I cannot comprehend Gamergate

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I'd assume most of the people who were spamming Zoe Quinn's Twitter page are MRAs, though I could be wrong.

What is wrong with naked females? For example, if a game where to take place in a strip bar, then it would make the world more believable if there were naked females in it.

I am sorry that I give off the impression. Unlike most people I believe in free speech completely. Anyone can say anything stupid if they want to. If someone wants to put a gay character in their game, then they can put a gay character in the game. I think forcing someone to add something to their creation just for pandering is the worst.

What would MRAs gain from doing so?



This is one of the more baffling complaints I see about games. Is feminism just re-branded puritanism, masquerading as progressive liberalism?



And if someone wants to make a radfem emasculate-em-up, that's absolutely fine too - especially if it's fun to play. Separating reality from fiction is a common trait of gamers. Perhaps a lack of it is what causes confusion for SJWs.

Like it or not, our entertainment is one of our windows onto the world. It's a great thing, as far as I can see, to encourage people to understand that we often automatically internalise a lot of that. If people begin to understand that process, then hopefully they can make their own internalisation less automatic. Cultural critics are valuable for this reason, be they feminist or otherwise.

On the other hand, It is reasonable to take social critics to task for a lot of things they do often like ignoring the context of the entire work, Ignoring satirical nuances in order to score cheap political points. But, especially, calling for the banning of works they don't agree with. Censorship usually becomes an ultimately self defeating slippery slope, even when initially deployed against things that you disagree with. It is disappointing when feminists who make a lot of good points start morphing into coercive ideological gatekeepers.

Political correctness is important. It has de-normalised casual bigotry, removing much of that burden from millions of people. However political correctness has also at various times, in various locales, in various ways been wielded to attack political opponents for reasons that have nothing to do with their being racist or sexist.

On (apparently) the other side, MRA's scrap together all of the mud they can to sling at feminists. Generally, their favourite political parties don't poll well with certain demographics; young women especially. So, to appeal to these demo's they construct narratives about feminist supremacy and how how modern feminism is infantilising to women and how feminists are evil egotists who run around wrecking things they don't understand for shallowly understood ideological reasons. And, to fight all of this, the only thing to do is to vote for X. All points with a grain of truth to them, but still misleadingly un-nuanced and selective. The point is to convince people to associate themselves with a certain political party they wouldn't vote for otherwise while crustying up some of the popular ideological pillars of political opponents.

Gratuitous nudity is overwhelmingly one-way. It objectifies women, male gaze, blah blah, you know all this stuff.

It's nothing to do with realism - just set your game somewhere where there aren't naked women. Why is there a strip club in every open-world game?

This video is a really worthwhile watch. I learned a lot from it and it's obvious the commenter knows her stuff.

Sure thing. If you want to say that sexism in video games should remain legal under freedom of expression then that's fine, but you've also got to allow for cultural criticism of video games (and other media, just to be clear - I don't think there's anything intrinsic in video games that makes them worse than books or films or TV shows, but their relative newness has led to few people engaging in substantial criticism before now so maybe they're a bit behind the curve).

I do think there's a place for titillation, but I wonder how people would react if the next Rockstar game had a gay strip club.

Which constitutes a fair reflection of the real world.



Because there isn't.



It's obvious that, although she's learned a little from her mistakes, Sarkeesian is incapable of viewing the source material objectively. She opens up by conflating games with the advertising of games - anyone who understands the difference between marketing and development can explain the problem with that.

Here's a fantastic response that covers the major flaws in her presentation:





Cultural criticism that comes from someone who wishes to engage in a dialogue will always be welcome. I'm not sure where you get the idea that games have not come under fire before now. For as long as I can remember, there has been a mainstream vilification of games as being a direct cause of violent behaviour, despite a lack of supporting evidence. Indeed, it's still a fairly popular opinion even though there is a correlation between the growth of the games industry and a reduction in violent crime among younger men.

The problem is not that games are relatively new, it's that it took 40 years for society to open its eyes and realise that games are for everyone, that the geeky male gamer stereotype has been outmoded for more than a decade. There isn't an invasion of women playing games, they've been at it since pacman.



It's highly probable that the most vociferous commentators will be amongst those who haven't played the game. A club full of male strippers would be no different to one featuring naked women. Gamers won't care one way or another as long as the game is a fun, challenging or thought-provoking experience.

I've asked this before, and still haven't received a satisfactory answer. What exactly is wrong with gratuitous nudity in games - male or female? While we're on the subject, what is the problem with human sexuality too? I'd always thought of political leanings as being a straight line between the left and right, but it's looking more and more like a circle where the extreme left and right bend around to meet each other.

Only when they invite discussion of their views.



Precisely. The censorship of every article, video, etc made by feminist critics actively prevents this. Preaching at people does not constitute reasonable criticism, likewise cherry-picking or the manufacturing of evidence.



Political Correctness has its place, but it should never be allowed to overrule freedom of expression. However much I object to the WBC, I completely support their right to say and do the hateful, misguided, bigoted things they do.



There's that feminist/MRA false dichotomy again. Finding fault with feminism or feminists does not make you a men's rights activist. You don't have to push, promote or follow any specific ideology in order to disagree with someone else's. The political leanings of feminists and MRAs is hardly uniform either, so I'm not sure where you're coming from with the political party comment.

The problem with feminism and the MRA movement lies primarily in the nomenclature of their respective ideologies. As an egalitarian, I consider both to be fundamentally flawed.

When we think of most places and times that we don't have direct contact with, the context for that usually comes form entertainment or the news camera.

What gets lost in most entertainment about foreign places are the cultural nuances. Judging by most World War 2 films, you would think that, but for a handful of rebels, the entire German population were enthusiastic nazis. The historical record tells us otherwise. To make another example; from the movies you would think that Genghis Khan's entire army were racially uniform, when in fact they were multi-racial. Genghis Khan himself is said to have had red hair. Deliberately or not, entertainment encourages us to view peoples in terms of incorrect stereotypes.

Even when a movie does not have a conscious political agenda, the culture that shaped the film makers and the logistics of film making often result in an end product with inaccuracies. If the audience derives his real world contexts from these inaccuracies and uses them to make decisions, this can lead to bad things. Cultural criticism helps to immunise people against this.

Unless the movie is a documentary, the onus is on the telling of an interesting story, making us laugh or cry, not to educate about the subtleties of a culture that is not our own. Artists are not responsible for our perception of reality or our prejudices. There's a reason movies, books and other media so often contain the disclaimer "this is a work of fiction".

Needless to say, games are not documentaries either, though they often have a much greater depth of information than movies do. You may have learned nothing useful or accurate watching WWII movies, but I learned loads about aviation history including extensive information on the character and lives of most of the better known WWI ace pilots by playing Red Baron 20-something years ago. However, I had to do a great deal of further reading in order to understand the political and cultural state of Europe in the early 20th century. If your audience is basing their knowledge of Nazi Germany on that one time they played Castle Wolfenstein, they're an idiot rather than a bigot.

These are virtual worlds we're dealing with, and virtual people - most of whom are shells. I don't feel guilty for the hundreds of thousands of virtual lives I've ended with a touch of a key or click of a button, because like most gamers, I understand that the game I am playing is only tenuously grounded in reality and - most importantly - they are not real people.

"Cultural criticism" does not immunise anyone against being prejudiced - especially if the source of the criticism is itself prejudiced against the target audience. Education (autodidactic through experience usually) is the only way one can learn about those things alien to ones bubble. And finally, you yourself complained about the political motivations behind the construction of narratives that are used to attack demographics:

This is as apt a description of the feminist 'criticism' of gaming as you'll find - especially regarding Sarkeesian's series of videos.

Just so you know, Sarkeesian is not a video game reviewer; she is a social critic who specializes in video games. Expecting her to be objective is as absurd as expecting Jesse Jackson to start giving more time to promoting the interests of white folks.

MRAs have exactly zero to do with this, which is my biggest issue with the whole thing. MRAs have comandeered the issue away from what it was originally about. It was a matter of trying to snag instant support from a bunch of anti-feminists and has just continued to get more and more twisted.

I expect her to cite her information and give truthful context for her examples. However, she will never admit to be wrong since that would make her less money. She is allowed to say whatever crazy stuff she wants, however, she should state that these are her ideas and are not supported by any evidence. But, she just lies and says it has been proven that people who think media does not change them, changes the most. Which is complete bull. She should hence be more honest with her work and stop claiming to have evidence.

I am not disagreeing with you about her bias, but you are trying to hold Sarkeesian to a standard that not even journalists are held to these days. I just think this argument is a waste of time and has no real merit. She is an activist, and there are no activists out there that follow these high standards being demanded of her.

If you don't like her, don't watch her. Demanding that she become a research journalist with peer reviewed YouTube videos does absolutely nothing other than waste your (and everyone's) time and energy.

Oh, and the whole she's only doing it for the money argument is both idiotic and completely unfounded. She has been active in feminism for much longer than she's been on YouTube.

Of course they are. Just like feminists, and every other -ist, there are lobbyists who try to twist the narrative to suit their agenda. Singling out MRA's seems a bit silly though, as their impact has been so immense to date that I've no idea what commandeering you refer too.



Oh wow, I like totally would never have known that if you weren't here to point it out for me.



You clearly misunderstand me. I'm critical of her work on the grounds I've already expressed. My expectation is that she will continue to misinform her viewers and contribute nothing of value to gaming.

I am sorry that I hold people who obtain 150,000 dollars to make a video series at such a high standard. Also,

In principle, I'm right there with you when it comes to holding people to a higher standard, but with me it includes absolutely every single person out there. It's this pesky reality thing that gets in the way, though. For starters, 150K is jack squat when it comes to high profile video production. A well publicized Kickstarter for a pink paper beer cozy company could get that much easily. How about (insert any political pundit on TV or radio today here)? They get paid more than that and have little pressure to be unbiased, are you just as critical of them? Perhaps more critical, considering many of them actually claim to be journalists?

This demand for infallible and completely unbiased videos by a woman who was given money to MAKE A SERIES OF FEMINIST VIDEOS is perhaps the most worthless argument against Sarkeesian out there. It's like saying you are against Obama because he doesn't present the American people with the Republican message in a "fair and balanced" manner after getting money from the DNC.

You can dislike Sarkeesian for selective presentation of info and for interpreting and assuming things in a different manner than you, but she is NOT A JOURNALIST and has never claimed to be one, so it amounts to nothing more than the reason you dislike her.