- Just a quick word about the charges of sexism at the PS4 announcement:
- My wife likes to send me links to stories she reads throughout the day. They're mostly news or child rearing articles. But every once in a while a video game story finds its way into her sphere. When she sends me such a link, I know it has reached beyond our little, insular community. That was what went through my head when I received a link from The Verge about the lack of any women on stage at the PlayStation Meeting. Couple this with the crap that Patricia Hernandez is getting for her article at Kotaku and we have a full blown nightmare here.
- No one is accusing Sony or any of the developers on stage of overt sexism. There weren't any women denied a spot on stage. And it would have been the worst kind of tokenism to seek someone out just to diversify the presentation. That's not what anyone is saying in these articles, but that's how all of the anti-feminists are taking it.
- What everyone is pointing out is de facto sexism. Women make up half of people on this planet. The fact that not even one woman has risen to a place where they would be a natural fit on that stage is an indictment of the industry as a whole. Everyone knows the history of gaming, how it got started, and who the pioneers are. But that doesn't mean that gaming wouldn't be richer without a wider variety of perspectives. You just have to look at how much of gaming is guns and boobs to know that we could do better.
- So don't take it personally when this kind of sexism is pointed out. But also don't contribute to an environment that drives women away. If you defend the status quo, then you are part of the problem.
© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- I haven't ever heard of Nikole Zivalich. I'm not sure how many have. After the VGAs tonight, a whole lot more people will know her.
Image Courtesy of Kevin Dent
- My initial response was "What the fucking fuck?!?" My next response was to do a little digging. It turns out that she was in on the joke.
- So, no need to freak out yet. But I fear for this woman's future on the internet.
© 2012 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- Guess what? I've acually played some MMOs over the last few days. I even want to write about them. But no, I'm here writing about sexism again. Because that never gets old. Nevertheless...
- So what's the story? Gearbox gave a studio tour to Eurogamer (and other media outlets, presumably) to talk about Borderlands 2, and the pre-order bonus class, the Mechromancer. During the interview, designer John Hemingway referred to the character's Best Friends Forever skill tree as "girlfriend mode". Since the article broke, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford went on the attack, but that didn't do much more than fan the flames.
- I am a little reticent to blast this man with the full force of the Internet Hate Machine for a comment made out of turn. I really wish there was more context for the two word quoted that freaked everyone out. But considering that author Wesley Yin-Poole has always come across as a straight shooter, I doubt that illumination would paint the phrase in any better light. Because even if he didn't mean it a deragatory way, that's where he ended up at the end of the day.
- Folks, we can't use language that implies an entire gender (or race, or sexual orientation, et al.) is somehow lesser just because of how they are born. It is demeaning to them and it is demeaning to us because we perpetuate this stupidity. I would love if my wife or daughter saw me playing this and wanted to join in. How belittled would they feel if I put the game on "girlfriend mode" for them. Sure, that's not what they call it in the game, but it's out there now. They can't take it back.
- I would much rather be playing Borderlands 2 than writing about it. I've actually stopped reading anything because I want to go in fresh. This isn't going to keep me from buying and playing the game. But I really hope that Gearbox owns up, says it will do better, and really does so.
- P.S. If you are curious about how to stamp out sexism, take a look over here. Someone is doing it right.
© 2012 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- Found in my Twitter stream yesterday:
- Once upon a time, I would have seen this as business as usual. Even farther back I would have placed a pre-order of my own. Now, this bums me the hell out.
- Thanks for the reminder that video games are made for teenage boys.
© 2012 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- If you were to ask my wife, she will admit to having a few author crushs (i.e. she is in love with their writing). Although I've never said it before, I feel the same way about the writing of Leigh Alexander.
- The latest knowledge bomb that she's dropped on us appears over at Gamasutra. In it, she argues that it is all well and good that everyone is now talking about the problem of sexism in the games industry, but we need to do more. Leigh believes that all of these bloggers talking back and forth could turn the discussion into an echo chamber without having an effect of the community at large. Without getting the development community involved, all of this talk could be for naught.
- As this discussion has gone on, I've been wondering a very similar thing. I think we all agree that sexism is a bad thing and this is the time to get it out of our games and our culture. But our agreement is not to do it. The people in charge have to be persuaded that it is the right thing for them as well.
- I don't have a lot of power as a blogger-slash-consumer. All I can do it shout loudly and not buy their games. That second part kind of bums me out because I'd like to buy some like Tera. And Lollipop Chainsaw looks hilarious, no matter how bad a game it might be. But in good conscience, I can't support that any more. And I can keep talking about the issue until the right people are listening.
- Sure, those of us in this corner of the internet might be enlightened enough to know sexism when we see it. It's no longer enough for us to keep our heads down just because we're not contributing to the problem. It's time for us to speak up and make sure that everyone knows that this is not okay.
- Here's a temporary diversion while I work on a real post. I'd like to point you to a guest post I wrote for Buffy Month over at Stella Matutina. Memory, the blog's proprietor, approached my wife about guesting. She promptly passed the assignment on to me because she couldn't think of anything at the moment.
- It's a slight little thing, with nary a bullet point in sight. But it still might be worth reading.
- Now, back to the forges of blogging.
© 2012 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- I often wonder if people think I'm crazy when I go off on feminist rants here on my (spify new) blog. As I've grown older, I've become more and more queasy about the depiction of women in games. The addition of a daughter to my life has only accelerated this change. So as recent events have displayed exactly how bad this industry treats half of its fans, I find it hard to keep quiet.
- There was a lot of the talk this year about whether E3 matters any more. While I have no doubt that it will continue for years to come, I fear what the spectacle says about us. Year to year, the overwhelming presence of booth babes serves as a constant indictment of the industry and its audience. They remind us that no matter proportional of the audience they make up, women are not welcome in gaming. And they remind us how little they think of men that the hint of female flesh is all that is needed to draw our attention.
- Of course, we don't need E3 to tell us that women are held in some distain by developers. There are so few well-rounded, non-sexualized female characters in gaming that just about everyone can name the few that exist. (I can think of four. Four.) Gamers are treated to a long string of sex objects instead of characters. Sure, everything below my beltline is fine with that, but I'm frequently embarassed to play these games in front of my wife. And is this how I'm supposed to teach my daughter about gaming? Someone smarter than me needs to come up with a video game version of the Bechdel Test, just to set an absolute minimum requirement for inclusiveness.
- If you don't think that there is anything wrong with this, just look at the culture that has grown up around gaming. Just look at what happened to Anita Sarkeesian. Her crime seemed to be Gaming While Female and for having the temerity for pointing out how these games could be better. I'm hesitant to point the finger at developers directly. But their continuous disregard for how women are portrayed in their games does nothing to help the situation.
- Tesh recently tweeted:
If we embrace stupidity and mediocrity because what we produce is “just entertainment” what hope is there of advancing the state of the art?
We can do better. We can demand better. As a man, I don't like being treated like Pavlov's dog, with a pair of digital breasts the bell to make me salivate. It belittles me, and it belittles women everywhere. It's time for us all to grow up.
© 2012 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- Before I get into this, how come no one told me that Syl of Raging Monkey's was such a great blogger? I feel like you were hording her all for yourselves. Shame on you.
- So you've all heard of Tera, right? If not, let me sum up the game in three pictures.
Action Based Combat
Big-Ass Monsters
Pedophilia
- Do you understand the problem here? No, of course the game is not about pedophilia. But what am I supposed to think when the game world is populated with half dressed prepubescent girls? What am I supposed to tell my wife and daughter? That it really is a great game as long as you disregard the sexualized children? I mean, I already have to get around the hypersexualized women in every other game (which Tera in spades as well). How am I supposed to play this with a clear conscience about the message that it is giving?
- This is what the gaming industry thinks of us. This is what we get for being so complacent about sexual imagery in gaming. Good job, everyone.
© 2012 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
