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[Kingbodz]

I don't think a lot of gamer males, especially developers realize why the violence against women by men is so serious. The general excuse is "men are violent in the game against men too and women against men." But this violence, to many people, especially women, underscores the casual violence our gender experiences on a day to day basis that is trivialized and suppressed by society at large.

How do you think that should be handled in a sandbox game environment which allows the player to conduct violence in general? I ask this because a lot of the criticism I've seen recently is related to violence against women you can conduct in sandbox games, rather than pre-scripted incidents. The criticism is phrased as in "you 'can' do x to a woman" when "x" is something that you can also do to other characters, like driving over them.

This. Sandbox/open world games have probably the most amount of equal opportunity violence so I fail to see how its a issue when you can kill people of color, homosexuals, and women and do the exact same thing to straight, white, men. while playing as anything you want.  Like Fallout.

[TD1]

You are more likely to relate to a protagonist because they will almost always be male

It amazes me that anybody would make this claim in an era where character customization is ubiquitous. If you want to play as female, the vast majority of the time you can.

Nevertheless: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_featuring_female_protagonists

And doing a quick search off the top of my head of a couple games I've played with female-only protagonists, they didn't even show up in the list. So it's far from complete.

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.

Ok. fine. What's the problem? Explain it to me. You didn't answer when I asked you to explain to me what it was you wanted that didn't exist. You evaded the question. So I'm calling you out. What is it you want that you think doesn't exist?

Because very obviously you didn't answer because you know that anyone with google will probably easily be able to give you examples of whatever it is you want, and then you won't be able to complain about it not existing anymore.

Is there really a problem? If so, then explain it. Show us what you so desperately long for that you believe doesn't exist.

As well as actually arguing that female characters in WoW aren't sexist as fuck.

How, exactly? Anyone who wants to play female can. There are no significant gameplay differences between the genders. In fact, none at all that I can think of. Women are consistently portrayed as in equal roles with men. There are female rulers of entire civilizations like Tyrande and Alexstrasza. And again look at the armor, it's not like they're any more sexualized than the men are.

What's exactly the problem?

People currently are explaining the problem, and you are welcome to read there words. I feel like you are expending an excessive amount of energy trying to just shut the conversation down, however.

It's interesting to me that I do not come off as objective, but when someone is actively trying to trivialize the matter and silence the opposition, none of you say anything.

Do you feel I'm obligated to be eloquent and measured, with witty come backs and patience to spare while the other side can be as hostile as they wish?

That's kind of an unrealistic expectation.

You....still didn't answer the question? What, for you, are the main problems you'd like addressed?

[smeeprocket]

If you have a man beating his wife in a video game, or a villain torturing a helpless female victim, it is quite different than say if your skyrim character goes up against a female bandit.

You need to look at the parallels this has with realizing and the way violence against women by men is perceived in our society. There is context and history there that make it more than just equal opportunity.

[smeeprocket]

You are more likely to relate to a protagonist because they will almost always be male

It amazes me that anybody would make this claim in an era where character customization is ubiquitous. If you want to play as female, the vast majority of the time you can.

Nevertheless: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_featuring_female_protagonists

And doing a quick search off the top of my head of a couple games I've played with female-only protagonists, they didn't even show up in the list. So it's far from complete.

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.

Ok. fine. What's the problem? Explain it to me. You didn't answer when I asked you to explain to me what it was you wanted that didn't exist. You evaded the question. So I'm calling you out. What is it you want that you think doesn't exist?

Because very obviously you didn't answer because you know that anyone with google will probably easily be able to give you examples of whatever it is you want, and then you won't be able to complain about it not existing anymore.

Is there really a problem? If so, then explain it. Show us what you so desperately long for that you believe doesn't exist.

As well as actually arguing that female characters in WoW aren't sexist as fuck.

How, exactly? Anyone who wants to play female can. There are no significant gameplay differences between the genders. In fact, none at all that I can think of. Women are consistently portrayed as in equal roles with men. There are female rulers of entire civilizations like Tyrande and Alexstrasza. And again look at the armor, it's not like they're any more sexualized than the men are.

What's exactly the problem?

People currently are explaining the problem, and you are welcome to read there words. I feel like you are expending an excessive amount of energy trying to just shut the conversation down, however.

It's interesting to me that I do not come off as objective, but when someone is actively trying to trivialize the matter and silence the opposition, none of you say anything.

Do you feel I'm obligated to be eloquent and measured, with witty come backs and patience to spare while the other side can be as hostile as they wish?

That's kind of an unrealistic expectation.

You....still didn't answer the question? What, for you, are the main problems you'd like addressed?

Actually, I have mentioned a number of problems throughout this thread and the previous one. I do not have  a comprehensive list for you, and you are welcome to review my past words to find some of the problems. I am also not the only one speaking out for women. This is a shared conversation.

I have answered the question and continue to discuss it. But I will not entertain attempts to bully or pigeonhole me, or to call me out as unobjective, in an attempt to shut me down.

[Neonivek]

If you have a man beating his wife in a video game, or a villain torturing a helpless female victim, it is quite different than say if your skyrim character goes up against a female bandit.

You need to look at the parallels this has with realizing and the way violence against women by men is perceived in our society. There is context and history there that make it more than just equal opportunity.

The first one I agree with you... the second I don't at least not without context.

As it is quite common to see helpless men being tortured often to death. In fact it is incredibly common to see in Skyrim.

Still as I said the major difference is Tomb Raider the first versus a remake.

Lets say they are both tortured
-Original Lara would hold on strong because she is awesome
-New Lara would cry and cringe because she is weak and needs to learn to be awesome

[Gentlefish]

Ok to the first part:

I am not talking about the issue that TOO much is catering towards men and not enough of the industry is homogenous, which is an issue. I am talking about the people who will instantly interpret a character as sexist or not sexist entirely by whether or not a man made it or if it is a female character made to be appealing to men.

Well considering the hiring rate of women in the game industry (i.e. like, tiny. I"ll get a number when I'm not at work.), I think I can say that there are pervasive sexist qualities in the majority of AAA games.

As for the second part...

Of course, but why are you making female abuse special? Could it be because you have the exact same sexism that pervades this whole thing... that women are "things" that need to be "protected" and thus games that show them in any sort of negative situation are wrong because women are small little flowers who are constantly and forever abused in real life?

Cause we aren't talking about very specific forms of abuse here. We are specifically talking about ANYTIME a woman is hurt by a man.

Edited because I cannot complain even here.

It's a problem because it super-trivializes the deaths of represented women, marking them as that "thing" you're talking about. It's reducing them to an object. It's saying "women aren't humans, this is just a plot point with legs and voice acting". It's trivializing the lives of, you know, a sex/gender that has been systematically trivialized their whole lives into "things" to have and play with, and it enforces that trivialization of women to men playing the games.

Theoretically shouldn't oversexualized female characters also appeal to lesbians as well as men?

The Male Gaze. Wonderful thing, that.

I don't think a lot of gamer males, especially developers realize why the violence against women by men is so serious. The general excuse is "men are violent in the game against men too and women against men." But this violence, to many people, especially women, underscores the casual violence our gender experiences on a day to day basis that is trivialized and suppressed by society at large.

How do you think that should be handled in a sandbox game environment which allows the player to conduct violence in general? I ask this because a lot of the criticism I've seen recently is related to violence against women you can conduct in sandbox games, rather than pre-scripted incidents. The criticism is phrased as in "you 'can' do x to a woman" when "x" is something that you can also do to other characters, like driving over them.

Sandbox is fine. It's the pre-scripts that's bad. If there's special things you can do to women above the norm in a sand-box -then- I have a problem.

[LordBucket]

Even on the sexualization front there's plenty of that across both genders. Illidan has NEVER worn a shirt in his official art.

Yes. And the male night elves were redesigned from their original models to make them more muscular.  Shall we complain about the sexualization of men? I don't think so.

Yeah but even then there is a rather sizable disproportionate sexualization in World of Warcraft.

Though they started cleaning up their act.

So you don't get the
Male Armor: Platemail
Female Armor: Bikini

as often and usually it is just a boob slot or a belly slot.

Here is a complete image list of all end-game tier armors dating back to the original pre-expansion game.

Look at them.

Show me the bikinis.There aren't any. We're talking ankle-length dresses most of the time. The notable exception to the ankle length dresses being when they're wearing ankle-length pants.

[penguinofhonor]

I can't speak for WoW, but Guild Wars 2 definitely has disproportionate sexualization. The female version of heavy armor will usually have a boob window, an exposed belly, or a thigh gap because you're apparently wearing an armored short skirt with steel stockings. Light armors are worse, with gender variations like these being the norm:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It feels like half the armors have an equally covered female version and half have a less-covered female version, but there are virtually no armors with a more exposed male version. The community consensus seems to be that the male/female versions of the same armor should look the same, and if they want a skimpy female version they should make a skimpy male version to match it.

[Reelya]

If an NPC villain hurts women in a game, he's universally labeled as an evil guy doing a bad thing. I don't think this reinforces that hurting women is a good thing any more than e.g. showing domestic violence in a movie. Maybe it should come with warnings like a movie does though, that it might upset some players/viewers.

[Gentlefish]

If an NPC villain hurts women in a game, he's universally labeled as an evil guy doing a bad thing. I don't think this reinforces that hurting women is a good thing any more than e.g. showing domestic violence in a movie.

Yes but the designers chose specifically "YES let's abuse a woman to show he's EVIL because that's the ONLY WAY TO PROVE EVILNESS"

So that's pretty shitty of them.

[Ogdibus]

GDC vault has plenty of counter arguments for "The status quo is fine".   You also get to hear devs talk about practical solutions.

[smeeprocket]

If an NPC villain hurts women in a game, he's universally labeled as an evil guy doing a bad thing. I don't think this reinforces that hurting women is a good thing any more than e.g. showing domestic violence in a movie.

Yes but the designers chose specifically "YES let's abuse a woman to show he's EVIL because that's the ONLY WAY TO PROVE EVILNESS"

So that's pretty shitty of them.

exactly, the woman is an object to prove the villain's badguy status.

edit: with regards to muscly men, that is a male power fantasy, they are not being sexualized for women. Men want to be them, women don't drool over them.

[Graknorke]

But in a story every character, besides the protagonists and antagonists of course, is an object to prop up the other characters.

[TD1]

Er, well, yes...because hurting a woman is something most people find abhorrent. Do you wish this to change? They could also have beat children. Women sympathise more with a woman getting a beating than a man getting a beating, as to men. Perhaps this is sexism, but arguably it's against males not females.

As for muscly men, they obviously appeal to women. Women do drool over them. Just look at the huge amount of muscly men on female magazines.


Edit:

I have answered the question and continue to discuss it. But I will not entertain attempts to bully or pigeonhole me, or to call me out as unobjective, in an attempt to shut me down.

Er, okay, I wasn't trying to bully you. I was genuinely curious as to the answer, as you DID seem to be evading the topic. But I won't ask you to further up in the future, I guess...?

[Gentlefish]

Men want to be them, women don't drool over them.

Can this be pointed out more please.

Spoiler: Point Being (click to show/hide)

Also the hawkeye intiative, anyone?