Tropes vs Women in Video Games: Ms. Male Chararacter"

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You seem to have missed the point. Apologies if you were joking.

She isn't complaining about female characters being identifiable as female- there would be no point if they weren't- but rather about their personality being "female", or being wholly reliant on a male character (e.g. Mrs Pacman).

Men and women have distinct personalities

Men and women really do have fundamentally different characteristics, according to a study which has confirmed many longheld gender sterotypes

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... ities.html

That's not Sarkeesian's point. The female characters she mentioned (eg. Smurfette) is female and nothing but female. The other smurfs are male AND brainy, hefty, poetic and so on.

Estrogen and testosterone does indeed determine certain personality traits, but what personality traits does Bowser's daughter have apart from being a spoiled teenage girl?

This just about covers it tbh.

Probably the most important point comes in around the 6 minute mark: "[game makers] don't have to give us the option to have a female character... etc".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWtJpHys_xA[/youtube]

I think people are more upset with her about the perceived abuse of crowd-funding rather than threatened by her videos - which are, frankly, laughable.



I think that's more a general human thing, in that there's probably no correlation between being a 'gamer' and having a tendency to troll poorly researched, badly-presented arguments in the public domain. And of course, there is always going to be vocal opposition to criticism of a popular pastime - especially when said criticism is a narrow-viewed, agenda-driven pile of old trousers.

so bloody what? it's fictional cartoon, don't like it don't watch it



i am not familiar with nor care about bowser's daughter

Anita Sarkeesian is spending a lot of time creating ominous and sophisticated theories about the Gaming Industry, when all they are doing is relying on market segmentation, a standard tool of the trade in doing business. The Gaming Industry is comprised of for-profit companies there to make money, and not to sell political messages.

To illustrate, with her complaint about the marketing of the male vs. female Commander Shepard from Mass Effect:

Only 14 percent of Mass Effect gamers are female.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/brand-ma ... ale/092141

More than 80 percent of Mass Effect gamers choose a Male Shepard.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/arch ... epard.aspx

So, we have a very successful franchise where the customers are predominantly male and they predominantly prefer to play as a male protagonist.

Add to this the fact that Mass Effect is a game where you beat s**t up, shoot s**t up, blow s**t up and engage in a wide variety of other delightful shenanigans. Since this appeals more to male gamers, it would be obvious to focus on their preferences when creating a marketing strategy for the game.

That, and the fact that Sarkeesian has nothing to add that hasn't already been described in much more detail, with a much greater scope and without the pompous indignation over at Tv Tropes.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

Smurfette is just one of many stereotypes within the Smurfs universe, and is arguably far less 1-dimensional than all of the others.

Bowser's daughter is called Wendy O. and is reputedly based on punk singer, Wendy O. Williams. Like her namesake, Wendy O. Koopa is a punk singer.

The characteristics of her being a spoilt child might belong in a video entitled "Tropes vs Children in Cartoons", but their inclusion makes little sense here.

What personality traits do the other "Koopa Kids" have that set them aside, or that were even essential to the plot of the games? Their unifying characteristic is that they're all out to get Mario and friends - that's probably as much as most people remember. They're all 2-dimensional storytelling devices and very little more, regardless of gender. Would you prefer a long-winded introduction before each boss fight in a platform game? Do throwaway characters in games require 60 minutes of exposition in order to establish that they're more than just a bunch of pixels?

The fact that even daring to talk about sexism in videogames results in 10s of thousands of rape/death threats is proof positive that there are serious sexism issues in videogame culture. This whole thing makes me embarassed to be a gamer.

Anybody who uses the term feminazi unironically just reveals themself to be a mindless demogogue. I get it MRAs........You're omega males who need a scapegoat for your inability to function around other people and have your dick touched. Couldn't you find a less innocuous target for your harrassment (sorry, "Activism" as you guys call it)? It's quite sad how worked up they get over this woman.............

This.

I don't agree with everything Sarkeesian says, but she's right about sexism on gaming servers and all that.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2h4vITidvo[/youtube]


background

Sarkeesian was subject to exactly zero (nil, 0, zilch) genuine rape/death threats.



The same can be said for those who use the term 'feminist' to describe themselves. Does using the word 'feminazi' magically render a persons opinions invalid?



You object to 'feminazi' but freely label everyone who disagrees with Sarkeesian as an "omega male MRA" who can't "function around other people"? Yeah, great argument you got there.

That she deliberately misrepresented her intentions with said money, or that she asked for the money in the first place?

The point of crowd-sourcing is that people can give, or not give, their support as they see fit.



Perhaps, but the level of meltdown I witness on certain game forums whenever Anita's name is brought up still seems out of proportion to the points she's actually presenting. Unless you actually gave her money, it strikes me as something of a non-issue.

Precisely one of the reasons I don't play online.

I can't answer this question on behalf of those who are strongly critical of how she raised the money. My view is that if people were silly enough to give her money, good luck to 'em. However, if her methods prove deceitful (as the evidence suggests) it undermines any credibility she might have.



When was the last time you visited a hobby-themed forum that didn't react vehemently or disproportionately towards criticism of their chosen pastime? When you criticise something that people are fond of, that's important to them, that perhaps even defines them (in this case as a "gamer") you are essentially criticising the individual as well as the collective. N.B. I'm all for criticism, assuming it's constructive and serves a relevant purpose, otherwise the smart thing is to ignore it. Considering Sarkeesian's approach to criticism - disable comments and voting - there's a double-standard being applied here.

Is it a non-issue? Well it's perhaps a very minor one. Gender politics belong in video games as much as in any other art form, no matter the source of their funding. If there's a genuine gap in the market for feminism-approved games, someone will find a way to profit from it and so the gap will be filled. Objectively, there's nothing to see here. Move along.

Why don't she and some Feminists get together and make their own video games?

Maybe with themes like "Shoot the MGTOW", or "Make the Man do the Housework."