for them and to just shut up. How would that go down if you were, say, talking about black gamers in a game that contained gross racism?

2) The gaming industry.
See 1. Shitting on a substantial amount of their customers is a bad idea. The industry needs to change to reflect actual gaming demographics rather than the historic young male dominated world of the 90's and early 2000's. That is going to require massive cultural shifts within the industry itself, probably larger than in most gaming communities.

3) Gamers themselves.
The attitudes fostered within the more insular gaming communities are truly toxic. While the internet myth is that people leave it all behind when they go back to the real world, this is a substantial percentage of a persons social interaction. If such interactions are steeped in grossly sexist outlooks I can't imagine them truly leaving it all behind.

Compare and contrast, it is a pretty standard analytic technique. If you want to give a history of video games it is pretty hard to give a counterpoint, but if you want to say why these video games are sexist, you need a leg to stand on.

Again, you are entirely ignoring the point of the series. It isn't holding up a list of video games and saying "SEXIST! BAD!" over and over. It's exploring and analysing particular sexist tropes and how they have been used in games.

Seriously, how the hell would you do a compare and contrast here? It wouldn't add anything to the discussion at all.

Would you include movies of that type?
Perhaps a movie that has the name in its title?
As it's title, perchance?

Heh, rhetoric assignment to write an argument showing that one of the characters in that actually represents Promethius. It's such a crap film you could cover most of the cast.

[Vector]

All right.  Do you know of any trans female main characters outside of dating games?  I don't.

I do, it isn't what I would like to see but it is a start.
Actually I'm hesitant to even mention her because of how clearly sexist the character is, but still, honesty is honesty. Final Fight: Poison.

Also, is the Persona series a dating sim?

All right.  Do you know of any trans female main characters outside of dating games?  I don't. 

I'm fairly certain there's been a couple of text-based ones along those lines. I mean, like one or two. Then a single-digit amount of experimental stuff related to it. From what I remember at least one or two of them were pretty specifically done by the MtF trans game developer whose name I've forgotten. One of her games was that female-protagonist upward scrolling jumpy thingy from a few years back. Pretty damn rare stuff, though.

Color me impressed =)  Also, I wouldn't take Persona as a dating sim, no--I'm really trying to specifically eliminate characters who solely embody fetishism.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

*sigh*

Well, might as well get into it. Anita's message is irrelevant here. And do you know why? It is because she's an e-scammer. She got almost 159,000 dollars and was asking for 6,000 dollars, both of which are entirely too much money for a video series on Youtube.

It's why she waited a year to even do this and why she has a vice grip on her video's comments and ratings. Y'all got trolled, very expensively.

[Max White]

Color me impressed =)  Also, I wouldn't take Persona as a dating sim, no--I'm really trying to specifically eliminate characters who solely embody fetishism.

Oh hey, here is that video I was looking for...
It isn't a great selection, but baby steps.

[freeformschooler]

What would suggest as a "different way" then? Because I can't think of anything else other than more women trying to get hired as game designers or something.

And, on top of that, it's hard to deny that Sex Sells. For every 50 RPS commenters complaining about Miranda's butt in Mass Effect, it seems there's another 5000 silent 13 year old boys who are still giving the companies money.

It's a lot easier if the onus of progress isn't always put on those who are actively being stepped on, so yeah.

Also, indeed sex sells.  I'd like to see another female gazey-game that isn't Metal Gear Solid, because I've never seen any others.  Acting like the entire market consists of the folks who are currently spending lots of money is really stupid.  Cater to the market that wants to spend money but doesn't have anything to spend it on, and you'll be doing better.

Does that market exist? To put it bluntly: video games, the type you put into your XBox, are a visual media. I don't need to tell you that men seem to prefer visual media (which is why you see so little porn marketed to people who aren't straight or gay men), and women seem to prefer written media (which is why the demographic of erotic fanfiction writers on ff.net is staggeringly female).

Sure, there are guys out there who like a good "book" and girls who would rather see Kratos' abs than read about them. Of course, like you pointed out, those games don't have to be ABOUT anything like that if they're good games on their own (MGS).

This is why the onus of progress must be put on those who are being stepped on. Because it seems an industry that continues to produce, market and consume visual media that is primarily dominated by men isn't going to be shaken with strong words on the Internet or in an e-mail. It's going to be shaken with money (or the lack thereof) and a shift of the internal demographics. And it's pretty clear that, like I said, money's going to keep flowing in from those teens who saw an ad with Miranda's butt regardless, so which option are we left with?

[Descan]

To be, women in games is part of a larger issue where the game industry in particular, and corporate society in general, just doesn't want to try new things. "Men have always sold better [because we give them a higher marketing budget, because we don't want to waste money on women, because men have always sold better, because etc], so we're not going to go with a game with a female protagonist."

There's also the part where a lot of writers in the big companies are men, and producers and graphic designers, basically all the people who decide what the game is about are men...

Of course, just because one of the main causes of something is unrelated to sexism, doesn't mean the result doesn't foster sexism. Just have to go... well, mostly anywhere on the internet, and almost all gaming forums to see the result.

[Descan]

*sigh*

Well, might as well get into it. Anita's message is irrelevant here. And do you know why? It is because she's an e-scammer. She got almost 159,000 dollars and was asking for 6,000 dollars, both of which are entirely too much money for a video series on Youtube.

It's why she waited a year to even do this and why she has a vice grip on her video's comments and ratings. Y'all got trolled, very expensively.

Wait, wait, wait... What?

How does SHE have anything to do with what people donated to her? Like, at all?!

You said yourself she only asked for 6k. SHE asked for 6K. She DIDN'T ask for 159k. OTHER PEOPLE gave her the extra 153k, and you're blaming HER for it?!

What the hell, man.

Even if 6k is "way too much for a video series", which I don't agree with at all, she has nothing to do with the actual donations that come in.

And why she has a "vice grip" on comments? Is because nearly every single fucking comment would be filled with vile and terrible words. Any decent conversation would be lost. In fact, in the very descriptions of her videos, she says "We disabled the comments because people suck. If you want to discuss this, feel free to host it on your blog or other forum and discuss it there!" Like, hey, what we're doing right now!

I thought you were better than this, MSH. This is just mud slinging.

[Vector]

I think she has a vice grip on her videos' comments and ratings because they were full of very detailed death and rape threats.

Does that market exist? To put it bluntly: video games, the type you put into your XBox, are a visual media. I don't need to tell you that men seem to prefer visual media (which is why you see so little porn marketed to people who aren't straight or gay men), and women seem to prefer written media (which is why the demographic of erotic fanfiction writers on ff.net is staggeringly female).

I dunno, have you stepped on tumblr recently and listened to them talk about, say, The Avengers or Doctor Who or Sherlock or Metal Gear Solid or pretty much any other visual media that catered to a female audience?  How about manga readers, for example?  That's a visual medium packed to the gunnels with fangirls.  Heck, I had whole conversations about Balthier's pants back in high school.  Not just that, but pretty much all the women I know who weren't the diehard Victorian novel-reading type were excited about visual media, even more so than they were about written media.

There's also the part where a lot of writers in the big companies are men, and producers and graphic designers, basically all the people who decide what the game is about are men...

More importantly, I think, the folks holding the pursestrings and deciding what will and won't sell are men.  There's lots of women who want those jobs, but if they don't get hired...