BadgerPod GamerGate 6: Zerg Rush of Stupid

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Anita’s 8 “Simple” rules for gender inclusivity in video games

by Rachel Edwards

Anita Sarkeesian’s recent speech at New York University outlined what she called simple solutions to what she feels is a misogynistic gaming industry. Forgive me, if I’m more than wary of the idea that anything feminists ask for is ever simple. But here it is, Anita’s 8 rules for making gaming more inclusive.

1. Avoid the Smurfette principle (don’t have just one female character in an ensemble cast, let alone one whose personality is more or less “girl” or “woman.”)

2. “Lingerie is not armor” (Dress female characters as something other than sex objects.)

3. Have female characters of various body types

4. Don’t over-emphasize female characters’ rear ends, not any more than you would the average male character’s.

5. Include more female characters of color.

6. Animate female characters to move the way normal women, soldiers or athletes would move.

7. Record female character voiceover so that pain sounds painful, not orgasmic

8. Include female enemies, but don’t sexualize those enemies

Having read those rules verbatim I have somethings to say about them.

1. Sometimes when you are doing things that are non-traditional. As in things that are not typically girly, like going on adventures and killing monsters with a sword, you might find that you are one female working with a bunch of men. That’s reality.

2. Lingerie may not be armor, but no one told that to Brianna Wu, whose characters in revolution 60 are all wearing skin tight clothing. Furthermore, not everyone pays for reality. If you really want to be realistic, waif like characters would not be able to swing big claymores, but you guys want to bitch about the fact they are wearing sexy clothing and not the fact that other aspects of this make no sense.

3. I can agree on this one. Diversity of body types is good but many games are already doing that. However, if you’re going for realism, you can’t really have an obese woman doing somersaults and fighting monsters when they are obviously out of shape.

4. Sometimes you are going to have a view of a woman’s ass if she is the playable character. That’s unavoidable. Not all women have asses that are flat like a pancake. One could cover that up with a poofy dress or a skirt, but oh wait…I forgot those are gender signifiers and you hate those. I know, lets throw burqas on everyone and be done with it. The men too.

5. Okay include more characters of color, diversity would be great. I only ask that you don’t just shove people of color in there for the sake of being there because then you are valuing them for the color of their skin and not the content of their character. Which is really racist.

6. Do women normally wield claymores? Do they normally have gun shoes? Do they normally shoot fire from there hands? If you want athletes then you’re a hypocrite because you just asked for diverse body types. To be realistic you need to choose from the body types associated with athletes. Which usually means strong and somewhat muscular, but also thin with little body fat. If we’re going for a gymnast body type she’ll need to be flatchested too as gymnast’s often don’t go through puberty until they stop competing because of their low bodyfat content.

7. People grunt when they fight. Have you never seen female martial artists ever? They only seem orgasmic to you.

8. Include female enemies. Okay, but whenever we do, feminists see that as sexist. You say don’t sexualize enemies, well this isn’t something specifically done with female enemies and not all female enemies are sexy. This is a common archetype making the concept of evil, and the dark side of ourselves as seductive and tempting. The dark parts of ourselves sometimes find something desirable in characters that are morally reprehensible. This is meant to illicit feelings from players forcing them to consider their own values. Seduction and manipulation go hand and hand. I see no problem with having enemies that play on these kinds of emotions.

My verdict on this is that Anita is a moron who wants to have her cake and eat it to. She wants it all and can not imagine why people might take issue with what she’s asking for. These feminists say they don’t want to change gaming in a big way, they say they want reality, but will take fantasy when it suits them.

If gaming needs anything it’s an understanding that there’s room for a variety of games. Not every game needs female characters or conservative clothing. Not all games need to be chaste and non-sexual. Not every game needs people of color, because sometimes you are playing as something that is non-human or even something lacking a gender. If you want these things you say you want then support them with your wallets. Don’t bitch about something you aren’t willing to support financially. Create a good game with all of these requirements and then we’ll talk.

Female gamer’s first session of D&D. Asked what her character is wearing, she responds with feminist diatribe

by Hannah Wallen

That is the title of a link on reddit’s mensrights subreddit to Godsfall: A D&D Podcast. The podcast is a play session in which a gamer is establishing her background and then starting game play. The play goes through about 16 minutes of discussion, with questions and answers exchanged between the female player and the male dungeon master. She at first seems pretty okay, even makes a stab at suggestive humor. That all changes when they begin to roll play her entrance into an elegant ball.

So here we have an elven female character of some nobility, about to make her entrance into a high profile social event. The dungeon master asks her what she’s wearing.

The player goes off on him, dropping the suspension of disbelief and breaking the mood of the game to jerk him around on the chain of feminist butthurt.

I’m not going through her whole diatribe, but aside from wrongfully treating a thing he said 15 minutes into game play like it was the first thing he said to her, the gist of her complaint was “You can’t ask me what I’m wearing – that’s so gender stereotypey because I’m a guuuuurrrrrrrl. I’m a gamer guuuuurrrrrrrl!”

The objection itself is ridiculous. You describe your character. It’s part of the game. You describe everything. The game is description based. “What are you wearing?” is not a gendered question. It’s a gamer question. Do you look the part? Are you going to stand out in this situation? Are you hiding armor under your garb? Do you look like a good target for an NPC thief? Your appearance affects your interaction with other characters, including your ability to do things like bluff or intimidate, fit into a social setting, survive an attack, and many other potential factors that could come up in the game.

And for this particular player it’s an even more significant thing because she’s playing an elven bard. Her appearance is an integral part of that. If she didn’t want to role play that she could always have chosen to play a half-orc barbarian or a human of just about any class. To get offended over being asked “what are you wearing” in that circumstance is so oversensitive it made me wonder if this chick ever leaves her house without a helmet.

Upon finishing her diatribe, she described her garb.

After her rant  about it being sexist to ask what she’s wearing, about her gender making it sexist to consider her appearance important, she describes the most stereotypical gamer guuuuuurrrrrrrl outfit ever: An iridescent, multicolor gown with an extremely low plunging back. Not that I object to making a female character feminine, but if you’re going to pitch and moan about being treated like a girl don’t play like one! What’s the point of designing a character if you’re not going to enjoy portraying and discussing her characteristics?

Do not go off on a tangent about being asked how you’re dressed for an elegant ball and then finish with “Oh, by the way I’m wearing the god damned  J-Lo ass display dress and it’s shiny and colorful. Guuuuuuuurrrrrrrrl!”

Later in the session this same feminist rolls a 1 on a skill check while trying to walk down a stairway in high heels and a long gown. For the layman that means she rolled to see if she tripped, and got the worst possible number. A 1 always fails.

That means she was at risk for tripping on the stairs, and had to make a dexterity check. Her first response, before making the check, was to ask if there was a strong man at the bottom of the stairs to catch her if she fell. Because, you know, Guuuuuuuurrrrrrrrl! Don’t stereotype me as a girl but god dammit if I fall down the stairs some guy better bet there to catch me!

It’s not an isolated incident, either. Throughout the game she role plays interacting like a girl, completely undermining her earlier “don’t treat me like a girl” rant.

It’s shit like this, feminists. This is not joining in, but demanding that the group walk on eggshells to suit you, and frankly you don’t merit that. You’re not special for being a gamer girl. There are many gamers who happen to also be girls. There always have been. We don’t have to have “gamer girl” as a special title. We’re just gamers. We’re not rare, not oppressed, and more likely to be offended by your choice to bring politics into our hobby than by anything the guys we play with may do. You want to be included? Then be part of the group for once instead of riding in on your high horse to save us from all the fun we were having before you got here. Can’t do that? That’s a sign you never really wanted to be part of the group anyway. May your iridescent, low-cut rainbow saddle chap your artfully displayed ass on the way out.

Coffee-gate is back!

by Alison Tieman

Brianna Wu had coffee with pro-gamergate developer Brad Wardell

This happening is actually rather unremarkable. Apparently they had a good talk and, you know, Mr. Wardell managed to reign in his desire to rape and murder for half an hour at least. He had the good sense to take two female developers with him to help out with that.

So why am I reporting on this? Because the anti-gamergate social justice warriors are now predictably throwing Brianna Wu under the bus for treating a gamergater like a human being and not a monster.

She’s now tainted, folks.

This is not the behaviour of rational human beings; this is the behaviour of people in the grip of outrage-hysteria. It’s laughable when anti-gamergaters talk about diversity because what they are doing is creating a human monoculture by purging sinners for colluding with the enemy.

And with each purge the bar for collusion becomes lower.

Talking to a gamergater? You’re a colluder? Breathing the same air as a gamergater? You’re a colluder. Objecting at rhetoric calling for gamergaters to be shoved into ovens? You’re a definitely a colluder.

Where does this end? This is a question I pose to anti-gamergaters. At what level of ideological purity do you start to say, “hey, being part of this group isn’t worth hurting other people or treating them as inhuman.”



SJWs attempt to awaken the sleeping giant

By Brian Martinez

Western game developers are no strangers to the critical theory, tone policing, bullying and general dumbassery that has come out of the blizzard of special snowflakes and professional victims. Normally they are bullied into making changes, heartfelt apologies and now walk on social eggshells during the marketing, design and development of new video games and media. Never Realm studios recently announced that Mortal Kombat X will not have “realistic female body proportions”, the game Hatred was almost pulled from the Steam store for it’s portrayal of violence against women, Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 was compared to a rape simulation and Divinity: Original Sin had to change it’s artwork in order to please these asshats.

But the Japanese? They give no fucks at all.

Dead or Alive 5 Last Round is part of a series that always had sexy female characters(and attractive male characters, but who cares about them) in several fun outfits with boob physics. This current version has about 400 costumes in total. From schoolgirls to ninjas to gym outfits and more, clearly Team Ninja wanted to have as much fun with designs as possible. There is a “soft ban” of over 100 of these costumes, done on the part of one of the communities around DoA5, because the costumes were deemed to be “overly sexualized” and it might “alienate female players”. This is like the return of the Puritans.

A prominent hentai artist named Yamatogawa did some costume designs for the latest Soul Calibur game. Naturally it shows a good deal of skin, and western Puritans raged. Namco said, “Don’t like it? Don’t buy it.” Namco lead developer Katsuhiro Harada was receiving a lot of shit for his newest Tekken character known as Lucky Chloe, who is a cutesy pop idol girl who fights along side Tekken’s cast of robots, bears, half demon hybrids and Bruce lee clones. Somehow a pop idol is going too far.

Ironically, the Japanese are most often the most criticized by Westerners for being overly sexist and objectifying women in their products without giving them personality or any degree of depth, yet not only does Japan’s “zero fucks given” attitude give us some of the best female characters with the most variety (Momo, Son Son) they have also made some of the earliest (Ms Pac-Man, Ishtar) as well as some of the most iconic (Chun Li, Samus, Peach and Mai Shiranui). It’s almost as if artists don’t need to be policed into creating good content when left to their own devices.

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nemedeus's avatar
don't forget that Sarkeesian is a mouthpiece for McIntosh and everything she says he said first.