The practice of using hyper-sexualized women as ornamental objects has been especially brazen in the racing game genre.
Small one, that's a racing thing in general. At least, from what I know about the culture of it, it's from a culture including, but wider than racing games.
The subset of largely insignificant non-playable female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds.
This definition itself is putting something to be a bad thing that isn't. Places where prostitution is common? Generally pretty bad places. Likewise, people who contribute to that kind of culture aren't going to have the most integrity. It's not as if the game's saying that the women
should be sexualised and victims, just that they are and that's bad.
By the way, games set in the United States are not exempt from this kind of racist exotification.
Clip: GTA 4
“Sick of people saying no? Not here baby.”
Not sure how this bit connected to the theme other than prostitution. The idea was meant to be that how "exotic" a prostitute is is being sold to a white, western man.
Clip: Hitman: Blood Money
“Good baby, real good! Now show me those luscious pink lips.”
Prime example of the 'why is this bad' thing. The production of pornography is linked to one of the reasons you're there to kill the target in the first place. That room being there before his bedroom is a reminder that there is in fact a story and there's a reason why you do what you do.
These active viewing mechanics encourage players to collaborate with developers in sexual objectification by enabling gamers to scope out and spy on non-playable sex objects.
Really I don't get this one either. She's assuming that the games are basically designed to let a male player get off on ogling sexualised characters, rather than it being a thing that is possible but not designed for.
Hitman: Absolution features a mission in which the player can create a diversion by picking up and dumping the dead body of an exotic dancer near police officers.
Dumping bodies is a thing you can do throughout the Hitman series, not just with prostitutes. This is blatant misrepresentation of how the game works. Acting like it is something specifically targeted, when it really isn't.
Clip: Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea DLC
“Sexual intimacy is no different than any other commodity, friend. You sell soybeans I sell companionship.”
“That’s disgusting”
“That’s the bible talking pal, that’s your mother talking. What does Ryan say? Petty morality, you can keep it.”
Because bringing up a moral issue is totally advocating one side of it.
Their worth as characters is measured entirely in terms of what they can give to the player.
there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. Meaningful relationships or interactions are not even possible. Their programming simply does not allow for it.
That is the case with most NPCs in sandbox games, you can't program every random character, or even a decent chunk of characters to be interesting in their interactions with the PC.
Once a person is reduced to the status of objecthood, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permitted.
In many open world or sandbox style games, developers construct their virtual worlds in such a way as to enable players to directly abuse female NPCs.
Again, it's a game. Violence against NPCs is permitted because they're not real people. I don't know where this is going.
Players are often permitted to knock out, pick up, carry and throw around inert female bodies. And depending on the game series, the programmed options for interaction can include assault, mutilation, murder…
Again, this has never been a female-specific thing in a game I've seen. Unless she wants a Fallout-esque censoring where they removed children in the UK release I don't know what she wants here.
Clip: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Coupled with the clip from later where Jensen performs the same takedown on a man, you can see that the exact same animation is used. I'm not sure how that furthers her point at all.
Some games explicitly incentivise and reward this kind of behavior by having murdered women drop bundles of cash for the player to collect and add to their own stash.
Obviously talking about GTA and Saint's Row. Again, not female-specific.
When assaulted by the player, non-playable sex objects might scream,…
Clip: Dishonored
“I need help!”
cower…
Clip: Sleeping Dogs
“Oh no!”
run away or occasionally offer some form of perfunctory resistance.
Clip: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
“[Screams]”
“You can’t run!”
But regardless of the canned, automated reaction, they are all designed to be expendable, to be used up and then tossed out.
Clip: The Godfather II
“Oh god!”
“Look out!”
Their status as disposable objects is reinforced by the fact that in most games discarded bodies will simply vanish into thin air a short time after being killed.
The case with civilian NPCs in general in sandbox games. Not female-specific. Yes I've said that a lot but her argument kind of relies on these things being targeted against women. If they're not then they stop being "tropes against women" and become more "tropes that can involve women". Also I think the Human Revolution one is specifically chosen to make it seem like the PC is the one who is shouting "you can't run" as if it's letting you live out a woman-murdering psychopath game. However, the PC doesn't talk outside of cut-scenes or special dialogue sections.
I should note that this kind of misogynistic behavior isn’t always mandatory; often it’s player-directed, but it is always implicitly encouraged.
I don't think this is true. Sounds to me like she's making that decision based of her assumption that the games are inherently sexist.
Again, Deus Ex:HR and the hitman games, two that she seemed to like using examples off here, both do not reward you for killing people who are not enemies.
Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters.
It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousing connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.
I don't even know what I can say about this one.
No it isn't?
In-game consequences for these violations are trivial at best and rarely lead to any sort of “fail state” or “game over”. Sometimes areas may go on high-alert for a few minutes during which players have to lay low or hide before the game and its characters “forget” that you just murdered a sexualized woman in cold blood.
These temporary game states are implemented so that acts of violence against NPCs committed by players do not inconvenience or interfere too much with the core gaming experience. High alert serves as a faux-punishment that doesn’t “ruin the fun”, and is in fact actually designed and intended to provide an added rush to the game experience as players try to avoid or mow down law enforcement AI.
This is kind of odd, since she justifies it while trying to criticise it. Also again - say it with me- not female specific. It's not as if the police in GTA will stay on you for hours if you instead murder an upper-middle class white man instead.
If caught by the police, the screen will fade to black, and 5 seconds later your character will be standing outside the police station, minus a few dollars or items, but free to go about your business as if nothing happened. Other popular sandbox games employ similar character revival methods.
Justified by ff herself in the quote above. Not sure why she bothered saying this.
In this way these systems work to facilitate male violence against women by turning it into a form of play, something constructed to be amusing and entertaining.
Not specifically male violence against men in games. And when violence is the core mechanic violence is going to be fun, and that includes but is not specific to women.
A toaster is still a toaster regardless of whether or not you choose to make toast with it. It’s still designed for the express purpose of toasting bread. And it still communicates that fact even while sitting unused on your kitchen counter.
Bad analogy, saying that videogames are expressly designed to facilitate male power fantasies over sexualised women.
Typically all the non-essential characters in sandbox style games are killable, but it’s the sexualized women whose instrumentality and brutalization is gendered and eroticized in ways that men never are. The visual language attached to male NPCs is very different since they are rarely designed to be sexually inviting or arousing, and they are not coded to interact with the player in ways meant to reaffirm a heterosexual fantasy about being a stud.
This is the bit where the DE:HR clip I mentioned earlier of the guy getting taken down plays. Which kind of undermines the first sentence because it's the exact same animation used. And also from the same game you will often hear the prostitutes talk shit about Jensen because of his augmentations so..? And prostitutes kind of get paid on how much they can big up their clients' egos? Just because reality is pretty shit doesn't make someone bad for trying to represent it.
Women are constantly represented as primarily for sex.
Not sure if she's talking about reality or games. If the former that is demonstrably not true. If the latter then still not true, but less untrue.
Author
Topic: Re: Only two posts on 'Tropes vs Women in Video Games' (Read 311133 times)