Anita Sarkeesian presents: Eight things developers can do to make games less shitty for women.

Here's a better video, featuring TAA, the craziest and most entertaining fat dude on YouTube.

ANITA SARKEESIAN, YOU OFFICIALLY SUCK AT FEMINISM:

 

Ah, what the hell...

 

Given that the vast majority of video game players are male, it seems prudent to pander to them to make the most profit.

 

Given that half of the population is female, it seems amazingly imprudent to ignore a full half of your potential market. Besides, truly better games will reach a different male segment of the market as well. And as so many have pointed out -- Sarkeesian as well as some of her dumber critics who think she disagrees --, misogyny always stereotypes male characters as well.

 

I suspect we will see more market fragmentation with different companies going after different niches but artists must be free to create even if what the create is disliked by some people. I suspect they know their target market much better than any SJW does.

 

Candy Crush and Barbie Dreamhouse Party is already available. I say they got it covered.

 

Marketing, like women, is another of those things Ramen has trouble understanding.

 

Indie games are more prevalent than ever. They're so many that it's hard to find a good one, however. Steam has been greenlighting many indies and for rather cheap if one is willing to overlook the problems inherent with a low-budget title.

No doubt companies are looking at content of these and may steer their R&D departments towards certain directions.

 

How have video games ignored the female portion of the market? There are plenty of games in the marketplace that women consume regularly. If they didn't find any value in the content, why would they purchase it?

On top of that, many AAA titles have lead female characters that should be a feminist's wet dream. So the notion that women don't have a "safe space" in gaming is a farce, perpetrated by professional victims like Sarkeesian, Quinn and Wu.

 

I didn't say they did; I was just responding to the post above mine, which argued they should.

And yet they all claim as you do, that female gamers are ubiquitous. It's the gaters that you should quarrel with, see above.

 

I wondered why this conversation seemed so familiar:

 

Okay then. I'm still not totally on board with your point though.

Games that cater to the fantasies of one gender or the other are not inherently discriminatory. The target audience is just very obvious.

The "gaters", so called, aren't the ones trying to tell people what sort of content they can create or not.

And the ubiquitousness of female gamers has never been up for debate. Though I have to say: coddling female gamers and trying to make games "safe" for them is the highest form of sexism. Telling a woman to get back in the kitchen seems less repulsive to me than telling a woman she can't handle comically large tits on a computer model.

Did Puritanism make a fucking comeback in the past six months or something?

 

Oboy, did you pick the wrong reference...

 

The latter seems reasonable, but there's been a huge outcry against Sarkeesian's analyses claiming that the fantasies she sees fulfilled in the games she's looking at are not, in fact, part of those games. So "obvious" doesn't really seem to apply. I'm glad you agree with her and me that gender-specific stereotypes are indeed being met. As long as many, perhaps even a majority, of gamers don't see that, it is at least a valid point for descriptive research and debate, though.

How about as a point of normative criticism? Have a look at your own normative statements.

What does this "should" mean? You're faced with a feminist telling you this game isn't her "wet dream". What do you mean when you say she should enjoy it?

I haven't seen anyone telling anyone what games they can create. I see Sarkeesian & Co. arguing that it would be good if some other kinds of games were produced in addition to those on the market, and others, like the one to which I was originally responding, that argue those additional games shouldn't be created. I'm on the formers' side, both because they argue for more rather than less variety, and because the games in whose favour they argue are such that I'd probably enjoy them.

 

The video game players who actually buy the games - not play on their boyfriends systems for a few minutes before posting selfies of themselves on Facebook with faux nerdy glasses and a controller in their hand.

 

Man Ruptures Tendon After Weeks of "Candy Crush"

 

Yaaaayyyy!!! Male pain!! Yaayyy!!

 

See, I was thinking Darwin Award. Plus Post #306. But continue to wallow in your War-on-Christmas paranoia.

 

Wordforge supports misandry. I'm threatened. And triggered.

 

As a member of the racist white male patriarchy, you're not allowed to feel threatened or triggered. Only the Approved Special Emphasis Groups can lay claim to those feelings.

 

More like this: as somebody who scorns the idea that majority groups can be oppressed, he cannot claim to be oppressed as a member of a majority group.

 

Funny, I thought the gender breakdown of the human species was 50/50.
Who knew the situation was so dire?
Certainly not I.

 

And that's true of gamers and developers, too? Who knew. Usually you get the concept of power imbalances.

 

Thanks to phone apps, I think I heard it was 55/45 in favor of men, still a majority, but not as much as is made out.

Developers...no idea.
I don't game anymore, and I couldn't name a developer when I did.

 

Women naturally out number men slightly. Both because slightly more girls are born but also because women manage to not get themselves killed at as high a rate as men, and because women live longer than men.

 

Actually, more males are born than females (I believe the ratio is 105:100), but they're more prone to congenital and early-childhood illness than females.

That's well before y'all get to the "Hey, watch this!" stage.

 

I think we are talking about two different things. There is the primary ratio where girls actually slightly out number boys at conception and then the birth ratio which is how many actually get born. Due to sex selection, especially in Asia, the numbers get skewed as girl fetuses get aborted because the parents want a boy. This is especially true in China where only one child is allowed and in India which is just a fucked up place.

 

I was referring to the natural ratio of live births, which is 105 male to 100 female. Male infants are more fragile and have a higher mortality.

 

The "funny" rep was introduced just because of this glorious thread, IMO!

 

The huge outcry is from people that have actually played the games she's criticizing and know that her analyses are flawed.

I wouldn't go so far as to say we're in agreement. I'll admit certain tropes (e.g. "damsel in distress") are sometimes present in some video games. However I don't think they're problematic or even actionable.

A good portion of the criticism against Sarkeesian is about her cherry-picking of scenarios in games while ignoring any contextual details that don't fit her narrative. Also, the fact that all her videos have comments disabled shows that these videos are being used more as lectures, instead of food for debate like her supporters claim.

Sarkeesian has also been shown on video from 2010 admitting that she's not a fan of video games, and she doesn't like playing them. So her image as a "gamer girl" is suspect, and her numerous public display of consumption of video and board games comes off as a disingenuous attempt to keep her geek credibility intact.

The point was that game developers have already implemented many changes to female video game characters in response to feminist criticism and a consumer base that has more and more women in it (more clothing, less exaggerated female forms, tougher/more independent personalities), and the feminist response is to ignore these changes and continue on as though video games are still a morass of comically-endowed women with no agency.

I said they're dictating what sort of content game studios can put in their games, not types of games.

Sarkeesian's videos are constructed to highlight what she sees as negative female imagery in video games. Why did she make the video if not to change the content of video games to be more friendly to feminist ideals?

As for the "it would be good if some other kinds of games were produced in addition to those on the market": those games are already being produced. They exist and are in the marketplace.

Games geared toward women already exist. Can you point me to where someone said (or even implied) that no video games for women should ever be created?

Saying the majority of gamers are male is somehow implying female gamers are not everywhere?