Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Urist Tilaturist]

HP Lovecraft was somewhat anti-Semitic despite being married to a Jew. The accuser was still daft.

[Neonivek]

Kind of sad that the topic of what videogame characters could be considered part of the female power fantasy didn't happen... but given that the judgment was in general "Women do not fantasize about being powerful and thus don't need characters to emphasize this" I guess that makes sense.

Anyhow Smeeprocket's stance is mostly that IF the problem exists in real life, then games doing it is wrong.

Basically the reason why a villain CANNOT be female in a game with a male protagonist (assuming she is going to fight) is because in real life spousal abuse exists. So whenever you hit the villain you are promoting spousal abuse and violence against women.

Which has some merit. There are hot topics where you just don't touch them!

Though I kind of wonder how Tekken would have worked if they removed all the female characters or made them all robot pilots who used their robots to fight in their place... Or only allowed same genders fight eachother.

It is a certainly interesting thing to think about.

Though my position is thus: There is sort of a difference between hitting a woman within the context of gameplay or sport... And hitting a woman in the terms of "emotional torment"

If I was pit against the woman's heavyweight boxer (Ignoring that I'd lose really fast), I am not going to hold back my punches... that would be rude and disrespectful. If I am being attacked by a woman with a knife, who is bigger then me, or where I am in a vulnerable position I am probably going to hit her hard.

There is sort of a league of difference between a man hitting a woman... and spousal abuse or just violence against "Women".

This is just going back to the ancient days when Super Hero cartoon groups had to have a woman... not because she really contributed anything (because villains couldn't touch her meaning she couldn't actually fight them either unless she could finish it in one punch) but because if they fought a female villain, they would need their token female super hero to defeat her. This is why I prefer the more modern one where Wonderwoman once fought this nearly unbeatable alien until her hands were nearly destroyed punching him, and then he grappled her head, just pummeled her into the ground and kept hitting her (Yeah that fight was BRUTAL!).

Games as a whole REALLY don't have to tone down their violence against women. Certainly there are things that are distasteful but once again... Compared to movies and Television... Videogames are practically a saintly force of good. In fact in many ways videogames need to INCREASE their violence against women.

They need more of the female lead actually needing to be defeated instead of arm holds of submission... They need more female goon squads. More female bosses. They need cutscenes between male and female combatants where a woman IS allowed to just get socked.

Heck I can't remember the last time in a videogame I EVER seen a woman just destroyed in a fight. I've seen plenty of men getting destroyed... but never a woman... Maybe Bayonetta I guess. HECK outside that Justice League CARTOON I have never seen a woman just STOMPED, certainly the single blow soft knockout, but never a brutal beat down. Heck "Beware the Batman" which had a female lead specifically avoided putting her in any position where she would get brutally beaten, where Batman himself sometimes just get destroyed. (Err wait Legend of Korra! Though she was against a woman)

[AlleeCat]

Dragon Age has some female goons, and also in Dragon Age 2, you fight the female Knight Commander of the Templars, but there's not really any battle damage in those games, so the most brutal thing that happens is that she screams in agony as she's turned into a statue.

I'm still not saying the Dragon Age games are a great example of representation, (I was just complaining in another thread about how women only make up a third of the playable party members, and you can only romance one of them as a woman) but it's pretty much the best we've got at the moment in terms of story-driven games.

[Urist Tilaturist]

My view, by contrast, was that portraying something in fiction is not endorsing it and that sometimes portrayals can support the case against something in reality. Censoring or self censoring media for this constitutes whitewashing and leaves the matter out of sight and out of mind.

Smeeprocket is also very selective as to which real life issues are forbidden.

Many games allow violence against women, GTA for example. The problem is the disproportionate outcry that results from it.

[Neonivek]

Many games allow violence against women, GTA for example. The problem is the disproportionate outcry that results from it.

Well the major criticism now is that games like Grand Theft Auto invite violence against women because it includes people like prostitutes or women who wear revealing clothing because it encourages the player to incite violence against them, while at the same time not affording these women any special exemption or protection against this violence.

Which is quite impressive a thought when you consider the parallels and the implications.

[Urist Tilaturist]

That is a stupid criticism. Claiming that women being prostitutes or not wearing many clothes incites people to murder them is just slut shaming of the sort that smeeprocket would rant about.

[Virtz]

I kinda mentioned before how female mooks seem to happen in games with create-a-characters. The Saints Row series had some. Most modern RPGs seem to have some (Dragon Age, New Vegas, Skyrim). Though they tend to be in lesser numbers than the male mooks.

Modern games with pre-defined characters, on the other hand, seem to have strictly male mooks. Games like Tomb Raider, the Far Cry series, the Grand Theft Auto series, Watch Dogs.

Or at least that's my observation. Probably wrong.

[Ghills]

Many games allow violence against women, GTA for example. The problem is the disproportionate outcry that results from it.

Well the major criticism now is that games like Grand Theft Auto invite violence against women because it includes people like prostitutes or women who wear revealing clothing because it encourages the player to incite violence against them.

Which is quite impressive a thought when you consider the parallels and the implications.

I'd always thought the GTA games problematic because they present violence against women (and police, innocent bystanders, etc) as normal and expected, including rewarding players for being especially amoral and violent. And generally glorifying violence.

I think that people learn habits by things they do regularly. And if someone regularly gets into the mindset of being selfish and amoral, that's likely to creep out in other places in their lives.  Not 'Playing FPS will teach kids to be murderers!' (although we are scarily seeing a tie with school shootings now) but more 'Teaching people to view other people as enemies is a bad idea'.   I'm more concerned about player attitude and supervision for kids than specific gameplay, but sometimes the gameplay is so egregious it becomes a problem. 

Someone can play an FPS to have fun with friends, although voice chat in any FPS will show that most often people learn to treat others as enemies and competition, especially with younger players.  GTA is basically all amoral violence all the time afaik.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Female mooks, if you mean henchmen, are rare among humans. While there being absolutely none does not seem quite right, they should be a minority (in the widely accepted use of the term) unless there is a good reason otherwise (the King of Dahomey's bodyguard, for example, were also his wives).

For non human species, the rules are different and depend on their biology.

Violent crime has fallen since Doom and other violent games came out. The worst US school massacre was in 1927. And you are on a discussion board for one of the most violent (in terms of the acts possible) games around. That argument is utterly discredited, even more so when someone here says it. If you think FPS trash talk is different from the typical attitude of a middle school canteen...

[Neonivek]

It does normalize it... because it treats women like people.

Well, as far as Grand Theft Auto treats anyone as people... mind you.

[Ghills]

I kinda mentioned before how female mooks seem to happen in games with create-a-characters. The Saints Row series had some. Most modern RPGs seem to have some (Dragon Age, New Vegas, Skyrim). Though they tend to be in lesser numbers than the male mooks.

Modern games with pre-defined characters, on the other hand, seem to have strictly male mooks. Games like Tomb Raider, the Far Cry series, the Grand Theft Auto series, Watch Dogs.

Or at least that's my observation. Probably wrong.

Yeah, that's my experience too.  In games where players expect to express themselves, there are more women (but still not close to equal in numbers or often in prominence).  In more linear or scripted games it's basically all guys all the time.  It's probably part of why I don't like scripted, linear games as much.

[Ghills]

Female mooks, if you mean henchmen, are rare among humans. While there being absolutely none does not seem quite right, they should be a minorty unless there is a good reason otherwise (the King of Dahomey's bodyguard, for example, were also his wives).

For non human species, the rules are different and depend on their biology.

Violent crime has fallen since Doom and other violent games came out. The worst US school massacre was in 1927. And you are on a discussion board for one of the most violent (in terms of the acts possible) games around.

The statistics on violence, especially once verbal violence is included, are very interesting and tell an interesting story.  It certainly can't be pinned on games alone - the birthrate is dropping, lead pain went away, there's a lot of different things to consider.  Games might be one factor, but no one that I know of has any good data at this point.  For one thing, has the rate of school massacres gone up? I don't know.  If so, then it points to a wider societal trend. If not, that's an interesting point (and also makes the 1920s seem a lot scarier).

DF is not nearly as graphic as GTA - it in no way presents things as realistically or immediately as an 3D game.  I think that makes a difference in terms of how it impacts people.

It does normalize it... because it treats women like people.

Well, as far as Grand Theft Auto treats anyone as people... mind you.

Yeah, I think GTA s bad for people for many, many reasons.

[Neonivek]

It is more Ghills that assuming that videogames increase violence because they depict violence is a tall order given the opposite has occurred.

Especially when... frankly... other media cannot claim to be better.

Usually when games depict graphic violence even in a sandbox, it still treats it as wrong. While when TV shows depicts it, it is because the character "needs to get things done" (TV is so much better with its Black and Grey morality isn't it? ). It is actually my major criticism of television as a whole is that characters will do HORRIBLE things, but it is always framed as acceptable because "The world isn't black and white" as if that justifies the horrible things they do... and people buy it.

Your not a good guy in Grand Theft Auto (outside a two characters in the series... but they are more a plothole)

Though on the subject of double standards

I remember Bully where there was a scene of date rape. Except it was woman on man where she drugged him with dangerous chemicals to knock him out and dragged him to her home. Game is still rated T though... I have no idea how that got by the censors.

Want to know why they wanted to make the game Rated M? Because Boy on Boy... KISSING! *le shock!*

[Urist Tilaturist]

DF is far more graphic than GTA in its violent imagery - with the exception of the 1 torture scene, the GTA player does not have the option of recreating acts like the DF adventurer snapping every one of an elf's fingers before finally killing it. The only difference is that the DF player uses his imagination.

If you think GTA is vaguely realistic there are some issues with your perceptions of reality.

I think games have played a role in reducing violence by keeping troublesome youths indoors, but my point was more that they have not made things worse. Regarding verbal violence, that is the only violence possible for a gamer when the target is in an unknown location.

[Cheeetar]

One point that worry me a lot more, though, is that it's almost impossible to see any non negative representation of transexuals in games. Even a neutral one would be a step up.

Hey! I've not played it, but I've read that Dragon Age: Inquisition had a pretty positive representation of a transexual in the form of Cremisius Aclassi (possible spoilers?), which is super neat.