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[Rolan7]

• Have only misstated the points that make you mad.

Everything I've argued against, I've quoted.  Most of this last reply consists of you paraphrasing events as you see them.
This is some Mafia-level crap, and I'm not going to continue distracting from that actual, interesting, arguments in this this thread.  I'm honestly sorry.

[Neonivek]

If Anita only wanted to say "It exists" then she wouldn't come up with "exemplars" of her trope or explain why it is a problem... She is bad at examples.

It is always where her videos are weakest.

[Loud Whispers]

I talked about how Anita has given interviews where she has created this image of a 'gaming culture' and called it misogynistic and evidence for a large sexist society, using trolls on the internet to represent them.
You started saying she didn't say all gamers are trolls, nor halo players trolls, then you said I was making bullshit implications. Of course, you were right in the former, and that's because that wasn't the point I was making.
Then you started going on about how 'Have they sent YOU rape threats and made face-smashing flash games of YOUR image?' [sic].
Then you conflated it with terrorism.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The whole "death and rape threats" thing was poorly (ok, not) thought out and explained, but I wasn't comparing anyone in this thread to that.  Or anyone to that.  What I didn't say properly but was on my head, was that the reaction to Anita reveals a problem.
  I believe the criticism to her is overblown for what her kickstarter and youtube video ultimately are.  To me this indicates is that A video game consumers are more sexist than people would care to admit and B people find this shit way too normal.

1. Anita used trolls as a straw man representation of everyone who buys games. Halo alone was sold to over 45 million people in its prime om one year, and that's just one game. What could come about such misrepresentation I wonder... Ironic isn't it?
2. It's not a reaction to her. It's their behaviour on the internet, universal to all.
3. She deliberately fanned the trolls for media attention, this is known, and we also know she did this for money.
The last point honestly wouldn't matter... If she actually made something good out of it.

1: Talk about misrepresentation.  She didn't say all gamers were trolls, and she didn't say all Halo players were trolls.  Am I wrong, or are you using specificness to back up a bullshit implication?  There is a world of difference between "Sexism is a problem in video game culture" and "All Halo players are sexist".
2: Have they sent YOU rape threats and made face-smashing flash games of YOUR image?  Have they done so to *most* of the thousands of people more popular than her?  No, they targeted her because her views disturb them.
3: "This is known" to you, maybe.  And even if it's true, fair fucking game!  They're *trolls*.  Their disgusting efforts did cause a backlash in favor of Anita, and probably did help her raise money.  That's not her fault, that's terrorism backfiring.  If she helped it backfire, great.

Then you said my point about how you should 'Go buy the games that interest you,' was irrelevant without justifying why supporting the game studios that do what you say is irrelevant.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's not about making heavy duty shooters female friendly, its changing things so that those games that DO have women portray them properly*, or at least not awfully.  As far as I'm aware, CoD doesn't even have female characters.  It doesn't have a significant female audience.  There are no women to objectify in CoD, and their absence is largely justified by the subject matter.  It is basically irrelevant to the conversation, except to say that male characters in heavy-duty shooters are not female fanservice.  They are non-sexual male fanservice.  Thus it is ridiculous to point at them and say that men and women are equally objectified.

Go buy the games that interest you. Seriously. All you're doing is repeating the same points over and over again without ever getting close to justifying them.

So because you get to play as a woman for one half of one of the three campaigns in a 2004 CONSOLE-ONLY game, we aren't allowed to say there's a lack of meaningful female PCs in video games?
Your position could be completely true and your contribution would still be completely irrelevant!  I could argue your position so much better!  Maybe you keep seeing the same arguments because you're completely incapable of refuting them!

Then you said my question about why video game designers should not have free reign over their game designs was irrelevant without justifying why.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Video games are not primarily smut, and thus do not get that pass.

Why? We have had examples where that is literally the case, and in all others, why not?

Yes, there are cases where video games are literally smut.  Thanks Captain Irrelevant.  This is true of books, movies, comics, sculpture, and every other art form.  To answer your question: Some video games should not be smut for the same reasons not all books, movies, comics, and sculptures should be smut.

Then you made an oversimplistic view on male characters which is also wrong, and used that to justify your point that women and men are absolutely incapable of recognizing attractive features.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

  Because of all this, I think its ridiculous that romance novels be part of this conversation.  If I linked you to "Two Girls One Cup" as an example of how women are objectified, you would similarly dismiss my argument.

The argument was not 'you also.' It was that the idea of what women find makes a woman sexy is also what men find makes a woman sexy, and vice versa.

But romance novels contain sensitive men with flowing hair who spend all their time paying attention to the main character, a woman.  Most male characters in video games are musclebound, emotionless, and focused on kicking ass.  The only real similarity is that they're muscular on the cover, but as someone else said, the publishers make the cover art - so it's more based on what men find sexy.

So no, what men find makes a man sexy is not what women find makes a man sexy.

Then you said you could argue 'my position,' whatever that is, better than I, despite providing no argument. Then I provided my argument, and you refuted nothing.

Your position could be completely true and your contribution would still be completely irrelevant!  I could argue your position so much better!  Maybe you keep seeing the same arguments because you're completely incapable of refuting them!

Argue away:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Always being the prize rather than someone you get to play as is a really shitty position to be in.

This is the exact same argument that says the nominative and accusative case is misogynist.
Except it's also intellectually dishonest in being such a massive gross oversimplification.

Mass Effect has literally changed my life.  It is the first time when I have played a game and thought: "Wow.  I am the target audience for this game.  A lot of this was done with the intent of making me happy."

See:

What exactly would be a woman-focused or a gender neutral show? Bonus points if you describe it without using any of the women stereotypes you hate so much.

Crap, I wish I watched more tv for women...
I know Charmed was really popular. I have vaguely heard about it, and it sounded kind of crappy. Still, anybody with first hand knowledge know if it is actually good?

Charmed was a really good show, the plot was solid and the characters were endearing and well written. I didn't even notice it was supposed to be a women's show until you lot started talking about it now, which is the way I think things should be; people not automatically judging shows and characters by their genders. I didn't feel:
"Hey, this show really is meant for me!"
I felt:
"This show is really nice, excellent even!"

  There really is a dearth of games where women get to see themselves doing things.  If they're doing something, they're almost inevitably sexualized all to hell and back.  See games like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, for an example that I've played.  Dudes get clothing.  Gals literally get stripper gear.

Gals get the option to wear stripper gear. They also get the option to wear bulky combat gear.
One of the ways to solve problems easily for women is to sex everything, or intimidate, fight, persuade, talk or go all CIA-ninja-diplomat on everyone.
Men don't get stripper option ;-;

I don't care if it's a parody or not (see: Bayonetta).  Why should all the games in which I get to play as a girl be sexualized, whether as parody or played straight?

Why shouldn't the designers be able to follow up on their concept art and the game they created, without executive or audience meddling? There was a rather well known example a while back of that game where some tumblr white knight was criticizing a game dev for making one of the characters have large breasts under alleged pressure from lolicon-grognards [seriously]. The game dev then released the concept art of not just that character, but several muscly-man bears in speedos, highlighting just how much they planned before making the game.

Always being the prize rather than someone you get to play as is a really shitty position to be in.  The fact that the symbol of strength, avenging her lover, is female is a good step.  But that is very different from the crowning motivation of the main character.

I find this quite demeaning to the characters, in that you only look at whether they are man or woman before you look at their strengths. You don't look at who they are, their flaws and powers - nope!

If a man holds the door for me, I assume he intends

c. I'm polite, not a dipshit.

+1

You know, for all of the rage against Sarkeesian, I think there's something in particular we're missing: her videos are not trying to say "hey, this is what I want," but rather she's trying to deconstruct the ways in which these games which are supposed to have "mass appeal" declare themselves as "no girls allowed, not for you."  It's a medium.  Why is it gendered.

Why is she so bad at doing that?

(by the way, here's a hint.  There is a very high female demand for games in the genres I happen to like.  We're still not getting our games.  I wonder why that is.  Oh, right, because the industry mistakenly thinks that women are just fine playing stuff that marginalizes us, and men won't play games where they're not the leads.  Right.)

[No they just care about the demographic that gives them more money, they probably don't care whether you play it or not]. Where ignorance and hatred could be a valid explanation, assume ignorance. Where ignorance and hatred could be repaired, target ignorance. Where ignorance will fall, ignorant hatred will too.



ALL THE SINGLE AESIR

ALL THE SINGLE AESIR

BUT MJOLLNIR UP

WOAH DO HO HO HO HO~

The point isn't that it's sexist, it's that it's male-dominated.

Problem? The primary teaching career is so heavily women-dominated.
Should we be taking steps towards tearing down this obviously sexist distribution?

The Bechdel tests shows that a disturbing number of movies do not contain any interaction between women which doesn't center around men.  The reverse obviously isn't true, almost every movie have male characters discussing things or people who aren't women.

You put way too much value on gendered characters. Or rather, the gender you like. The first movie I thought of was AvP, where the female arctic researcher is talking to the other lass about why she was bringing a gun. This is relevant.
If they had started talking about what type of man they wanted to be subservient too, it'd be out of place shit writing.
How many movies cater to out of place shit writing?
[Michael Bay excluded].

WHO is selecting for male empowerment fantasies, though?

1. Most games are male escape fantasies, not empowering ones. This is a really big thing I feel Anita hasn't even touched upon with the weight of so much as a feather. And since most are escape fantasies, it says a lot when the overwhelming majority of players are men.
2. The same idiots with the money, who again and again after ruining franchises will still be able to work again, and AGAIN.
Case and point:
They turned engineer Isaac from a smart, schizoid engineer surviving [to such an extent you could call surviving] calamity with his resourcefulness and self reflection, into a jealous jocky crying over losing his waifu who is only capable of pushing buttons and completely ignored all of his mental conditions.
And the same people who did that will be allowed to do that to other games.
FUCKING FUCK FUCK EVERYTHING


In regards to her examples:
What the hell was her reasoning? [Of course we don't know, since she doesn't say - she only gives oversimplified-emotionally appealing anecdotes repeated to infinity and beyond].
Female characters take the roles that were once dominated by male characters, why is it when they face the violence male characters are subjected to, everything changes and it's indicative of sexism?
Dear Esther is a good example of how male characters should deal with loss?
He kills himself.
In regards to male domination = sexism
The game studios who listen to their fanbase and tailor it to them, reflect their fanbases rather well. GW is one of those companies who [when the stockholders aren't shooting them all] listen to their fanbase, which is an epic level male dominated fanbase.
However, most game studios don't listen to their fanbases. Are sexy characters wrong or sexist? Hell no. But they can break immersion so badly.

Protip: Neckbeards love immersion. They are bro-tier fanbase, and they have been abused by their overlords.
DOWN WITH THE INSTITUTION
Asuras Wrath was used as an example of promoting violence against women. She used Olga getting killed by the golden spider Chakravatin as that example, and Mithra being abused as another.
...
This is after Olga has just tried to destroy humanity with the Bramahstra and kill Mithra, Asura's daughter.
Through his entire story Asura is the only one of the eight generals who doesn't go around killing people with impunity; there's no doubt if Olga tried fighting Asura Asura would have killed her. But something about abusing his daughter for 12,500 years might have had some factor into his intent, and why on Earth would he suddenly change his intent when it's been the same for the other seven deities, even the ones who were his closest friends and mentors? Why on Earth would she use Mithra's abuse, the only thing Asura's living to fight against for, as the other example or justification?

And Olga's less sexualized than sexy Sergei!
[But that's sexism... Or something].
Dante's Inferno was about Dante coming to terms with his sins... Or not, depending on which road you went down. Beatrice was more a pawn of the archangels used to goad poor Dante into spoilers. He got plain up used. This makes a brilliant story. Beatrice isn't even close to a damsel in distress by the spoilers. How does it justify violence against women? If she wanted to use that game for that then she probably should have brought in the lust circle of hell, that level is literally only violence against women looking things.
Of course though, everything is dark and edgy. Batman.
Alan Wake
Ha ha ha ha ha
The master of sneer
[The overwhelming amount of people taken by the darkness are male, all the shades you kill are male. If his wife being taken is sexist, then what is it compared to the mass slaughter of men?]. This is because it's irrelevant. The plot doesn't even center around rescuing your wife, she is just what's anchoring you to the plot and stopping you from running away. It's around solving and stopping the mystery behind the crazy shindigs before more and more people die, as you truly understand the scope of the situation. And childhood Alan wake was sad in so many ways... This is again, a problem with the gross oversimplifications.
"Women are brutally murdered."
All got stomach wounds or headshots.
In God of War people get beaten to death with their own severed arms and Poseidon's eye gouging is infamously notorious. Nothing is morally certain in that game, whether you are like Mars in a frenzy in Actium or you are only fighting [selfishly?] for your own freedom, or perhaps humanity's freedom from the Gods. There isn't a conflict between man and woman there. Hell, you'd have a better time arguing that God of War promotes the mass slaughter of slaves and prisoners.
Gears of War:
She takes things wildly out of context for example, Dom in Gears of War. He kills her to put her out of her misery because she is being tortured and there is clearly no hope for her in this doomed world. The very fact that women are fighting is because they're out of fighters and they no longer can afford to keep women on the sidelines as breeding machines [it's that fucking grim]. The same thing happens with Tai. He however kills himself. Ultimately Dom kills himself because he is sick of having lost everything and wants to save his friends. He even shouts that he is doing it for his wife and kids. He is literally a martyr for them to end pain and suffering in their world. How in any way she even tried to twist Dom's character I have no idea.

Medieval 2:
You are revived by a scientist to fight against the BBEG who is resurrecting the undead to conquer the world.
Your girlfriend is killed by a jack the ripper villain, not the guy behind everything, just some murderer and you save her shortly after the game by going back in time and preventing that from happening, after that you resume your quest to kill the BBEG.

And what about Venetica or Never End where the protagonist is seeking revenge for the death of her boyfriend?
Mein context, rolling over mein eyes!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What irritates me most about her is her insistence that "the men only come to get the women because they want to give her the dick." Not even in detail is this explained, it's as superficial as that. She doesn't talk about how game developers try to invest the player into the relationships the characters share, or why female characters need a special aegis over male characters, or why characters already in a relationship shouldn't go rescue those close to them [because it would be sexist objectification], despite for some of the examples she had given that sexual objectification would have to be between family members and so on.

Her videos are all puritanical rants and an example of how to analyze subjects in the most shallow, skin-deep way possible. She makes no attempt to understand the underlying issues that cause the problem nor does she tackle the task of how they can be improved, she turns the problem of the gaming industry in its inability to experiment and make new risks into an issue of gender.

The renaissance was a movement that improved art and liberated it from many social stigmas, new materials and methods became readily available and were in the most part implemented with great success but the themes continued to be few in number; mainly portraits and representations of ideas associated with Christianity. Video games in a way are a similar reflection and technology has all improved the creativity, but the themes and story telling remain stale, with the majority of the 300,000 games being copies of the successful darers.
She feeds off this fact but twists it to match her perspective and what she intends to portray dishonestly, and she makes no effort to improve the medium, only point out cliches and say "men did this."

This all reminds me of Crying Freeman in which the husband and wife make a pact not to save each other if they get in trouble, for they believed that if they truly love one another, they would want their loved one not to risk their life for their sake and would rather die than for that to happen. Generally in a character driven story, you would expect loved ones to come for one another. She says that a character who loses everything is on a journey to recover their masculinity because they are a man, not that he is trying to rediscover his lost worth. A man is out to acquire something so trivial as an object - be willing to kill and die for an object, because he is a man, while she completely misses the actual point of why he holds such importance. A man wouldn't want his wife to suffer just because she has to be a strong independent woman and get out of it herself, because even if he was weaker than her - she is still worth risking his life for. That is what it is about, finding someone you hold higher than the world, because they have become your world, and defending it to all your ability. This is a universal romantic notion.

I like playing a girl, and I like the damsel in distress trope. It's not like guys are defecating on the corpses of women or disregarding them at all, the girls are important enough to risk their life for. It's a tragic experience when a girl dies, the male characters are usually horrified when they die; yet none of this is exclusive to female characters.
She talks of the kinesthetic violence orientated games, completely oblivious of just how the violence doesn't stand on its own - it factors into the setting and the characters themselves. The characters who are famous for their rage like Kratos and Asura are questioned along the entire journey of their story, "What do you live for?"
Treat your characters as people, and enjoy media.

You've already shown you only share interest in ensuring you're discussing with people who agree with you. Before you tell more people to get out of the thread, consider that you may be more suited to regurgitating your drivel into a hugbox.

[Rolan7]

You've already shown you only share interest in ensuring you're discussing with people who agree with you. Before you tell more people to get out of the thread, consider that you may be more suited to regurgitating your drivel into a hugbox.

But I haven't address any of the Anita-supporters in this thread for days, if ever.  I've written pages countering your inane accusations and implications masquerading as arguments, and then a single message intended at Max White and Neonivek.

So... once again you're making an incorrect, inflammatory claim.  Please stop?

If Anita only wanted to say "It exists" then she wouldn't come up with "exemplars" of her trope or explain why it is a problem... She is bad at examples.

It is always where her videos are weakest.

Right, she's trying to show that the tropes are widespread by showing lots of examples.  It's why she briefly analyzes lots of games rather than trying to prove any single game harmful.

[Neonivek]

Right, she's trying to show that the tropes are widespread by showing lots of examples.  It's why she briefly analyzes lots of games rather than trying to prove any single game harmful.

But she does stop and analyses single games.

[Loud Whispers]

But I haven't address any of the Anita-supporters in this thread for days, if ever.

You shouldn't divide people onto sides, that's something I've not seen anyone do in this thread until now.

  I've written pages countering your inane accusations

-All of which are true.

-and implications masquerading as arguments

It is not my fault if in your comprehensive reading skills you see ghosts where there are none.

So... once again you're making an incorrect, inflammatory claim.  Please stop?

I made a list of claims. You said I was bullshitting it, and still say I am incorrect. I showed where you did everything I claimed. You made your accusations against me, and you still have yet to prove anything. You have still yet to prove where you addressed any part of my argument. You still continue to insist I begone or be quiet.

If Anita only wanted to say "It exists" then she wouldn't come up with "exemplars" of her trope or explain why it is a problem... She is bad at examples.

It is always where her videos are weakest.

Right, she's trying to show that the tropes are widespread by showing lots of examples.  It's why she briefly analyzes lots of games rather than trying to prove any single game harmful.

She proves better the uselessness of defining stories by their tropes, listing image after image of female characters begging for quick death, ignoring all context. It is much in the same way people who argue that violent video games cause violence will take scenes like people being sawn in half like a baguette with a hat or having their limbs rent apart in a slideshow of gore out of context, so as to make it appear as simple senseless violence.
She could have taken one or two games where everything negative she described was actually present, and actually actively spreading a message to inflict grievous harm on women. Then she could have taken a few good examples of games she likes and feels should be encouraged to grow, described why they are a positive boon for all, and ended with a list of suggestions which she feels would improve and aid game designers in producing quality stories and characters.
But no, it would be much easier to go the route of emotions, and generate 'controversy' from the likes of tumblr and /v/, earning a hefty dollar.

[Neonivek]

As well a reason the examples need to give the idea of why something is a problem is because just being widespread is not an issue in it of itself.

[GlyphGryph]

What are you afraid of, LW? What nerve did she strike that makes this issue so personal to you, that you're willing to bypass reasonable argument and discourse in favour of rhetorical tricks and bald assertion?

You've said nothing of substance except that you don't like her, and don't like what she's doing, and what she SHOULD be doing because you are oh-so-concerned, but that's bullshit concern trolling and you know it, and everyone who's reading knows it, and a bunch of apologist for the internet asshats that have been attacking her. It's pathetic, and worse, it's hopefully confusing.

There's been plenty of legitimate criticism. Neonivek's arguments are about par for the course for him, but it's obvious he's coming from the usual place. But you? You make so many posts, with no substance, revealing nothing, and it's frustrating even to read them.

So let me make this simple:
What is your angle? What do you actually want, and what are you actually trying to accomplish in this thread? Why does she have you so damned upset?

[Neonivek]

Neonivek's arguments are about par for the course for him, but it's obvious he's coming from the usual place.

I have no idea if I should be like  or like  or like 

[Loud Whispers]

What are you afraid of, LW?

Those dastardly strong independent women of course.

What nerve did she strike that makes this issue so personal to you, that you're willing to bypass reasonable argument and discourse in favour of rhetorical tricks and bald assertion?

Why nothing of course. I do take personal interest in the latter accusation, partly because I have a particular dislike for rhetoric, and that is one of the criticisms I have made. And I have made my arguments, rather reasonably I should hope so too. It wasn't exactly hidden, I have reposted it countless times already. The problem arises in that Rolan has consistently taken my criticisms and professed them to be my arguments, poorly I might add so too, whilst ignoring my argument altogether. Or the other issue in which apparently our arguments' worth are also dependent on said quantity of threats.

You've said nothing of substance except that you don't like her, and don't like what she's doing, and what she SHOULD be doing because you are oh-so-concerned, but that's bullshit concern trolling and you know it, and everyone who's reading knows it, and a bunch of apologist for the internet asshats that have been attacking her. It's pathetic, and worse, it's hopefully confusing.

I have not defended the arsehats, I have criticized those who say the arsehats represent Anita's criticism. It's a rather cheap way of trying to win an argument by lumping the opposition into the side of those sending rape and death threats, apparently all in caps locks.

There's been plenty of legitimate criticism. Neonivek's arguments are about par for the course for him, but it's obvious he's coming from the usual place. But you? You make so many posts, with no substance, revealing nothing, and it's frustrating even to read them.

That would be because the last 10 posts or so would be criticism.

So let me make this simple:
What is your angle? What do you actually want, and what are you actually trying to accomplish in this thread? Why does she have you so damned upset?

Well I wouldn't say I'm upset, that's not how I wrote this. Obviously it cannot be read in the same way I wrote it though, so I defer my judgements to you and let the words talk for me.
What I want would be for people to be able to come to the best understanding, myself included, of what are problems to games and what cause them. What I am trying to accomplish, is free civil discussion without people compelling others to be silent, or elsewise deliberately obfuscating legitimate criticisms.
And really, if you're going to claim you can make a better argument, why don't you? Why reject an opportunity of absolute education?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Always being the prize rather than someone you get to play as is a really shitty position to be in.

This is the exact same argument that says the nominative and accusative case is misogynist.
Except it's also intellectually dishonest in being such a massive gross oversimplification.

Mass Effect has literally changed my life.  It is the first time when I have played a game and thought: "Wow.  I am the target audience for this game.  A lot of this was done with the intent of making me happy."

See:

What exactly would be a woman-focused or a gender neutral show? Bonus points if you describe it without using any of the women stereotypes you hate so much.

Crap, I wish I watched more tv for women...
I know Charmed was really popular. I have vaguely heard about it, and it sounded kind of crappy. Still, anybody with first hand knowledge know if it is actually good?

Charmed was a really good show, the plot was solid and the characters were endearing and well written. I didn't even notice it was supposed to be a women's show until you lot started talking about it now, which is the way I think things should be; people not automatically judging shows and characters by their genders. I didn't feel:
"Hey, this show really is meant for me!"
I felt:
"This show is really nice, excellent even!"

  There really is a dearth of games where women get to see themselves doing things.  If they're doing something, they're almost inevitably sexualized all to hell and back.  See games like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, for an example that I've played.  Dudes get clothing.  Gals literally get stripper gear.

Gals get the option to wear stripper gear. They also get the option to wear bulky combat gear.
One of the ways to solve problems easily for women is to sex everything, or intimidate, fight, persuade, talk or go all CIA-ninja-diplomat on everyone.
Men don't get stripper option ;-;

I don't care if it's a parody or not (see: Bayonetta).  Why should all the games in which I get to play as a girl be sexualized, whether as parody or played straight?

Why shouldn't the designers be able to follow up on their concept art and the game they created, without executive or audience meddling? There was a rather well known example a while back of that game where some tumblr white knight was criticizing a game dev for making one of the characters have large breasts under alleged pressure from lolicon-grognards [seriously]. The game dev then released the concept art of not just that character, but several muscly-man bears in speedos, highlighting just how much they planned before making the game.

Always being the prize rather than someone you get to play as is a really shitty position to be in.  The fact that the symbol of strength, avenging her lover, is female is a good step.  But that is very different from the crowning motivation of the main character.

I find this quite demeaning to the characters, in that you only look at whether they are man or woman before you look at their strengths. You don't look at who they are, their flaws and powers - nope!

If a man holds the door for me, I assume he intends

c. I'm polite, not a dipshit.

+1

You know, for all of the rage against Sarkeesian, I think there's something in particular we're missing: her videos are not trying to say "hey, this is what I want," but rather she's trying to deconstruct the ways in which these games which are supposed to have "mass appeal" declare themselves as "no girls allowed, not for you."  It's a medium.  Why is it gendered.

Why is she so bad at doing that?

(by the way, here's a hint.  There is a very high female demand for games in the genres I happen to like.  We're still not getting our games.  I wonder why that is.  Oh, right, because the industry mistakenly thinks that women are just fine playing stuff that marginalizes us, and men won't play games where they're not the leads.  Right.)

[No they just care about the demographic that gives them more money, they probably don't care whether you play it or not]. Where ignorance and hatred could be a valid explanation, assume ignorance. Where ignorance and hatred could be repaired, target ignorance. Where ignorance will fall, ignorant hatred will too.



ALL THE SINGLE AESIR

ALL THE SINGLE AESIR

BUT MJOLLNIR UP

WOAH DO HO HO HO HO~

The point isn't that it's sexist, it's that it's male-dominated.

Problem? The primary teaching career is so heavily women-dominated.
Should we be taking steps towards tearing down this obviously sexist distribution?

The Bechdel tests shows that a disturbing number of movies do not contain any interaction between women which doesn't center around men.  The reverse obviously isn't true, almost every movie have male characters discussing things or people who aren't women.

You put way too much value on gendered characters. Or rather, the gender you like. The first movie I thought of was AvP, where the female arctic researcher is talking to the other lass about why she was bringing a gun. This is relevant.
If they had started talking about what type of man they wanted to be subservient too, it'd be out of place shit writing.
How many movies cater to out of place shit writing?
[Michael Bay excluded].

WHO is selecting for male empowerment fantasies, though?

1. Most games are male escape fantasies, not empowering ones. This is a really big thing I feel Anita hasn't even touched upon with the weight of so much as a feather. And since most are escape fantasies, it says a lot when the overwhelming majority of players are men.
2. The same idiots with the money, who again and again after ruining franchises will still be able to work again, and AGAIN.
Case and point:
They turned engineer Isaac from a smart, schizoid engineer surviving [to such an extent you could call surviving] calamity with his resourcefulness and self reflection, into a jealous jocky crying over losing his waifu who is only capable of pushing buttons and completely ignored all of his mental conditions.
And the same people who did that will be allowed to do that to other games.
FUCKING FUCK FUCK EVERYTHING


In regards to her examples:
What the hell was her reasoning? [Of course we don't know, since she doesn't say - she only gives oversimplified-emotionally appealing anecdotes repeated to infinity and beyond].
Female characters take the roles that were once dominated by male characters, why is it when they face the violence male characters are subjected to, everything changes and it's indicative of sexism?
Dear Esther is a good example of how male characters should deal with loss?
He kills himself.
In regards to male domination = sexism
The game studios who listen to their fanbase and tailor it to them, reflect their fanbases rather well. GW is one of those companies who [when the stockholders aren't shooting them all] listen to their fanbase, which is an epic level male dominated fanbase.
However, most game studios don't listen to their fanbases. Are sexy characters wrong or sexist? Hell no. But they can break immersion so badly.

Protip: Neckbeards love immersion. They are bro-tier fanbase, and they have been abused by their overlords.
DOWN WITH THE INSTITUTION
Asuras Wrath was used as an example of promoting violence against women. She used Olga getting killed by the golden spider Chakravatin as that example, and Mithra being abused as another.
...
This is after Olga has just tried to destroy humanity with the Bramahstra and kill Mithra, Asura's daughter.
Through his entire story Asura is the only one of the eight generals who doesn't go around killing people with impunity; there's no doubt if Olga tried fighting Asura Asura would have killed her. But something about abusing his daughter for 12,500 years might have had some factor into his intent, and why on Earth would he suddenly change his intent when it's been the same for the other seven deities, even the ones who were his closest friends and mentors? Why on Earth would she use Mithra's abuse, the only thing Asura's living to fight against for, as the other example or justification?

And Olga's less sexualized than sexy Sergei!
[But that's sexism... Or something].
Dante's Inferno was about Dante coming to terms with his sins... Or not, depending on which road you went down. Beatrice was more a pawn of the archangels used to goad poor Dante into spoilers. He got plain up used. This makes a brilliant story. Beatrice isn't even close to a damsel in distress by the spoilers. How does it justify violence against women? If she wanted to use that game for that then she probably should have brought in the lust circle of hell, that level is literally only violence against women looking things.
Of course though, everything is dark and edgy. Batman.
Alan Wake
Ha ha ha ha ha
The master of sneer
[The overwhelming amount of people taken by the darkness are male, all the shades you kill are male. If his wife being taken is sexist, then what is it compared to the mass slaughter of men?]. This is because it's irrelevant. The plot doesn't even center around rescuing your wife, she is just what's anchoring you to the plot and stopping you from running away. It's around solving and stopping the mystery behind the crazy shindigs before more and more people die, as you truly understand the scope of the situation. And childhood Alan wake was sad in so many ways... This is again, a problem with the gross oversimplifications.
"Women are brutally murdered."
All got stomach wounds or headshots.
In God of War people get beaten to death with their own severed arms and Poseidon's eye gouging is infamously notorious. Nothing is morally certain in that game, whether you are like Mars in a frenzy in Actium or you are only fighting [selfishly?] for your own freedom, or perhaps humanity's freedom from the Gods. There isn't a conflict between man and woman there. Hell, you'd have a better time arguing that God of War promotes the mass slaughter of slaves and prisoners.
Gears of War:
She takes things wildly out of context for example, Dom in Gears of War. He kills her to put her out of her misery because she is being tortured and there is clearly no hope for her in this doomed world. The very fact that women are fighting is because they're out of fighters and they no longer can afford to keep women on the sidelines as breeding machines [it's that fucking grim]. The same thing happens with Tai. He however kills himself. Ultimately Dom kills himself because he is sick of having lost everything and wants to save his friends. He even shouts that he is doing it for his wife and kids. He is literally a martyr for them to end pain and suffering in their world. How in any way she even tried to twist Dom's character I have no idea.

Medieval 2:
You are revived by a scientist to fight against the BBEG who is resurrecting the undead to conquer the world.
Your girlfriend is killed by a jack the ripper villain, not the guy behind everything, just some murderer and you save her shortly after the game by going back in time and preventing that from happening, after that you resume your quest to kill the BBEG.

And what about Venetica or Never End where the protagonist is seeking revenge for the death of her boyfriend?
Mein context, rolling over mein eyes!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What irritates me most about her is her insistence that "the men only come to get the women because they want to give her the dick." Not even in detail is this explained, it's as superficial as that. She doesn't talk about how game developers try to invest the player into the relationships the characters share, or why female characters need a special aegis over male characters, or why characters already in a relationship shouldn't go rescue those close to them [because it would be sexist objectification], despite for some of the examples she had given that sexual objectification would have to be between family members and so on.

Her videos are all puritanical rants and an example of how to analyze subjects in the most shallow, skin-deep way possible. She makes no attempt to understand the underlying issues that cause the problem nor does she tackle the task of how they can be improved, she turns the problem of the gaming industry in its inability to experiment and make new risks into an issue of gender.

The renaissance was a movement that improved art and liberated it from many social stigmas, new materials and methods became readily available and were in the most part implemented with great success but the themes continued to be few in number; mainly portraits and representations of ideas associated with Christianity. Video games in a way are a similar reflection and technology has all improved the creativity, but the themes and story telling remain stale, with the majority of the 300,000 games being copies of the successful darers.
She feeds off this fact but twists it to match her perspective and what she intends to portray dishonestly, and she makes no effort to improve the medium, only point out cliches and say "men did this."

This all reminds me of Crying Freeman in which the husband and wife make a pact not to save each other if they get in trouble, for they believed that if they truly love one another, they would want their loved one not to risk their life for their sake and would rather die than for that to happen. Generally in a character driven story, you would expect loved ones to come for one another. She says that a character who loses everything is on a journey to recover their masculinity because they are a man, not that he is trying to rediscover his lost worth. A man is out to acquire something so trivial as an object - be willing to kill and die for an object, because he is a man, while she completely misses the actual point of why he holds such importance. A man wouldn't want his wife to suffer just because she has to be a strong independent woman and get out of it herself, because even if he was weaker than her - she is still worth risking his life for. That is what it is about, finding someone you hold higher than the world, because they have become your world, and defending it to all your ability. This is a universal romantic notion.

I like playing a girl, and I like the damsel in distress trope. It's not like guys are defecating on the corpses of women or disregarding them at all, the girls are important enough to risk their life for. It's a tragic experience when a girl dies, the male characters are usually horrified when they die; yet none of this is exclusive to female characters.
She talks of the kinesthetic violence orientated games, completely oblivious of just how the violence doesn't stand on its own - it factors into the setting and the characters themselves. The characters who are famous for their rage like Kratos and Asura are questioned along the entire journey of their story, "What do you live for?"
Treat your characters as people, and enjoy media.

That is the argument I have settled with. It's the one I've put most research into, and this is after listening to the best arguments both in this thread and out. I can honestly say it's certainly more right than the argument I first came into this thread with, and I am rather disappointed that this has been ignored in favour of focusing on accusations of strawman accusations of trolling.

[Putnam]

A dislike for rhetoric gets nobody anywhere. Rhetoric is the language used to convince another person of something. Disliking rhetoric is disliking proper discourse.

[Loud Whispers]

A dislike for rhetoric gets nobody anywhere. Rhetoric is the language used to convince another person of something. Disliking rhetoric is disliking proper discourse.

So be it. Language is not about persuading people to your cause, it is about expressing your thoughts. It is entirely possible to do so and have a more fruitful discussion than a pointless argument with pages of Latin plastered into the seams of every sentence.

*EDIT
Fixed typo.

[Putnam]

Expression of thoughts includes persuasion. In fact, rhetoric is required to make one's position clear in a way that makes it seem logical.

[penguinofhonor]

Rhetoric has two definitions. I think each of you are using a different one.

1. The art of using language, especially public speaking, as a means to persuade.
2. Meaningless language with an exaggerated style intended to impress.

[Loud Whispers]

Expression of thoughts includes persuasion. In fact, rhetoric is required to make one's position clear in a way that makes it seem logical.

Rhetoric is an art; yet it is not a requirement of language nor philosophy, the latter of course being entirely composed of both logic and rationality.