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[Gentlefish]

"It was made by men" and "It was made for men" really shouldn't come into play.

Actually that's literally the problem as the vast, vast majority of AAA games are made by men and for men and do absolutely zilch to cater for women.

I will admit, they are getting a little better at remembering that women play games too. But "better" is not a reason we should stop hounding them. The reason Nintendo is so, so successful is because they cater to everyone. Moms, dads, kids, teens, and college kids. There's no one you don't know that wouldn't like playing one nintendo game or other. Can you say that for major AAA game releases?

Nope. They're catered to a very narrow demographic. Males, age 12-25. There are always purchasers outside the demographic, as there always is.

But they're catering to that group specifically and always. Never women.

There is no problem with female abuse. One of the aspects of not being sexist is not to give anyone special treatment. I think though the difference is the type of abuse women tend to suffer in videogames as well as how it relates to them.

E: Excuse you? There is absolutely problems with abuse.

You can make a good and dark game without abusing anyone, especially women who are often the target of this abuse for for !!edgefactor!!

[smeeprocket]

stuff

Would someone succinctly summarize what the purpose of this thread is? I've read the quoted text in the OP, and it mostly seems to be various opinions from various people, opinions that aren't necessarily incompatible. Different people want different things in their games. There are different games that provide those different things that people want.

What's the problem? Are people seriously complaining that games exist that appeal to people other than themselves? "I like oranges, and the grocery store not only sells oranges, also apples too! How dare they!"

Is that what this is about?

Actually, we are arguing that no one is appealing to us, despite us being almost half the audience. We don't generally get represented. Also this is the continuation of a thread in suggestions.

Why do some people want everyone to stay silent about this? "It doesn't interest me so stop talking about it."

[Parsely]

But they're catering to that group specifically and always. Never women.

I never feel catered to when I play an RPG and all the female armor is absurd. I never think "golly I'm so glad this armor is barely armor thanks obama Blizzard".

[pisskop]

stuff

Would someone succinctly summarize what the purpose of this thread is? I've read the quoted text in the OP, and it mostly seems to be various opinions from various people, opinions that aren't necessarily incompatible. Different people want different things in their games. There are different games that provide those different things that people want.

What's the problem? Are people seriously complaining that games exist that appeal to people other than themselves? "I like oranges, and the grocery store not only sells oranges, also apples too! How dare they!"

Is that what this is about?

Several times people, including myself, have implied it be moved.  Nobody else made that effort, so I did.

Its started off a suggestion about procedurally generated genders in DF, the derail that resulted is now here.  SmeepRocket has a way of igniting discussion  :\, and this fills an currently vacant niche.

[smeeprocket]

But they're catering to that group specifically and always. Never women.

I never feel catered to when I play an RPG and all the female armor is absurd. I never think "golly I'm so glad this armor is barely armor thanks obama Blizzard".

That's sort of just a small part of the issue. You are more likely to relate to a protagonist because they will almost always be male, for example. There's a lot of different issues at play, sexist armor is just one of them.

[Gentlefish]

Several times people, including myself, have implied it be moved.  Nobody else made that effort, so I did.

Its started off a suggestion about procedurally generated genders in DF, the derail that resulted is now here.  SmeepRocket has a way of igniting discussion  :\, and this fills an currently vacant niche.

I don't think Smeep is igniting anything. This topic is literally always on fire thanks to the polarizing effect talking about feminism (and other human rights movements) seems to have.

[smeeprocket]

"It was made by men" and "It was made for men" really shouldn't come into play.

Actually that's literally the problem as the vast, vast majority of AAA games are made by men and for men and do absolutely zilch to cater for women.

I will admit, they are getting a little better at remembering that women play games too. But "better" is not a reason we should stop hounding them. The reason Nintendo is so, so successful is because they cater to everyone. Moms, dads, kids, teens, and college kids. There's no one you don't know that wouldn't like playing one nintendo game or other. Can you say that for major AAA game releases?

Nope. They're catered to a very narrow demographic. Males, age 12-25. There are always purchasers outside the demographic, as there always is.

But they're catering to that group specifically and always. Never women.

There is no problem with female abuse. One of the aspects of not being sexist is not to give anyone special treatment. I think though the difference is the type of abuse women tend to suffer in videogames as well as how it relates to them.

E: Excuse you? There is absolutely problems with abuse.

You can make a good and dark game without abusing anyone, especially women who are often the target of this abuse for for !!edgefactor!!

Yea, women are physically weaker, they make easy victims and allow for the protagonist to be a big hero by rescuing damsels in distress. This is  a male power fantasy at play.

[LordBucket]

Actually, we are arguing that no one is appealing to us, despite us being almost half the audience.
We don't generally get represented. Also this is the continuation of a thread in suggestions.

What is it you want that you believe doesn't exist?

I never feel catered to when I play an RPG and all the female armor is absurd.

So you really, or do you have this idea stuck in your head that all rpg armor is boobplate, and you ignore all evidence to the contrary? For example, last time this came up, somebody was complaining about world of warcraft armor, so somebody linked actual female armor from WoW, which as you can see, is so completely not boobplate that it would probably pass hijab requirements in most middle eastern countries.

And yet people still complain about how revealing it is.

Is there really a problem here, are we we simply so accustomed to there being a problem that we're never happy?

[Graknorke]

PLEASE give me a game where I play as the #1 sniper in the world - a russian female whose 300-odd total confirmed kills

You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USSR and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot.

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[smeeprocket]

Actually, we are arguing that no one is appealing to us, despite us being almost half the audience.
We don't generally get represented. Also this is the continuation of a thread in suggestions.

What is it you want that you believe doesn't exist?

I never feel catered to when I play an RPG and all the female armor is absurd. I never think "golly I'm so glad this armor is barely armor thanks obama".

So you really, or do you have this idea stuck in your head that all rpg armor is boobplate, and you ignore all evidence to the contrary? For example, last time this came up, somebody was complaining about world of warcraft armor, so somebody linked actual female armor from WoW, which as you can see, is so completely not boobplate that it would probably pass hijab requirements in most middle eastern countries.

And yet people still complain about how revealing it is.

Is there really a problem here, are we we simply so accustomed to there being a problem that we're never happy?

Trivializing women's issues doesn't help the discussion. Erasure is just that. Perhaps you should spend some time listening instead of explaining to all us women folk how you know all about whether or not we are represented. As well as actually arguing that female characters in WoW aren't sexist as fuck.

[Ogdibus]

stuff

Would someone succinctly summarize what the purpose of this thread is? I've read the quoted text in the OP, and it mostly seems to be various opinions from various people, opinions that aren't necessarily incompatible. Different people want different things in their games. There are different games that provide those different things that people want.

What's the problem? Are people seriously complaining that games exist that appeal to people other than themselves? "I like oranges, and the grocery store not only sells oranges, also apples too! How dare they!"

Is that what this is about?

Several times people, including myself, have implied it be moved.  Nobody else made that effort, so I did.

Its started off a suggestion about procedurally generated genders in DF, the derail that resulted is now here.  SmeepRocket has a way of igniting discussion  :\, and this fills an currently vacant niche.

You're leaving out the whole "NO QUEERS" thing, and bigoted trolling, maybe because most of it got removed and you didn't see it.  While that's a different discussion from this one, it did start the dialogue of representation in games being culturally important.  It's the same problem, just a different classification of people.

[penguinofhonor]

Is gamergate still a thing? I haven't heard about it in a while.

[Graknorke]

Is gamergate still a thing? I haven't heard about it in a while.

Spoilers: Everybody was going to have stopped giving a fuck right from the beginning. It's really hard to get worked up over something that's pretty much standard and has been since forever.

[alway]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding
^ Worth listening to. TLDR version: it's a combination of intentional gendered marketing of computer systems at a time when their greatest selling point was game systems for children and CS programs assuming prior experience with computer systems. This then become the 'culture' and self-perpetuated.

I've even seen insulting, self-congratulatory, hubris-filled drivel now justifying the status quo as resulting from women being physically unable to code properly. While games and their use as marketing tools created this problem, a generation later, it now exists throughout the tech industry.

While those outside the industry can casually poo-poo the problem as some libral conspiracy like global warming or lung cancer from tobacco, it's obvious and pervasive to those in it. The most evident statement I've seen of this was from a programmer one twitter: you can tell the industry has a problem when your default view is that women are a minority group. Of the two companies I've worked at in the past year, the current studio of ~25 has no women, while the other, of somewhere around 40 or more had one female developer, who was working on secondary corporate infrastructure type stuff.

[TD1]

Ha, thought Grak was serious for a second.


My response: Well, that escalated quickly.

And as to women in games, they're stereotyped to hell and back, but what isn't? What precisely would you want to get games to do? Include more women? Why, if it damages immersion, e.g. a halo scene where Cortana is actually Colin and the Master Chief is Mistress Chief.