Honest question here, why do people take her seriously? At least in my view:

- She has been shown to be a liar many times, the two best examples I can remeber is the video where she said she was not a gamer, ("I don't want to go around cutting people's heads... it is gross.") and her video "criticising" Hitman, where she says that the game will encourage the player to kill the stripers and won't punish him, in the background there is the video of a gameplay where the player is killing the strippers and the big red score penalty is showing, right there, as she says there is no punishment.

- She ignores that a lot of the things she says also happen with men. For instance, again on hitman, she complains you have to kill a woman, where in the same part you need to kill over 20 men to get to that woman. This is also true for basically all her criticism of GTA.

- She has never produced any game and has no experience or knowledge to say anything about game development. Her only game idea is out there for over a year, it is a clone of prince of persia with a female protagonist (which, btw, doesn't pass the Bechdel Test). Zero companies or indie developers have said a word about producing the actual game.

- She has never said anything positive about any famous games. They are all terrible in her eyes, so what good can come out of her opinions? It is about the same as asking for food tips from someone that hates anyhing she eats.

- The fact that she got a load of money for her series and never finished it should give you some hints about her credibility.

People on the internet are not real.

Here is a recent study that shows women appear to be flocking to video game degrees more than STEM degrees. http://www.higheredgames.org/content/pdfs/2015%20HEVGA%20Survey%20Results.pdf

Opinion: Maybe women really do find STEM boring and are more interested in game development.

I still think the three Factual Feminist videos I linked to are worth watching and only about 6 or so minutes. They won't change anyone's mind, but still interesting to watch.

She ignores that a lot of the things she says also happen with men. For instance, again on hitman, she complains you have to kill a woman, where in the same part you need to kill over 20 men to get to that woman. This is also true for basically all her criticism of GTA.

Most men don't seem to mind males getting beat up as much as women mind females getting beat up. Matter of fact, many men are more bothered by females getting beat up than by men getting beat up. Mostly, this is our culture, but partly, this is because the way most women are portrayed being beat up is either A) sexualized B) as a helpless victim.

Men getting beat up is almost never sexualized, and while occasionally beaten as the helpless victim (usually portrayed as cowardism), most men getting beat up in movies and games are portrayed as strong for enduring the torture or beating, or brave for staring death in the face.

(When it comes to execution-style deaths of women, women do also get the brave look-death-in-the-eyes treatment, which is good - usually it's a cool moment. Thankfully we don't have many Madame du Barry executions! Since they are not common, a few wouldn't hurt, but if they were commonplace it wouldn't be good)

Heck, even women beating up someone else (of any gender) instead of getting the beaten, is usually portrayed sexually.

When women are portrayed as strong and getting beat up in a non-sexual way, it doesn't seem to bother anyone - but this portrayal is much less common - it's almost always sexualized for a strong female character or victimized and/or sexualized for a weak female character.

Personally, I played through "No Russian" without even realizing it was controversial. Many other gamers were bothered by it.

She has never produced any game and has no experience or knowledge to say anything about game development.

In one sense, it might be an example of "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach", but in the other sense, if someone gives their opinion, we ought to listen to it with an open mind, and then intelligently shift through it and accept whatever 5% of it might be valid criticism.

My rule of thumb is, "If a gamer tells you something is wrong with your game, listen! But if he tells you how to fix it, run."
I phrase it humorously, but to state it more accurately: If someone tells you they don't like something, they're giving you a fact. If they tell you how to fix it, you can listen to it and consider it, but they are giving you an inexperienced opinion (decades of playing games still equals zero experience in designing games). That doesn't mean we're experts either - but it means we need to separate the facts they are giving us ("I enjoy X, but hate Y") from their 'solutions' ("I think you ought to add Z and make Q more like W!").

Almost every person knows whether or not they like something, but most people don't know (until they experience it) what they will like, unless they are skilled in that field.

I'm not a musician. But I sure can tell you if I don't like a song I'm listening to, or if I do like a different song. But since I have zero actual composing experience, if I tell you you ought to add a stronger drum beat to your track, it's pure guesswork on my part that seems reasonable to me in my inexperience. I might be right, but it's your job as the composer to ask yourself, "Would a drumbeat actually help here? What is it that's actually missing (or unnecessarily present), and how can I fix that?".


This is where Anita seems to be. She says, "I don't like the portrayal of women in games." Tons of female gamers say, "It also makes me uncomfortable." (tons of other females say, "It doesn't bother me." - i.e. neutral to it one way or another).

Some males speak up and say, "You know what? I'm not too fond of it either.", other males say, "But I enjoy that!", and alot of other males say, "It doesn't bother me, but the fact that it bothers a significant portion of our audience is an important fact I need to consider as a designer or as a fellow gamer who enjoys gaming alongside females."

Her only game idea is out there for over a year, it is a clone of prince of persia with a female protagonist (which, btw, doesn't pass the Bechdel Test). Zero companies or indie developers have said a word about producing the actual game.

Anita's skill as a designer is completely irrelevant. It could be guesswork on her part, just like it is for most gamers ("I'd like x and y and z combined! Oh, whoops, combining those completely unbalance everything and ruin the gameplay.").

But her personal stated dislikes/likes are facts - unverifiable facts, but I'm not going to assume someone is lying when they say "I personally don't enjoy Justin Bieber's music".

When loads of others also speak up and say, "I share her dislike in this area.", then we as designers need to take notice of these facts, and decide for ourselves whether that should influence our designs, and we then decide for ourselves (using our experience) how that should influence them.

She has never said anything positive about any famous games. They are all terrible in her eyes, so what good can come out of her opinions?

When critically discussing a work, you focus on the flaws not the strengths. Recently I proof-read a novel by a friend, and had several hundred tiny criticisms about it - mostly grammar fixes and spelling issues, but also a number of small plot issues.

My job in critically reviewing my friend's work was not to lavish praise and flattery on the parts I liked, but to point out the parts I didn't like or that didn't make sense. My writer friend knew that and, in casual conversation, I talked about the parts I loved - but my criticism of the work was looking for mistakes; that's the whole point.

Someone reading my intended-for-the-writer criticism would get the wrong impression that I disliked the book. I loved the book - it's one of my favorite books of all time now, and I think when it gets published it'll be a hugely popular.

The point is, intended-for-writers criticisms is not the same as a balanced book review for people considering buying it.
Anita's intended-for-designers* game criticisms is not the same as a public game review. It's a different tool intended for different purposes.

*and non-designer gamers who like to participate in the discussion of the nature of the game industry, just like non-writer book clubs that arm-chair discuss books critically.

A blog post is not the same as a forum post is not the same as a blog comment is not the same as a tweet is not the same as an email is not the same as an IM is not the same as a text message is not the same as a phonecall. Different tools are used for different purposes.

Or a better example, a peer-reviewed geographical article in a scientific magazine serves a different purpose than a Nation Geographic article, and both share a different purpose than an article in a travel magazine - even if they are all talking about the exact same geographical location.

If she wrote game designer articles (which she may well have! The internet's the internet), her suggestions/solutions wouldn't be much more than mere guesswork - the same as any gamer trying to give game-design advice. But if she, or any gamer or non-gamer, say they don't like X, that's a fact, not opinion.

If she says, "All women hate the portrayal of females in games" that's a huge [citation needed!] statement.

But you and I, as intelligent people, don't need to too heavily bash her for exaggerating, and instead can use our brain to filter out the hyperbole from the facts: "Some women hate the portrayal of females in games.". We can then use that fact, as a starting point for research "How many women are for and against the current portrayals? How many men are for and against? How strongly do they feel about it? What other ways could females be portrayed? Are these other ways any more enjoyable? How many of these women are actually part of our existing fanbase, and how many would become part of that fanbase if we changed things? How many of our existing fanbase would cease to play our games if we changed them?"

(In this post, I'm speaking purely as designers trying to cater to our audiences, ignoring any societal or moral issues)

The fact that she got a load of money for her series and never finished it should give you some hints about her credibility.

That speaks ill of her credibility (more like, 'capability') in managing projects using other people's money. It has zero impact on me accepting her at her word when she says she doesn't like something, and when hundreds of others say they share the same dislike. It has zero bearing on her views and opinions.

Here is a recent study that shows women appear to be flocking to video game degrees more than STEM degrees. http://www.higheredgames.org/content/pdfs/2015%20HEVGA%20Survey%20Results.pdf

Opinion: Maybe women really do find STEM boring and are more interested in game development.

I still think the three Factual Feminist videos I linked to are worth watching and only about 6 or so minutes. They won't change anyone's mind, but still interesting to watch.

28% of all students starting at DTU (Danish Technical University) in 2012 were woman.
In the high end we have the Bio Technology line where over 50% are woman.
In the low end we have software technology with only about 10% woman.

I really dont think that woman in general find science, math and so on boring ;)

Honest question here, why do people take her seriously? At least in my view:

- She has been shown to be a liar many times, the two best examples I can remeber is the video where she said she was not a gamer, ("I don't want to go around cutting people's heads... it is gross.") and her video "criticising" Hitman, where she says that the game will encourage the player to kill the stripers and won't punish him, in the background there is the video of a gameplay where the player is killing the strippers and the big red score penalty is showing, right there, as she says there is no punishment.

- She ignores that a lot of the things she says also happen with men. For instance, again on hitman, she complains you have to kill a woman, where in the same part you need to kill over 20 men to get to that woman. This is also true for basically all her criticism of GTA.

- She has never produced any game and has no experience or knowledge to say anything about game development. Her only game idea is out there for over a year, it is a clone of prince of persia with a female protagonist (which, btw, doesn't pass the Bechdel Test). Zero companies or indie developers have said a word about producing the actual game.

- She has never said anything positive about any famous games. They are all terrible in her eyes, so what good can come out of her opinions? It is about the same as asking for food tips from someone that hates anyhing she eats.

- The fact that she got a load of money for her series and never finished it should give you some hints about her credibility.

I won't say my full opinion in public (because I know it's likely going to piss some overly sensitive individuals who will do their own mental interpretation and blow it out of proportion; so use your imagination), but because of political correctness. Sarkeesian thrives off of the attention we give her. If everyone ignored her instead of bitch and troll, then we likely wouldn't be here.

Now, as I said before, I don't like Sarkeesian as a gaming journalist, but she does have a right to freedom of speech.

Well I guess it's a combination of both. Developers aren't really in a position to change the games much because of the culture already out there. No one wants to take the risk to change the games.

Perhaps, but--as I think that I indicated previously--I don't think that it's as hopeless as you're suggesting. At the least, raising awareness amongst developers might raise discontent with being strong-armed into such portrayals, and may lead to internal activism, which could well have some effect.

Right now, I'm going to stick with the incompetence theory, or pure laziness theory.

That is a reasonable theory, I do think. That said, if there is a broader pattern of which the Mass Effect covers are just one example then it occurs to me that, first, the Mass Effect covers seem less likely to result from incompetence (well, of the sort that you're describing), and second, even if they were born of incompetence that just makes them a poor example, not a refutation of the entire pattern.

No doubt raising awareness is a good thing which is what she is doing with her videos. I suppose one result is the very fact that we are discussing this here. I feel that she is going in a constructive direction. I suppose only time will tell what will happen with the list. To some degree I'm not sure if anyone really is paying attention to her in the AAA industry. Again, time will tell.

If there is a larger trend with marketing, my next theory is that marketing is trying to market to white male audiences, so they figured "let's put a white male Shepard on each and every poster".

If there is a larger trend with marketing, my next theory is that marketing is trying to market to white male audiences, so they figured "let's put a white male Shepard on each and every poster".

ME3 did do more marketing with the female variant of Shepard. I believe they even made the case cover insert for ME3 dual sided with the male variant on one side and the female variant on the other side. Giving the player the choice of which cover they wanted.

On another note, several flat out said GamerGate was about harassment. If this is true then we will probably start to see people arrested in the movement. http://jezebel.com/rep-katherine-clark-the-fbi-needs-to-make-gamergate-a-1690599361

Now, as I said before, I don't like Sarkeesian as a gaming journalist, but she does have a right to freedom of speech.

I don't want to beat this horse too much, and I'm not calling Shogun out for it specifically, because I see this often.

Anita Sarkeesian is not a Journalist. Not of games or otherwise. Anita Sarkeesian is a critic who looks specifically at games as the contemporary mass media artifacts that they are, through a lens of feminist perspective. It cannot be overstated just how many of the fair-sounding criticisms of her own critiques are predicated on this fundamental misunderstanding of what it is that she does. While people are free to make whatever criticisms they want, they do not hold much meaning when they are so off-target. Here, I will assume that we are using journalist to mean something like a newspaper reporter or television corespondent, because that seems to be the level of reporting and objectivity that most who make this argument accuse Sarkeesian of lacking.

A journalist would be fairly expected to present an authentically-balanced report of facts and evidence, and even might objectively speculate about what has set events in motion or where they will lead. In general, a journalist is looking at a story in broader social terms -- Things like "How does Iran's nuclear program impact the world geopolitically?" They are more concerned with providing a complete account of some event in isolation for its factual value, and are not so concerned with comparing and contrasting it to other similar events.

A critic is not a journalist. While a critic must primarily rely on facts and evidence to direct and form the basis of their work, and on the research of others to frame it, their own work is necessarily more subjective because critique deals primarily with compare and contrast exercises against similar things or against an idealized thing -- the idealized things, of course, are themselves subjective. When its said that Anita and others are looking at games through a feminist lens, what's meant by that is that the idealized thing (subjective as it might be) is an ideal feminist expression of what games could or should be. Peoples definitions of Feminism will naturally vary, of course -- there isn't one feminism that everyone agrees on -- but one can assume that a reasonable working definition of an idealized feminist game would be one in which all roles (male, female, and otherwise) do not simply default to and re-enforce expected societal gender norms in ways that simply perpetuate its own myth -- for example, idealized holywood casting with respect to race would have staring and supporting roles distributed among people of different races in a way that mirrors demographics that are geographically, historically, and otherwise correct; but Hollywood falls short because their casting is predominantly white. Back to Sarkeesian's critiques, the purpose is to say "Here are the ways this game (or this situation) differs from its idealized feminist counterpart." Its important to also understand that the things a critic says are not meant censor the work they are studying -- when a movie critic says that movie A was not as good a movie B, they do not intend to say that A is without merit in all regards, or that movie goers are bad for seeing movie A, or that movie studios are worse still for making movie A in the first place, or that all movies studios should only make movies that are like movie B. All they are saying is that among the axis they feel are important (their idealized movie), movie A subjectively was less similar to the ideal than movie B was to the ideal -- in fact, the two movies might not even compare to one another directly because they do not really overlap, and might only be better or worse in how relatively close they are to the ideal.

By the way, a game reviewer is not a journalist either. They may engage in journalism or editorialism from time to time, but the act of review is not itself journalism -- calls from (oft-amateur) game reviewers who like to appeal to their own authority by calling themselves journalists do not hold much weight as far as I'm concerned.

If there is a larger trend with marketing, my next theory is that marketing is trying to market to white male audiences, so they figured "let's put a white male Shepard on each and every poster".

ME3 did do more marketing with the female variant of Shepard. I believe they even made the case cover insert for ME3 dual sided with the male variant on one side and the female variant on the other side. Giving the player the choice of which cover they wanted.

Giving the player a choice is great. No one is arguing that. That they printed both variations in each retail unit was smart and well-appreciated. Again, no one argues -- in fact, I think the double-sided printing is a better solution than to print and distribute two mutually exclusive covers. But simple choice, while a step in the right direction, doesn't really address the issues that made them lead with BroShep.

There are lots of good reasons to only have one box-face on retail shelves, not the least of which is so that its easily scanned for on the wall. That's the sort of thing that a retailer is going to want, and retailers still hold sway. But the retailer wouldn't especially care whether FemShep or BroShep was the face of Mass Effect. Its the publisher and their marketing team, in this instance, who made the call to put BroShep up front almost exclusively. Everyone seems to agree that FemShep is at least as strong a character and performance, many say better. So why? That's an honest question -- why, on the merits of the character who will be the face of your game, does being male outweigh, at the very least, being equally good and also different than every game out there? Why again, when some say even better and also different?

We can hypothisize, likely correctly, that they were swayed or purport to be swayed by focus group data or sales trends. But on the other hand, a focus group does not usually constitute a statistically significant sample size, and there simply cannot be sufficient sales trend data for games featuring female protagonists, especially ones who are not objectified, sexualized, and fetishized, because it must hardly exist. Are we really happy that the mass market of our hobbies and livelihoods will forever be defined by the taking the path most-travelled, and that even small risks are not to be taken even when we know that we are just as prepared for that path, and perhaps better prepared?

I find that kind of lack of ambition depressing.