It's silly to worry about it in the context of a fictional medium. Arguments have been made that, say, for instance, the human trafficking ring in Watch Dogs (recent video game) shouldn't have ever existed because it's overtly sexist, despite the fact that you break it up at the end of the mission arc. (To which I say: That's what human trafficking is. Sexist? Ya think?! People are being sold into slavery and you focus on sexism?)
Such arguments ring as hollow as the railing against violence in video games. Saying what kind of artwork people should and shouldn't make transcends all *isms into straight-up repressiveness.
> It's silly to worry about it in the context of a fictional medium.
I respectfully disagree. I think it's extremely important to have discussions about various -isms in fiction. Fiction is a huge part of how we understand and view the world around us, and if our fiction has distorted worldviews, then we should know about it.
What I took away from that anecdote instead, is that tact is a thing and so is knowing what to say when, and that maybe charged opinions on tangential issues should be left to some occasion other than when your friend is trying to show you something that she worked really hard on.
Though there's a huge difference between "knowing about it" and railing against it.
My takeaway is that the Anita Sarkeesians (the person who made the argument against Watch Dogs that I mentioned) of the world want the same thing the Jack Thompsons of the world do - suppression (not recognition, suppression) of that which makes them uncomfortable, using a very weak appeal to the greater good in an attempt to legitimize it.
And on a more meta level, I have yet to see so much as one criticism of any particular video game for $isms that was simultaneously:
* Completely factual
* Well researched
* Not misleading
* Not judgmental as to the game's target audience
If such a thing were to exist, I think it would be a great boon to both the cause of social justice warriors and video gaming as a maturing art form. Unfortunately, everyone that's gone down this path, that I'm aware of, seems to abandon all of the above and instead create shrill, judgmental, self-congratulatory pieces that cause people with any ounce of rationality to sigh and move on.
A lot has been written about how, for example, the best Science Fiction reflects something from the real world or makes us think about real world issues. It's, in my opinion, what turns good SF into truly great SF. There are even awards specifically made for SF that touches these real world issues (see the James Tiptree, Jr. Award [1], for example. And if you've never read fiction by Tiptree (R.I.P.), I strongly recommend her work!)
So fiction often has meaning related to the real world. In my opinion it is entirely appropriate to worry when groups of people are generally misrepresented in fiction.
Fiction that is completely divorced from reality is uninteresting to me and to a great deal many people.
If we're talking serious /art/, I think the distinction is really, is this potentially offensive thing making a point that betters the perceived meaning of the game, or is it there because of lazy writing and tropes? In all art forms, it's the former that's generally granted high status.
Would you demand the same of other art forms? We don't tell artists what to paint. If something is offensive it's deemed 'powerful' for the emotions it's capable of invoking. If we hate it we move on and don't look at that painting. We all have the right to an opinion about art but we are not entitled to forcing our opinions on those who create it.
Other art forms have been subject to feminist and other criticism for a long time.
Only recently has attention been turned to video games, as the genre is so new. The reaction from a minority in the video games community seems to view this criticism as an extraordinary attack, even some kind of corruption or conspiracy if you listen to some people on reddit.
These recent controversies (#GamerGate included) look pretty transparent from people with no stakes in the game. A lot of really violent backlash against an industry that is growing up.
If a book is published, it is allowed for journalists or other writers to say that this book is abhorrent for x, y, and z. It is also allowed for them to criticize and chastise the author for writing such an abhorrent book. This is not the same as censorship.
When a large part of society condemns something for whatever reason, or if a certain segment wishes to use their arguments to try convince enough people that something should be condemned, this is a natural, largely unpredictable, and unrelenting process that happens all the time to reflect shifting social values and morals. It's folly to fight that, and the trick is predicting where it will go. In my opinion, that is how companies and institutions survive.
A few years ago it might have been in (any random abstract) company's best interest to fire a gay employee. Regardless of the views of the decision maker at that company, for the sake of PR, this is the way it goes. These days, that decision goes the other way, particularly on the national scale.
The game studios are subject to these kinds of effects too, and that is what what will hurt the status quo of games in the long run (although there are arguments to be made that the desired status quo is already long gone, I dunno, it's been a while since I was attached to the games industry).
I agree: "we are not entitled to forcing our opinions on those who create it."
However, in the context of extensive advertising and unavoidable public discussion, we are having the opinions of those creators foisted on us.
It's not a matter of "choosing not to play" when the overwhelming prevalence (contrasted with the mere existence) of sexist or racist games shapes how you're perceived by everyone around you. It already an uphill battle to be recognized as an individual without the constant stream of objectifying media.
There's far more money and political power backing those invested in exploiting and perpetuating stereotypes. They can afford to defend themselves.
There is no right to not be offended or to not be exposed to media you disagree with.
I am offended by the likes of Anita Sarkeesian who is plastered all over games media. I believe she is wrong and her critiques are self serving, lacking in depth, and ignore the overall context by simply cherry picking things that seem outrageous to her audience. But her right to speech trumps my desire to not hear it Despite the triggering nature of her articles. To me it sounds like this is about controlling thought and language to silence those you disagree with or perceived threats on your worldview.
If you really can't bear to even hear people talking about a game you disagree with then put on a pair of headphones or grow a thicker skin.
Beyond that, the claims of sexism/racism/misogyny in games is silly when you also include the male tropes (when's the last time you've seen realistic portrayals of male physique in a videogame that wasn't negative). Also If you really believe women aren't thought of as individuals in the western world you are living in a oppression-fantasy.
There are many creators out there who want to remain completely uncritical. They are happy they made something, and they don't need to be told that they're doing it wrong, because their goals were internal and self-set from the beginning. But the whole premise of the artist even trying to speak to an audience is to decide what is important to say, what is necessary and what is unnecessary - both what the audience will like, and what is good for them to like. And so artists who are aiming not just to say anything, but to say the "best" things possible, eventually gravitate towards a critical lens.
Critique is a discussion that is semi-private: It takes place between the critic and the artist, and not the audience as a whole. Audience members have the final decision in that they can walk away from the resulting discourse, but this doesn't mean that they need to intervene and announce which things should or should not be open for critique. When the audience does intervene directly in criticism, it generally amounts to bullying of either the critic or the artist, or sometimes both; it's not productive.
Where this dialogue becomes messy is when the space of discussion has not been agreed upon: Should this discussion aim for criticism or not? If "no," simply say you're thinking that. But if you're presenting an argument to avoid criticism as a means of shutting down a criticism, you're being a bully.
Other popular, socially influential, commercial media are subject to pretty similar pressures -- particularly media that are consumed heavily by youth; less popular/pervasive/commercial media are subject to criticism on similar grounds, but generally not pressure that something needs to be done to correct the problems in the medium (likely in part because even the groups that see individual works as problematic don't see the less-pervasive medium involved as having a substantial problematic influence on society.)
Avoiding the topic of sexism and racism is worse than not talking about it. So yeah, avoiding it is silly: it helps nobody.
What I was referring to, is the part of the article where everyone had to complain about something regarding the vision of the developers.
My point was that it looks like it is a futile effort to comply with what everyone expects and that it is more important to concentrate being happy creating something.
There is literally nothing wrong with sexism or racism being present in games.
It's just another American moralistic panic thing, like nudity or sex in games. Generally perpetrated by people unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality.
Murdering hordes of people in brutal ways: perfectly fine.
What exactly is "non-politcally correct"? In what ways do discrimination and dehumanization of certain peoples involve politics?
I hear you and agree that we should be allowed to explore fantasies. However, when one's sexist fantasies are similar to one's reality, intervention is reasonable. Concrete example: cat-calling.
I don't see how this is relevant as I did not suggest game makers should make different games. Rather I was simply commenting on the observation that there are social issues regarding sex and gender in our world, and that many video games showcase them (usually unintentionally).
But to what extent? Are all game worlds supposed to represent an ideal utopia? E.g. is the antagonist being sexist supporting sexism or is it a commentary on sexism? What about 'historical' games? Do we eliminate references to the Holocaust in WW2-era games because it might offend someone?
I think that this is where the arguments get fuzzy. Everyone has a different idea of where the line is drawn.
Let's cater to every group of people then. Let's make games black and white so we don't offend colorblind people. No, let's remove graphics at all, because that excludes blind people. And no sound, that is exclusionary towards the deaf.
You see, anybody can be offended by anything. You offend me by your dumb attempts to control art, for instance. So why don't you stop doing it?
I fear that this comment spurred the wrong discussion. Sexism and racism addressed in video games is not the problem -- 12 Years a Slave, She's the Man, and 10 Things I Hate About You are not the problem.
The problem is that games like Red Dead Redemption, Hitman, and Grand Theft Auto systematically reward sexist and racist behavior (tying a woman to train tracks, brutalizing prostitutes, etc.). Many refute the idea that video games can affect a player's long-term behavior, and as far as I know both sides of that argument are difficult to study and prove.
I do hypothesize, however, that these video games reinforce or at least mimic the very real disregard and dehumanization of females in society. It's not so much video games that are the collective problem, it's people.
EDIT: I am realizing this comment is being interpreted as if I were suggesting a ban on certain qualities of video games. I am not. I am only postulating some sort of parallel between video games and real life.
Can you please identify exactly what part of Hitman "rewards sexist and racist" behavior? I assume you've played the games?
You can kill women in Hitman, but this is not in itself sexist. You can kill men too, with a penalty if they're not an armed guard. There's no difference between killing a homeless man or woman that just happens to be in the way of your plans.
It seems to me that this line of criticism is actually that the game is too violent in general. It's just that sexism is used as the tip of the spear, because we as a society are significantly more likely to be outraged - because we are sexist - by violence against innocent women in games than violence against innocent men. Against the ultra powerful player character, both are just as defenseless.
If any gender is dehumanized by Hitman, it would surely be men - more than 95% of who you kill in an average play through are male guards that are simply there to be a gameplay element, like ghosts in Pac Man. You violently kill them, dump their bodies and forget it seconds later. The female opponents are highly powerful assassins with names and unique faces.
There is plenty of low hanging fruit for criticizing Hitman. It's quite a disturbing game (and it happens to be one of my favorites). I'm all for deconstructing and analyzing the games we play, but doing it in an intellectually lazy way does nobody any favors.
(I can't speak to the other games, as I haven't played them)
>The problem is that games like Red Dead Redemption, Hitman, and Grand Theft Auto systematically reward sexist and racist behavior (tying a woman to train tracks, brutalizing prostitutes, etc.).
This sort of dishonesty is precisely what causes the backlash. No, those games do nothing of the sort.
So, here's something funny, I thought to myself "is there anybody that isn't familiar with the woman tied to the railroad tracks cliche so they wouldn't get the reference? It's gotta be like a hundred years old by now." So I Googled "woman tied to railroad tracks." The first link that I got was an article by a silent film enthusiast about "silent film myths." I click on it and he references an Anita Sarkeesian video!
With a cautious disclaimer that she's usually reliable, he points out that she brings up this cliche as being a common silent film trope and she includes a short clip from a 1913 silent film using it. But here's the problem: the gag wasn't common in silent films at all, that's the myth the rest of the article debunks; and in the clip she was using, by 1913 it was already a gag scenario only suitable for making fun of, not seriously presented, yet this is how she describes it. In the span of two minutes I accidentally found somebody in a completely different hobby who called out a video of Sarkeesian making a incorrect claim she couldn't possibly have actually researched (that the trope was common in silent films,) and taking a video clip out of context either because she didn't really watch it, or on purpose because it made her point better.
I know that the trope can be presented ironically and still be part of a cultural pattern of objectifying women. That is not my point. It is just about accidentally finding the same sort of thing that gamers say she does about specific games in a completely different medium she has commented on. Noticing these things, if they keep happening, could be considered "honest criticism" of her videos that some people insist doesn't exist.
> The problem is that games like Red Dead Redemption, Hitman, and Grand Theft Auto systematically reward sexist and racist behavior (tying a woman to train tracks, brutalizing prostitutes, etc.).
In a sense, yes. For example, Grand Theft Auto rewards players for brutalizing prostitutes because it rewards players for brutalizing NPCs full stop. It turns out that including female characters in your game and applying the same generic mechanics to them as male charcters is a really good way of producing a misogynistic game. That's... odd, to say the least.
(Also, it doesn't even matter if the game encourages violence against them. Just having female NPCs that can be the receipient of violence is enough, even if it's penalized by the game mechanics. If you don't want to be accused of encouraging misogyny it's probably safest and easiest just not to include any women in your game.)
These games have a right to exist as free speech regardless of what they portray or how the player is rewarded. Banning media or forcing them to conform to your political beliefs because you don't agree with it is nothing short of fascism.
I don't see people out there arguing to rewrite Bukowski for being sexist.
I tripped up over this many times when I first discovered online dating profiles of girls who called themselves 'feminists'-Now I put that in quotes because it was before I became exposed to online-radical-feminists, or the extreme feminist types.
Anyway, I'd see the profiles of these 'feminists' and would list among their favorite writers 'I LOVE Bukowski'.
Every single time I'd cock my head to the side, utterly confused. I still do.
These games reward violent behaviour against all kinds of people, all of the GTA games I played involved killing many more men than women and probably more whites than blacks.
> The problem is that games like Red Dead Redemption, Hitman, and Grand Theft Auto systematically reward sexist and racist behavior (tying a woman to train tracks, brutalizing prostitutes, etc.).
A game is a work of fiction.FICTION.it doesnt mean developpers fantasize on rape or that it will turn player into sex offenders.When did COD turn players into mass murderers ? never. When did GTA turn players into car jackers ? or thugs ? I remember new york city being pretty violent in the early 80's.GTA didnt exist... Game X or Y didnt make the nazi kill jews... or made Ted Bundy be what he was ...
Reminds me Resident Evil 5 c"ontroversy" when "people" were outraged because players were killing blacks ... What the hell ? the game is set up in Africa, for christ sake...there will be some black people there ... RE5 didnt make the US south racist or lynch negros ...did it ?
> Many refute the idea that video games can affect a player's long-term behavior, and as far as I know both sides of that argument are difficult to study and prove.
Because people CAN tell the difference between reality and fiction.For those who cant , videogames are not to blame.They have issues at first place.
So yes,let's continue to have violence against women,objectified women in video games,just like men are objectified and raped and killed in videogames.
If only women were brutalized,you may have had a point,but that's not the case,at all.
that's why all this social justice warfare against videogames is silly.These are just game and do not turn people into monsters,trolls,racists,rapists,killers or whatever.
I want game artists to be able to express themself without fear of finger pointing by people totally unrelated to gaming.
If players dont like it,then they will not buy it.Let the market work...
So enough with all this already.A few people made a quick buck out of social justice warfare,good for them, but let us not fall for all that crap.
I explicitly addressed and rejected this conversation in the post you responded to. No one other than Jack Thompson and a few crazed parents are suggesting your hyperbole.
>A few people made a quick buck out of social justice warfare
I am constantly upset by this notion. There are very real social problems in this world, regardless of who you think profits off of them. This is insanely dismissive.
Violence is a very real social problem. I'd even say that Thompson's heart was arguably in the right place.
Now, why are Thompson's arguments widely dismissed as invalid even though they have the same logical construction as the SJWs arguments, and they receive much more credibility?
Thompson's argument boiled down to its base is that violence in games perpetuates a culture that has real negative impacts on the real world.
The average SJW's argument, take Thompson's postulate, replace "violence" with any random "-ism", and it's literally the same argument with the same striking lack of anything other than emotion to back it up.
I'd argue that the difference is that we tend to see violence, especially the extreme sort found in most games, as "obviously wrong." Performing the action in a game isn't likely to cause someone to change their behaviors about something that has been ingrained in them as obviously wrong.
But sexism, racism, etc. and general exclusionary tendencies are much more subtle and less obvious; I'm not saying that games do necessarily influence people on these topics, but there is a definite qualitative difference between how people feel about violence and how people feel about sexism, etc., to the point that the arguments are not parallel. The evidence against Thompson's argument doesn't preclude cultural media from influencing us on other vectors.
The market includes feedback mechanisms. Game criticism is one of said feedback mechanisms. If people are criticising a game, that is an element of the market at work.
I agree with your second sentence an unbelievable amount. As the parent of a child, with friends who play violent, sexist, racist, terribly entertaining popular games, I wish every person who had spawn would follow ESRB guides.
To your first - is there really a conversation about violence in video games that is substantive? It always boils down to, "I don't like it," "I do like it". I think it's just too hard to control for all the variables in someone's life to actually see if violent video games have an impact at all.
>To your first - is there really a conversation about violence in video games that is substantive?
I effectively agree. I suppose the extent of my conversation is my second sentence, and only then because of anecdotal evidence.
Still, I'm sure there are psychology and sociology students who would love to step forward with their studies. It's not often you encounter a bunch of those sorts talking about this issue on the internet, though. Especially on Hacker News.
Sure, I can explain that. I'll even quote from the article, because I think it's true:
"Everyone brings their political agenda to the table when it comes to female characters in videogames; everyone complains if the women don’t match their particular vision. I start to wonder if the only way to win this game is not to have women at all."
You are acting like there is one standard of racism and sexism that all reasonable people agree to. As soon as you do anything risky, you find out how untrue that is. And as the quote alludes to, you could hurt the representation of (in that case) women by playing it too safe.
"Political correctness" is when the effort taken to avoid sexism and racism goes too far. And no, nobody agrees on that line either.
Such arguments ring as hollow as the railing against violence in video games. Saying what kind of artwork people should and shouldn't make transcends all *isms into straight-up repressiveness.