So it seems a stupid debate is happening about whether or not video games are sexist (they are), and what should be done about it. Apparently, the feminist consensus is that complaining is the number one cure. Instead of, say, making popular video games that set new standards for gameplay and content. I understand why some people from this area would be pissed off, but they're going about it the wrong way. The video game industry IS largely dominated by men so they're obviously going to be inclined to make games that are tailored towards what they like by featuring games with machine guns that shoots dick projectiles into an audience of horny women.

With the exception of a few female develpers such as those behind Portal and Uncharted (Which seemed to be accepted by both genders [suprise suprise]) there aren't many in the field. The radical feminists that do take offence to whatever hormone induced shit developers keep spewing out should just get into the industry themselves and make something tailored towards their audience, because other than the generic puzzle games that appeal to everyone I wouldn't even know where to start when targeting for lack of a better word 'unique' audience.

So it seems a stupid debate is happening about whether or not video games are sexist (they are), and what should be done about it. Apparently, the feminist consensus is that complaining is the number one cure. Instead of, say, making popular video games that set new standards for gameplay and content. I understand why some people from this area would be pissed off, but they're going about it the wrong way. The video game industry IS largely dominated by men so they're obviously going to be inclined to make games that are tailored towards what they like by featuring games with machine guns that shoots dick projectiles into an audience of horny women.

With the exception of a few female develpers such as those behind Portal and Uncharted (Which seemed to be accepted by both genders [suprise suprise]) there aren't many in the field. The radical feminists that do take offence to whatever hormone induced shit developers keep spewing out should just get into the industry themselves and make something tailored towards their audience, because other than the generic puzzle games that appeal to everyone I wouldn't even know where to start when targeting for lack of a better word 'unique' audience.

You do realize that women are in charge of some the games that are the most popular among the crowd that "don't have universal appeal"...save for that they do have universal appeal as there are plenty of females that play those FPSs...

Also I find it ironic that you mention games where you shoot women...yet there are few if any games that have women as the primary target of said projectiles, even when it would make sense for that to be the case, for example, zombies... 70ish% I'd say of zombies in zombie games should be female, but they're not v.v And the very few women you can attack in games has been complained about as violent against women so you're damned if you do or don't.

As far as the "sexism"... sexism means treating people differently based on sex... which is reasonable considering humans are a dimorphic species. What feminists means is a bunch of nonsense and incoherent when you compare their arguments to reality and reveals a double standard where it is perfectly ok to have sexy attractive males doing whatever, but not females. And even where it is wrong...and there are a few occasions where it is legitimately offensive... the entire idea that the game industry needs to change to get rid of that is nonsense. Games are an art form and if someone chooses to put out art that you find disgusting and offensive it doesn't mean they need to change, but rather that you have the choice of ignoring it or letting it effect you.

Side note: I've defined sexism here because it along with prejudice and bigotry have been conflated all together. Of the 3 only 1 is bad. The other 2 can be, but aren't by definition like bigotry is. Sexism is readily acceptable to most of you, but you don't think about it. Bathrooms are 1 example of this according to separate is not equal, and apparent, and least volatile of things I could bring up. A non-sexist bathroom situation would require all bathrooms to be unisex and have urinals as well as whatever else is in either bathroom. Most of us are not bother by this sexist situation, but it is there.

So in the end, if most games are played by males and most males like games that have x features it is not sexist to appeal to that demographic, because the developers are not doing this because of sex, but rather because it sells. If most games were played by females and most females liked games that have x feature, they'd put more money and develop more of those games. It's not sex they are choosing on. It's money. Are develops then? Generally speaking, no, they're out for money. Are gamers sexist? Yes. We treat men and women, whether characters or not, differently. The reason there aren't as many female villains is because men aren't misogynists, quite the opposite. They hate to hurt women and so it would be utterly idiotic to have female targets as enemies in most cases. We react differently to different types of people whether that is due to culture, race, sex, or whatever else you can think of and as such that a developer applies that knowledge to generate the feelings they want a player to feel, but the idea that this sexism is bad is ludicrous and a denial of the very real differences that have shaped our world for a long time... or put another way, it's delusional.

I also don't find much of the above to be interesting to talk about with regards to developing a game. This is only important when trying to combat the lies that feminists spread to continue to play victims while they bigotedly destroy communities and use them for their own purposes. And I'm only writing this to combat those lies that some brought up for reasons to not associate with the label gamer as though game players and developers are a plague. That's not to say there aren't things that fit this category of discussion that are important to design and development, but most are ignored or based on individual games designs.

Can someone clarify me something..ppl seem to think being feminist is ok, like in being "pro women"...wtf?

In my language, "machismo", is being prejudiced in favor of man over woman, so I assume feminsm as being prejudiced in favor of woman over man...I mean,, none of them is a good thing, its like racist, but with sex not race. But I see "feminism" is being used actually just as a name they gave to a political group thing that defends woman in a general way... that confuses me

edit

by sex, I mean gender, not sure you can use those interchangeably in english

Can someone clarify me something..ppl seem to think being feminist is ok, like in being "pro women"...wtf?

In my language, "machismo", is being prejudiced in favor of man over woman, so I assume feminsm as being prejudiced in favor of woman over man...I mean,, none of them is a good thing, its like racist, but with sex not race. But I see "feminism" is being used actually just as a name they gave to a political group thing that defends woman in a general way... that confuses me

Feminism is a movement that focuses on the rights of women. If you look up various sources they will say it's about equality, but feminist literature nor their actions support this nor do any of various groups that take the label. You can divide them up into a few categories, but all end up being pretty worthless due to their dogmatic ideologies which they deny is a thing, even though they all subscribe to it and any analysis of these views reveals quite a bit of bigotry and hatred of everyone.

As to the categories they are just their goals and views with regards to rights. Some are supremacists (for more rights than men) and some are traditionalists (which are oddly named due to misunderstanding history who are for less rights than men) and then there is an overwhelming amount of people that are equalists who are largely people that haven't thought about their position or what they have been told and so adopt the label of feminsts and a number of their claims without analyzing them.

Their main thing is patriarchy theory which is giving it far too much credit by calling it a theory which is that everything you can think of is the result of the oppression of women by men through some non-effort that is natural to men. It basically casts men non-humans who have conspired to make women not work and be saved/rescued at every turn while men go fight and die or take part in hugely risky activities to secure civilization. It's rather a crazy belief, but lots of people believe it.

Another grouping you might hear is the term "sex positive" feminism and "sex negative" feminism which are both the same thing when you look at what they're actually saying, but one sounds more positive than the other and one says they are accepting of sex as a good thing... save for any sex you could possibly ever have. The main face of this set is "Stop Porn Culture" and Gail Dines (you should probably be familiar with this name). An example of a "sex positive" feminist is a youtuber named Laci Green who recently made the statement that if you trust someone that is a form a power and coercion and thus is a form of rape. So yeah... not really positive.

I could name a bunch of individuals that you could go get info about but not going to unless you ask.

There are a few feminists out there which aren't bigots and do not subscribe to much if any of the above and know about the subject, but most people who realize how nutty feminism is they become anti-feminists at the very least and are very hated by feminists. Warren Farrell is one such person who had a high position within NOW, but was ran out when he started looking at the issue from all perspectives. Erin Pizzey, the woman who started up the whole abuse shelter thing was harrassed and ran out of the UK by feminists when she pointed out that abuse is usually reciprocal and just recently been able to get books published again as feminists would vandalize book stores by destroying her books in them. And Christina Hoff Sommers is a feminist writer that is one of the few feminist writers that look at things from an equal view points and hasn't been, for lack of a better word. ex-communicated from feminism.

So... as to what feminism is... it is more or less a new religion that wants to control your life that is mascarading as a social movement for equality that is doing a lot to create animosity and turn people against each other. If you know about religion to any extent then it is similar to what the word christian means. There is some nebulous connections between all these people who label themself that... but in the case of feminism and christianity is that feminists says there is no central doctrine, but there is as they all believe it and act on it where as with christianity there is a central doctrine, but most christians are nebulous on how "real" it is and how much they follow it. So you can imagine that it's a nice defense mechanism along with the biological defenses that come into play.

I hope I've helped you understand what the word feminism means... even though many feminists will deny much about what i said.

Ignoring the off-topic debate, no, not in the corporate marketing sense. That's all I've ever associated the word "gamer" with--marketing nonsense. I cringe when people call me that. I dislike being categorized.

I enjoy games, though I have increasingly less time to play them and I'm gradually running out of developers I'm willing to give money to--they just keep doing terrible, sleazy things and/or ruining the franchises I used to like. My growing frustration is leading me to pursue simply making the sort of games I actually want to play on my own. Life is busy, however, and I'm only one person, so progress is slow. Moving backwards, even. But still entertaining.

Now, no longer ignoring the silly debate, feminists and misogynists are both equally filthy sexists. Why can't we all just agree to hate everyone? Life's easier when you come to terms with the fact that all people are just inherently terrible. Except me, of course.

You do realize that women are in charge of some the games that are the most popular among the crowd that "don't have universal appeal"...save for that they do have universal appeal as there are plenty of females that play those FPSs...

Just spent 5 minutes searching for some examples with no luck. Not saying it isn't true, but they must be scarce cause I'm having trouble finding any notable games other than what I mentioned ealier.

Also I find it ironic that you mention games where you shoot women...yet there are few if any games that have women as the primary target of said projectiles, even when it would make sense for that to be the case, for example, zombies... 70ish% I'd say of zombies in zombie games should be female, but they're not v.v And the very few women you can attack in games has been complained about as violent against women so you're damned if you do or don't.

"Shooting women.... with dicks" It was a metaphor for how they're normally potrayed in most popular games. Yeah it's comparable with the brutish he-man protaginists with unreal body structures in just about every game, but they've got it a little more extreme than us. 1,000,000 man hours put into games like mortal combat and street fighter to make sure their jigglypuffs bounce around just right. I think you're over exagurating the reaction people give when you do shoot women in games; I've never met anyone in person that's had a problem with it. Going off stupid things you read online isn't the best way to get an opinion as the people who don't care aren't even going to talk about it.

As far as the "sexism"... sexism means treating people differently based on sex... which is reasonable considering humans are a dimorphic species. What feminists means is a bunch of nonsense and incoherent when you compare their arguments to reality and reveals a double standard where it is perfectly ok to have sexy attractive males doing whatever, but not females. And even where it is wrong...and there are a few occasions where it is legitimately offensive... the entire idea that the game industry needs to change to get rid of that is nonsense. Games are an art form and if someone chooses to put out art that you find disgusting and offensive it doesn't mean they need to change, but rather that you have the choice of ignoring it or letting it effect you.

Yeah sexism exists in the way that you've defined it. However, the main thing they're upset with is being treated so differently as to always being seen as nothing more than a sex object in the game. The age old formula is go and save the girl and you'll be rewarded with sex which dates back to the start of the universe. This is absolutly fine with me as despite what anyone says I'm sure most men have the desire to run around ravaging women because sex can lead to a pretty good time. I don't know if girls just want the roles to be reversed or what ("Even though most popular novels amongst a wide audience of women like that of Twilight are about being rescued and ravaged by a man") but I'm guessing they're sick of being portrayed as this.

So in the end, if most games are played by males and most males like games that have x features it is not sexist to appeal to that demographic, because the developers are not doing this because of sex, but rather because it sells. If most games were played by females and most females liked games that have x feature, they'd put more money and develop more of those games. It's not sex they are choosing on. It's money. Are develops then? Generally speaking, no, they're out for money. Are gamers sexist? Yes. We treat men and women, whether characters or not, differently. The reason there aren't as many female villains is because men aren't misogynists, quite the opposite. They hate to hurt women and so it would be utterly idiotic to have female targets as enemies in most cases. We react differently to different types of people whether that is due to culture, race, sex, or whatever else you can think of and as such that a developer applies that knowledge to generate the feelings they want a player to feel, but the idea that this sexism is bad is ludicrous and a denial of the very real differences that have shaped our world for a long time... or put another way, it's delusional.

Again you're right, I can be quite certain too that companies aren't pushing out new games to specifcally pander to this audience because it's full of untested waters and may lead them to bankruptcy. As a result though it's indirectly sexist; they don't mean to keep spewing out the same crap over and over it's just what sells, but as a result they're probably annoying a potentially large market. Sexism can be bad by just representing a different gender under a unique light even if the intentions are good. I think it's much the same as racism in that we understand different races have different cultures and ideologies, but if you dick around with it too much someone is going to get upset.

As far as the "sexism"... sexism means treating people differently based on sex... which is reasonable considering humans are a dimorphic species. What feminists means is a bunch of nonsense and incoherent when you compare their arguments to reality and reveals a double standard where it is perfectly ok to have sexy attractive males doing whatever, but not females. And even where it is wrong...and there are a few occasions where it is legitimately offensive... the entire idea that the game industry needs to change to get rid of that is nonsense. Games are an art form and if someone chooses to put out art that you find disgusting and offensive it doesn't mean they need to change, but rather that you have the choice of ignoring it or letting it effect you.

Yeah sexism exists in the way that you've defined it. However, the main thing they're upset with is being treated so differently as to always being seen as nothing more than a sex object in the game. The age old formula is go and save the girl and you'll be rewarded with sex which dates back to the start of the universe. This is absolutly fine with me as despite what anyone says I'm sure most men have the desire to run around ravaging women because sex can lead to a pretty good time. I don't know if girls just want the roles to be reversed or what ("Even though most popular novels amongst a wide audience of women like that of Twilight are about being rescued and ravaged by a man") but I'm guessing they're sick of being portrayed as this.

Just quoted because it is the most relevant to my main thing, but I'll reply in order...

Excuse my lack of knowledge with dev names and all that, but I know one or 2 of the big FPSs are headed by women, maybe not in the past but now. I could be wrong as I don't actively follow nor do I care other than for these types of discussion but I'm pretty sure they're EA and MS games.

Well there is a language that is involved. I don't think it's an extreme thing, but the reason you do this or that is because of a natural language that we have that gives artists the ability to manipulate feelings. One of those things is men don't like to hurt women and when women are hurt men view the person that harms them as vile for most people, even if it is a little twinge and not the massive beat downs that have happened on men that have treated women as they would another man. So to a degree I agree, but to another I don't.

Now to the quoted piece... I say BS. Yes there are games like that, but I fail to recall any that I can name off the top of my head other than Duke Nukem and few that are specifically using that as satire. I could go through a list of games, probably a couple hundred of the most popular titles and I don't believe you would find that as what is actually being displayed in the story, but rather that people are making it out like that is the case. For example Peach in Mario has nothing to do with romance, nor does Zelda, but people always make them out to be. I guess you can get into the post modern annoyance of only that what the viewer thinks it means matters regardless of how out of context and wrong those thoughts are, but I prefer not to tolerate such nonsensical ways of things.

The thing with the sexism thing is that is that nothing that these people who are making all this ruckus now over it matters because none of it works nor will it ever make money because you could do it. It's just a matter of world building and understanding that process. It is similar to the uncanny valley. We know how people really interact and have a general idea of a realistic situation. The further you get from things that people understand naturally the harder to connect it is and thus works that aren't realistic will have a harder time to find their place. Odd situations create different interpersonal dynamics so that's accepted, but if you want realistic situations you're going to get what people are really like and that is that people treat others based on differences which results in good and honest people acting correctly which would be to be sexist or whatever else that has been conflated with bigotry because those are difference and they do, funny enough, make differences. And that will always cause these problems for these people so what they are asking is that we don't make things realistic and thus have a harder time to connect or lie and say that this is really how people interact which we know they don't. And of course, even if you do go unrealistic these people have a problem with that too so it's worthless to care what they think, other than in that they are causing damage in various communities.

So in other words, no, you don't know what "bigot" means.

A bigot is someone who has a prejudice against a particular group. Like you and feminists apparently. I imagine your response will be along the lines of "They are the bigots, not me."

"They" don't exist except in your warped version of reality.

As a side viewer I see that durakken says it much more logic than you where you going into primitive quick

However, a lot of people associate "gamer" with a particular gamer culture. That culture is heavily male, somewhat younger (mentally if not physically), racially heavily white, etc.

I disagree. Multiple studies indicate that whites actually spend the least time and money on gaming. In the US, there are, obviously, more whites, so you would expect to see more game-centric, English-language videos and posts created by them.

I used to game a great deal more than I do now, but the decline was not really by choice. If I could somehow learn to manage my time a little better, I could see myself gaming more, but I don't think I could return to the levels I did before. Of course, when I was gaming heaviest, I didn't even have home Internet access, so that's a major factor.

I disagree. Multiple studies indicate that whites actually spend the least time and money on gaming. In the US, there are, obviously, more whites, so you would expect to see more game-centric, English-language videos and posts created by them.

The "culture" I'm referring to is not a majority of the actual games market in total. If you look at spending across racial, socioeconomic, age, and gender groups there's a very interesting and diverse picture. What I'm saying is that the diverse picture does not emerge in the majority of media, forums, reviews, marketing, etc. Thus the perception of "gamers" is out of sync with who are actually gamers. It's more interesting to note that the same diversity by and large doesn't exist amongst mainstream game developers, which has a number of implications. I hope that clarifies my point; we don't disagree.

As far as my "poisonous" comment, I believe the discussion in this thread already justifies my use of the term.