# GBAtemp Debate Club: Videogame Sexism



## TotalInsanity4 (Oct 25, 2015)

Holy cow, I apologize for this being as late as it is  I was gone all day for All-State auditions and thought I would have wifi, but there was not. Anyway, this week's topic was suggested by a good friend of mine from school.

This week's topic:





*Do you feel videogames are disproportionately advertised towards a male audience, despite females making up a large part of the demographic? Why or why not?*​


Spoiler: Resources



Women surpass teenage boys in gaming demographic: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/female-adults-oust-teenage-boys-largest-gaming-demographic/
General ESRB player statistics (at least 4 years outdated): http://www.esrb.org/about/video-game-industry-statistics.aspx
Microsoft's tips for reaching a male demographic: http://advertising.microsoft.com/en/ad-network/audience/men
Microsoft's tips for reaching a female demographic: http://advertising.microsoft.com/en/women-and-moms


Spoiler: Video evaluating truth of common "misogynistic" character traits







Whitty article about body standards of both male and female characters: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...-problem-of-oversexualization-in-video-games/ (And its companion article)




The rules are simple: Every week I will be posting a new topic for all of GBAtemp to debate on in a free-for-all style. There are no winners or losers, the sole purpose of these debates are to learn other's views about important issues. For each topic, I will be posting a list of resources to help you with your debates that may be added to upon request. After a week has passed, I will ask a moderator to close the thread so that a new topic may be created. I will also accept PMs of topics, as my understanding of controversial topics only extends to the US, I'd love to get some international issues in here too 
Remember to keep it civil, take people's views into consideration, and above all, HAVE FUN!

*Note:* As the creator of the debate, I am going to try to remain non-partisan and only comment on this thread if I feel as though something someone has said needs clarification. All political views on my part for this debate and all moving forward are being chucked out the window. HOWEVER, if the debate is going slowly, I may from time-to-time assume the role of the side that most needs help.
I will participate in the polls, though, because polls are fun 



Spoiler: Previous topics



Week 3: Syrian Refugee Crisis
Week 2: Gun Control
Week 1: Presidential Candidates


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## migles (Oct 25, 2015)

from the experience i had when trying "girly" games... (barby, dress up, make up, talking cute animals, fremium games like candy rush saga)
i don't think girls that play "true" games are not missing much...
however changes like more customization and female characters, or more extra stuff designed for girls are really welcome
i am always choose female character... i preefer my character to be a pretty with a cute look than an "action man" model...


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## HaloEliteLegend (Oct 25, 2015)

Hmm, OK... I think there are developers who definitely take some things way too far. Then there's developers that use sexual themes responsibly to better their product.

For example, a hentai game goes in with mysogenistic views right away, while a game like Final Fantasy will adhere to "Creative Direction" for their character designs.

I do think there is an utter lack of strong female leads. Even those like Lara Croft are sexualized for the heck of it, despite the validity of "Creative Direction."

Often times, a strong female lead may be overshadowed by an even stronger male lead.


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## Chary (Oct 25, 2015)

Disproportionately advertised? Males make up a larger demographic of gamers than females do, I don't think that's disproportionate. While "sources" say that women play more games than males, that's just the occasional game of candy crush. Chances are, those women aren't going to pay much attention to gaming advertisements. I've never felt like games needed to be advertised specifically to me as a woman. To me, this has always a topic that feminists on Tumblr love to toss around, so they can cry they're not represented enough in media.


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## RustInPeace (Oct 25, 2015)

Chary said:


> Disproportionately advertised? Males make up a larger demographic of gamers than females do, I don't think that's disproportionate. While "sources" say that women play more games than males, that's just the occasional game of candy crush. Chances are, those women aren't going to pay much attention to gaming advertisements. I've never felt like games needed to be advertised specifically to me as a woman. To me, this has always a topic that feminists on Tumblr love to toss around, so they can cry they're not represented enough in media.



I'll just second this and also mention that women can be represented strongly in games. As overly sexual as she is, Bayonetta is very badass. Chun Li, the outfit and appearance, but she kicks a lot of ass. Samus Aran too.

I would love to have a female friend that plays video games, so much nerdism to share. As far as video games women can play, there's a lot really. Not just women, anyone. Pokemon, cosplayers galore and fans of all types. Super Smash Bros for sure, I played the first game a lot with my sisters. Street Fighter, these easier to handle fighting games. Mortal Kombat too, but this was Armageddon, and it was in 2010, I don't know if it would fly in the 90s. By then I saw more female gamers and those more open about these hardcore games. Even kids, I played Armageddon with my little sister, who was under 10 at the time.

But yeah, it's marketed to men because they are the ones buying the games mostly. I don't think that's sexist, it's targeting a market they know will consume. The women that do buy, are the ones that dig what men dig. Just because more men like something, doesn't mean some women can't like them all the same, if not more.

As far as women represented in video games, there's the badasses, but there's others. Someone I heard about, a woman in MSGV that's never fully clothed or something? Japanese much? They are perverted, look at their porn!


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## Chary (Oct 25, 2015)

HaloEliteLegend said:


> utter lack of strong female leads


Huh? There's tons of great female characters, and from huge franchises, too. Walking Dead, Metroid, Bayonetta, Portal, the Final Fantasy series, the Tales of series, Mirrors Edge, Bioshock Infinite, Ace Attorney, Persona, TLOUS, and so on and so forth. And has Laura Croft really been needlessly sexualized past the PS1 games?


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## chavosaur (Oct 25, 2015)

Chary said:


> Disproportionately advertised? Males make up a larger demographic of gamers than females do, I don't think that's disproportionate. While "sources" say that women play more games than males, that's just the occasional game of candy crush. *Chances are, those women aren't going to pay much attention to gaming advertisements*. I've never felt like games needed to be advertised specifically to me as a woman. To me, this has always a topic that feminists on Tumblr love to toss around, so they can cry they're not represented enough in media.


A gamer can be classified as anyone that plays any form of casual game, regardless of if it is a mobile title or not. 

When it comes to this topic, tumblr and femenism tropes are thrown around like the biggest joke the internet has to offer when it reality, while extreme at times, these members have very valid points that wind up being ignored because "LELELELGIRLSTUMBLREMOTIONS"

When it comes to representation in media, it is HYPER-sexualized in regards to women. There is absolutely no denying that and you can absolutely argue that it is advertised unfairly. 

When you think of advertising for the male audience, you see hyper sexualized females coupled with violence, fast cars, all things "men should love." 
When "female games," are advertised, 9/10 times you are seeing frilly pink baby dress up or nintendogs games that are meant to cater toward gender roles that have been beat into kids heads since they were born. 

Just because you see the occasional female lead in a video game, doesn't mean that the market in general doesn't heavily gear towards a male audience, regardless of if they are the ones that primarily play video games or not. 

These gender roles apply to a variety of products, gaming included. I don't think you can honestly argue as a female gamer yourself, that the market doesn't already cater to a male audience considering how women are treated and handled in a variety of the games you play. 

You can absolutely name a small handful of games that just so happen to include a female protagonist or supporting female character but the fact of the matter is, those games are a dime a dozen. Consider the multitude of other games that feature blatant sexist tropes to the female audience in a multitude of ways, or just the ways females aren't even represented in general. 

I'll be very interested to see how this topic continues to move forward.


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## ShadowOne333 (Oct 25, 2015)

God please no.
No more of this Anita Sarkeesian BS. -,-


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## Haloman800 (Oct 25, 2015)

Thunderf00t ripped Anita Sarkeesian and her phony arguments to shreds. Literally every one of her claims is false.


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## Haloman800 (Oct 26, 2015)

Also, "*Do you feel videogames are disproportionately advertised towards a male audience" *Yup, because males tend to like video games more, that doesn't make it sexist, it's business; you market to your largest audience. That would be like asking *"Do you feel tampons are disproportionately advertised towards a female audience?"* And the answer is of course. is it sexist? *No.*

There are also video games marketed/more popular with women (FarmVille, Sims, Tetris), so this entire "debate" is moot.


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## VinsCool (Oct 26, 2015)

the tampon argument made me giggle


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## The_Meistro (Oct 26, 2015)

Lol Look Up: Xbox Girls Get Revenge
On youtube It will toatally change your opinion on this subject


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## FAST6191 (Oct 26, 2015)

Disproportionately advertised...  at a base level no -- advertising and marketing wonks seem to know what they are doing in the game world more often than not, and more consistently than many of the rest, and I imagine they maximise their return quite well. At a higher level I have to wonder what more might do. This mindset may have seen led to a bit of circular logic arising (because previous advertising then current advertising) and the perception is reality thing also plays a part.

Disproportionately geared towards. Depends what you need to be geared towards. I saw Tomb Raider mentioned and it is widely held that the form chosen was the result of an error but one that was ran with, history shows that worked. At the same time would sticking tits on a player character model make a difference (I have seen it happen in the past but I am not even close to being able to go past anecdotal)? One might ponder whether a character written to have an arc seen in other media that does well with a lot of women, however that would be unfair as they would also require a well written game or three to be the baseline. If someone wants to try then I would be curious the see the thoughts that went into it and the resulting product, though given the porn for women ( https://xkcd.com/714/ ) stuff it could go quite wrong.

Women making up more of the game playing market. I can believe that, or at least I have no reason to disbelieve that, however I will join the others in wondering about how it might be be further characterised -- hours played, variability in hours played, money invested, alternative value (I see bingo advertised on TV and there is invariably a chat featured deliberately mentioned within, heads on servers and running fan sites counts for something). Hardcore vs casual makes about as much sense as the concept of genre to me, which is to say there is something underpinning it but the concept itself is fairly pointless in this day and age. Back to the further characterisation I imagine it could be anything you like if you blend it right but I imagine many of the more desirable ones would skew male.


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## HaloEliteLegend (Oct 26, 2015)

Chary said:


> Huh? There's tons of great female characters, and from huge franchises, too. Walking Dead, Metroid, Bayonetta, Portal, the Final Fantasy series, the Tales of series, Mirrors Edge, Bioshock Infinite, Ace Attorney, Persona, TLOUS, and so on and so forth. And has Laura Croft really been needlessly sexualized past the PS1 games?



I know they exist, but I feel they are sometimes overshadowed by other male leads, or not fleshed out enough. But then again, what I'm saying is extremely broad and does not fully encompass each individual series.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Oct 26, 2015)

Added another resource


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## SammyPoke (Oct 26, 2015)

Ok, seeing as I am the only person who voted 'other' let me specify my view on the the whole females in video-games and this sexism rant that has been going on since I guess people where able to communicate with others across the world from the internet. *Gamers* have existed since the dawn of time, weather these people were male, female, black, white, gay, straight, conservative, liberal, yata. . . (yata, you get the drift) it didn't matter because they were all there for the same reason. *To play video-games*. Now as time passed-on and people began closely socializing with one another (forming *clicks*) thus creating their own "*gaming subculture*" this thus not mean that their subculture represents the general, nor the entire view, of *Gamers* (which is a multidimensional group). It just means that they enjoy the same thing (gaming) in a niche manner (people who played dungeons and dragons were one of the first) that doesn't mean that people who play these games are thus *one of them* though people tend to associate the two because of *stereotypes*. Which the media loves to endorse because . . wait for it. . . $it gives them money and ratings$.


Spoiler



Your mind has not been warped until you've played a game about religion on the SNES (I'll tell you that much).


When I look at a Gamer, I look at someone who's just like me, (not by race, or religion, or any other extraneous circumstance) but because we both have a fondness for video-games. The whole sexism, B.S. is only partially true, it's mainly a politically disguised media tool to get more females involved in video-games and thus generate revenue for the parties involved.  I'm not against it (though I am vigilant on who I support on weather their endeavors are sincere or fraudulent).


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## LunaWofl (Oct 26, 2015)

"Videogame Sexism" you say? Oh boy, I can't wait for this to target respective issues of both men and women in...

Oh...

OH...

*sigh* Okay, so is it sexist to appeal to your market demographic?
Those articles suggest that the majority of female audiences play mobile games; low entry cost for low game costs.
Okay, then should we start marketing mid range entry cost+ and (relatively) high game cost to such a demographic?
Here's another thing, the identity of "gamer" is not something people who play casually tend to associate themselves with, KINDA what spawned the whole slew of "gamers are dead" articles last year.

Honestly, sexualizing female characters is WAY easier to do than to sexualize a male character. I DARE YOU to try and sexualize a male character without making it look hilarious.
Hell, I've talked to someone who saw a character drawn in a swim suit and all he could think is "OMFG SEXUALIZED", god forbid he ever went to a public swimming pool or the beach.
And games that do use women shallowly, like ride to hell retribution, or duke nukem forever (I struggle to think of more of that ilk) these games are not looked favorably on, it's cringe worthy, and we focus on the gameplay which is poor to begin with.

We. Don't. Care.

Gameplay >>> all

Honestly I'm starting to think "sexist towards women" seems nothing more than a some kinda perverted power fantasy =_= OH, YOU'VE GOT IT SOOOOOOOO MUCH WORSE THAN ME, LET ME BE YOUR SHINING KNIGHT IN ARMOUR. ick. Doesn't help that it's the same biological imperative we've had since the paleolithic era.

And "strong female characters"? Why? Do we only have "strong male characters"? No. We have a variety of male characters, fools, melodramatics, troubled, the weak growing past their weaknesses, we give these to male characters and complain when we give them to females despite the flaws being what made the character interesting to begin with.
Most games we see males as flawed characters murdering hundreds on hundreds of male characters, and yet give the option to kill a female character and we ban games.

EDIT:

*In the interest of making this more like a debate.*


chavosaur said:


> A gamer can be classified as anyone that plays any form of casual game, regardless of if it is a mobile title or not.


Semantically yes.
You could call anyone who buys an ice cream an ice cream critic.
You could call anyone who thinks men and women should have equal rights an egalitarian.
You could call someone who opens the door for you a communist.
You could call someone at looking you a psychopathic murderer hell bent on doing unspeakable things for you.
These have a common problem though: self identity is missing.
And people who do play casual games mobile or no, have a tendency to not associate with that label.
It's one thing to be accepting of them into gaming culture (and I support that), but another for what choices people make.



chavosaur said:


> When it comes to this topic, tumblr and femenism tropes are thrown around like the biggest joke the internet has to offer when it reality, while extreme at times, these members have very valid points that wind up being ignored because "LELELELGIRLSTUMBLREMOTIONS"


Some points are, indeed, valid. But you need to wade through the raw sewage to find those gems. Further, some "issues" come in their misunderstanding and representation, which, fair enough, we're only human. But then there's misunderstandings that spread around like a rabbit population unchecked.

Wage gap (for example) is based on mean earnings in company. So you get stuff like comparing the mean earnings of nurses (female dominated) and doctors (mostly male dominated) and then we take that doctors are being paid more and come to the conclusion that women earn less.
It does not take account of positions, it does not take account of hours worked, it does not account for overtime. (Also interestingly, Women are out earning their male counterparts now for those under 30).

Further, it's been illegal in most western countries to discriminate in payment, so either 1: people are breaking the law, therefore advocating for laws to enforce this won't work. or 2: Women, as opposed to the decisions available to men, have more choices that allow them to not earn to the same degree.

And then there are mainstream feminist outside of tumblr that have questionable practices but I've put too much effort to this already :/



chavosaur said:


> When it comes to representation in media, it is HYPER-sexualized in regards to women. There is absolutely no denying that and you can absolutely argue that it is advertised unfairly.
> 
> When you think of advertising for the male audience, you see hyper sexualized females coupled with violence, fast cars, all things "men should love."
> When "female games," are advertised, 9/10 times you are seeing frilly pink baby dress up or nintendogs games that are meant to cater toward gender roles that have been beat into kids heads since they were born.



Honestly how do you define hyper-sexualized .-.
Lara Croft in her initial iterations had a large chest, is that hyper sexualized? Then does that mean if a women has a large bust she's inherently hyper-sexualized? Or is it her clothing choice presented as something no sane person would do?

As for adverts I admit I have not seen any in far too long a time. But let's go with some recent ones shall we?



Spoiler



Assassin's Creed Syndicate
English (Trailer)

Tales of Zestiria
English (using trailer slightly cheating)
Japan (known for slowly having a more largely female audience in japan and slowly been growing one outside)

Transformers Devastation
English (trailer)

Minecraft story mode
English (trailer)

Samurai Warriors 4-2
English (trailer)


I dunno >_> none of those seem too bad, I also tend to think stuff advertised to men is usually gender neutral whereas marketing to women specifically tries to alienate men.
But even so, is there anything wrong inherently with sexualizaiton? It's KINDA what carbon based life forms do >_>;



chavosaur said:


> Females
> "men should love."


Actually, I'd love to see the opposite happen to be honest, not enough love for men these days :/ well... outside of the completely female dominated romance novels market. I actually wish men would stop worshiping women like some kinda deity. But now I'm taking you out of context purely so I can digress.



chavosaur said:


> Just because you see the occasional female lead in a video game, doesn't mean that the market in general doesn't heavily gear towards a male audience, regardless of if they are the ones that primarily play video games or not.


Very true, marketing is generally slanted towards the demographic that is most profitable.
Whether it be clothing being female dominated market, books, movies, TV shows, wine or video games and beer for men.



chavosaur said:


> These gender roles apply to a variety of products, gaming included. I don't think you can honestly argue as a female gamer yourself, that the market doesn't already cater to a male audience considering how women are treated and handled in a variety of the games you play.


Ah gender roles. How they amuse me as a concept. It's like a chicken and egg paradigm o3o did gender roles come first or did people make decisions to create those gender roles?
I think my honest answer is to look at human brains =q= ah, delicious succulent white and grey matter, how you differ (typically) between gender (not touching transgender brains and gay/lesbian/bi stuff patterns either) you find that the composition of white and grey matter to vary in concentration. And then you have the effects of sex related hormones acting in influencing (important, INFLUENCING) decisions the concept of "gender roles" starts seeming more of a predictor of behaviors rather than a rigged behavioral control device. And it will exist as long as we cling so tightly to our sense of identity. though I do like seeing people clumsily waltz around the idea.

And so it caters to a male audience, so what? Sweets in coffee shops tends to cater more to a female audience because of the way our associated biochemistry affects our tastes over thousands of years of environmental and genetic survival and minor mutations. And honestly? just because females are not always portrayed in a positive light does not mean men in the games always are either.



chavosaur said:


> You can absolutely name a small handful of games that just so happen to include a female protagonist or supporting female character but the fact of the matter is, those games are a dime a dozen. Consider the multitude of other games that feature blatant sexist tropes to the female audience in a multitude of ways, or just the ways females aren't even represented in general.


I consider the inverse of this more likely, but for the interest of giving other people more food for thought: care to tell me some of those blatant sexist tropes? Just a name will be fine, will search them on tvtropes +A+
Thing with tropes is, they're a story telling element .-. tropes inherently in and of themselves are not bad, but act as a means for which we can decipher elements of a story as something we relate to.
Worse though, is when they're conflated with stereotypes.



chavosaur said:


> I'll be very interested to see how this topic continues to move forward.


Me too o3o I want people to think about this kinda stuff beyond just shallow ideas.

Thing that really bothers me is that we keep focusing on the effects of something on one side of the equation :/ if we have true issues we wish to solve we need to look at both sides, and that's seeing the effect stuff has on men as well.
Sexism goes both ways.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Oct 26, 2015)

FrozenIndignatio said:


> Thing that really bothers me is that we keep focusing on the effects of something on one side of the equation :/ if we have true issues we wish to solve we need to look at both sides


Hence why I created the Debate Club 

Edit: It should also be mentioned that the topic question is only a conversation starter, I actually would expect conversation to branch out a bit, especially for this particular topic


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## TotalInsanity4 (Oct 29, 2015)

Since discussion has slowed, I'm going to chime in again:

I'm surprised no one from either side has mentioned these yet:


Spoiler


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## LunaWofl (Oct 29, 2015)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> Since discussion has slowed, I'm going to chime in again:
> 
> I'm surprised no one from either side has mentioned these yet:
> 
> ...



Oh, they advertise mobile games now .-. eww...


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## ScrublordPrime (Oct 29, 2015)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> Since discussion has slowed, I'm going to chime in again:
> 
> I'm surprised no one from either side has mentioned these yet:
> 
> ...



I don't see what's wrong with the GTA advert, aside from the woman on the left (Who is enjoying getting hand-cuffed WAY too much), the one on the right is what you'd see if you go to a beach, is it wrong to show that?  As for Franklin, he's shown in this one as a tough guy, with Chop being leashed by his chain. I'd argue that woman/men would see him as either being hot or a real tough guy (which would make the male gamer feel more powerful when they play as him). 

As for the Mobile Advert...
*vomit*

"Let's put on one breastplate and I'm so ready for war!"



Spoiler



I may really regret posting this


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## BrewinGuy3ds (Oct 29, 2015)

I voted "
* No; and you feminists stop being paranoid about everything*". Does it even really matter? Seriously.


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## Lucifer666 (Oct 29, 2015)

ScrublordPrime said:


> I don't see what's wrong with the GTA advert, aside from the woman on the left (Who is enjoying getting hand-cuffed WAY too much), the one on the right is what you'd see if you go to a beach, is it wrong to show that?  As for Franklin, he's shown in this one as a tough guy, with Chop being leashed by his chain. I'd argue that woman/men would see him as either being hot or a real tough guy (which would make the male gamer feel more powerful when they play as him).
> 
> As for the Mobile Advert...
> *vomit*
> ...



The GTA one specifically is not VILE per se, but it does reinforce stereotypes.

Franklin's shown as a tough guy who's ready to kick shit down which links to the portrayal of men as powerful, violent, etc. etc. you name it

Whereas in the same picture the women are shown as nothing but sexy. It would make sense if the men AND women were shown in attractive positions, but they're not, and it sort of implies "Know your place. Men are shit kicking badasses and women are there to please and look hot."

It's not this picture alone that's the source of the problem. It's the fact that it reinforces preexisting sexist themes of this sort. If we were in an ideally feminist world with no history of sexism then the picture wouldn't be offensive at all, but being aware of the systematic forces that come into play in the world at large but also in the gaming industry specifically, it is a bit of a problem. The onus is on devs to pay attention and make their games and all promotional images, etc. not contribute to these harmful stereotypes.

Some would call it "feminist propaganda", but 'propaganda' implies that what's being promoted is not worth the appraisal. Feminism definitely is. (Or ""egalitarianism"" as many people who fall under the demographic of 16-30 year old cis straight males, AKA 99% of the users on this site, would call it.)

Anyway I think discussions like these are pretty useless on a site that is predominantly male. Ladies need to have their opinions heard in matters that revolve around them surely.


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## ScrublordPrime (Oct 29, 2015)

Lucifer666 said:


> The GTA one specifically is not VILE per se, but it does reinforce stereotypes.
> 
> Whereas in the same picture the women are shown as nothing but sexy. It would make sense if the men AND women were shown in attractive positions, but they're not, and it sort of implies "Know your place. Men are shit kicking badasses and women are there to please and look hot."



You are correct in that they aren't shown in attractive positions (although I'd argue that some people would find a badass looking man who's ready to beat shit up to be attractive), and after checking all of the adverts (images) it practically shows all the males to be violent and edgy. 



Spoiler

















Lucifer666 said:


> The onus is on devs to pay attention and make their games and all promotional images, etc. not contribute to these harmful stereotypes.


It's sorta the thing with GTA to exaggerate these stereotypes, hence why it's in this advert. I mean imagine a GTA where it's exact opposite of what's seen in the advert.

Also, the advert that Total had posted isn't complete. The woman being handcuffed (the one on the left) is in fact being handcuffed by a policewoman (Though I haven't really seen any policewoman in the game).


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## Arecaidian Fox (Oct 29, 2015)

I really don't know how to put my feeling about this topic into words...But...I voted that companies are missing out on potential customers here, and for good reason. A lot of games just don't account for female players (though we are seeing a turnaround for such things in respects to character creation). I just feel that there's a lack of gender neutral/equal marketing. That's the easiest way I can phrase it.


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## LunaWofl (Oct 29, 2015)

Lucifer666 said:


> The GTA one specifically is not VILE per se, but it does reinforce stereotypes.


Considering that stereotypes are built on an element of truth, is that so bad?



Lucifer666 said:


> Franklin's shown as a tough guy who's ready to kick shit down which links to the portrayal of men as powerful, violent, etc. etc. you name it


He strikes me as a guy that wants people to get off his lawn. And besides that, you don't think such things are negative stereotypes in regards to males? In any other words you could say he looks unapproachable and dangerous.



Lucifer666 said:


> Whereas in the same picture the women are shown as nothing but sexy. It would make sense if the men AND women were shown in attractive positions, but they're not, and it sort of implies "Know your place. Men are shit kicking badasses and women are there to please and look hot."


Hey, you're the one who sees them as sexy and HIGHLY undervaluing them as characters, for example; I see lefty as psychopath that's about to swear a shitstorm before getting free and scratching people's eyes out. And a braindead self absorbed vain twit on the right. And Franklin's pose IS attractive >_>; they're not sexy in the SAME way, see, men and women have different ways of being attractive. It's why if you targeted women with males posing as females generally are in a magazine, it wouldn't sell well, and vice verse. You could speak of stereotypes or of ideals but it is a fact of human nature. 

Hell, from my perspective I could say that Franklin is the one that's sexy and the others are ick.



Lucifer666 said:


> It's not this picture alone that's the source of the problem. It's the fact that it reinforces preexisting sexist themes of this sort. If we were in an ideally feminist world with no history of sexism then the picture wouldn't be offensive at all, but being aware of the systematic forces that come into play in the world at large but also in the gaming industry specifically, it is a bit of a problem. The onus is on devs to pay attention and make their games and all promotional images, etc. not contribute to these harmful stereotypes.


Sexist themes that males will find any women attractive regardless of situation if she has the characteristics he finds biologically appealing? I mean I guess :/
Actually, is "sexism" anything more than "males are attracted to us but are awkward" at this point? >_>; and as for "systematic forces" do you mean ones in TV or in real life, because the "systematic forces" available in real life may surprise you. You're not in control by virtue of being male, you're simply given the illusion.
And that last part, aren't you just saying that you don't want creative freedom unless it specifically fits how you want it to be? Genuine question here.



Lucifer666 said:


> Some would call it "feminist propaganda", but 'propaganda' implies that what's being promoted is not worth the appraisal. Feminism definitely is. (Or ""egalitarianism"" as many people who fall under the demographic of 16-30 year old cis straight males, AKA 99% of the users on this site, would call it.)


Well the girl on the left IS wearing a fedora (trilby?) so I see why it would appeal to that demographic.
*ahem*
No, propaganda does NOT imply that. It's ASSOCIATED with that, small difference I admit, but a significant one. 
_
Because propaganda is one sided._
*
IT DOES NOT TAKE INTEREST IN ACCURATELY PORTRAYING THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF ARGUMENTS.*

With me so far? The only appraisal that >MIGHT< >POSSIBLY< >IMPLY< is that it's not worth it because it cannot hold it's own against the opposing sides of arguments.

Hopefully that didn't come across too forcefully. =_= 

In regards to feminism, even if you believe the past waves were worthwhile, this third wave spews nothing but gobbledygook.
Wage gap? Yeah, massively misinterpreted statistics based in comparing apples and oranges, and never seems to notice that it's "EARN" less than get payed for same work, yet STRANGELY, for some fudged up reason, women have a disproportionally higher spending percentage and it's been AGAINST THE LAW to discriminate pay since the 60s ffs.
Rape? Yeah, your 1 in 4 are based on self selected studies that took basic things like unwanted attention, or even if you were given alcohol (not under any circumstances) and basically anything the SLIGHTEST of interpreted as sexual assault and then it was extrapolated into those absurd statistics. Like frikken jeez, men can use the gas station of love's self service pump, why would they go through all that trouble and risk losing EVERYTHING for the same outcome?.
Domestic violence? It's actually about equal, it shouldn't be that hard to figure that women can be violent and abusive. The lady who started the first shelter for domestic abuse victims met HIGH opposition by feminists when she claimed that they were and was met with high feminist opposition for trying to make one for men, hell, those still barely exist :/ to say nothing of things as primary aggressor policies.
Cat calling? Yeah, like, oh my god, I'm like, SO ATTRACTIVE, like, you like, have no IDEA how many cat calls I get, ugh, like, it's such like, a problem being the attractive me. Stop being so self centered, yeah, people who think they are out of your league do that. So frikken what?



Spoiler



And EVEN with first wave of feminism it was frikken arrogant as hell.
A bunch of rich women who felt they deserved more, despite being able to get anything she wanted without any responsibility (that fell on her husband) (and it's not like single males could even GET jobs, there's a reason why "Bachelors not wanted" kept coming up on job ads)
And votes? Women didn't want it.
Wanna know why? Because to get the vote (which men had only gotten AT MOST a century prior. Before; voting was limited to property owners) one HAD TO be eligible for war time conscription. In places like Canada female nurses got the vote before all women got the vote if they happened to go to war in fact. As well as that it came with a series of other responsibilities and women of the age didn't want that.
So when women DID get the vote, they got it responsibilities free. (Speaking of, the suffragettes were HIGHLY against the idea of black people voting)


/rant

And also why do you think that demographic is as is?
Why is that demographic here, on a site, in those numbers?



Lucifer666 said:


> Anyway I think discussions like these are pretty useless on a site that is predominantly male. Ladies need to have their opinions heard in matters that revolve around them surely.


Oh goodie, I am female and I disagree with you ;D sexism doesn't just affect women btw .-. I'm sick of this whole: OH MY GAWD MY OPINION ARE IS CORRECT CUZ I ARE SUPPRT FEML JUS ASK LADIES. It's nothing more than putting women as some perpetual monolithic victim class and implies males are nothing but a perpetual oppressor class. We do get our opinions heard, feminism would have never been a thing is women were NOT heard. Genitals mean little in lieu of ideas =_= and even if it is truly useless, at least ideas are being entertained.

We're better than this.


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## Vipera (Oct 29, 2015)

I'd like to thank FrozenIndignatio because I don't have to write as much as I was going to do. I'm just adding one thing.

I'm male and I'm a gamer. Big shock, right? Even if I play a lot of offline games, I also play some online games. I also used to play MTG.
Do you know when people talk about gaming girls the most? When they have to bash ALL OF THE MALE PLAYERS because they found done trolls. If a girl finds one, it's newsworthy and all men are pigs. If a boy finds one, he just needs to "man up".
I keep reading about how "we" make things difficult for girls who want to play. Uhm, what? As far as I can remember, everyone I knew never had anything bad to say when a girl wanted to play, because we see them as what they are: just a new player. The more the better.
But no, apparently I had to read some fucktard on Reddit saying that we must be "nice to girls" during MTG Friday nights, as we've never been to them or something. I fucking hate how trolling, a problem that's been in gaming for more than a decade, is NOW being taken seriously because boohoo girls. And what's the cause? Omg it's men's fault!!!
I'm so sick of being discriminated online just because I'm male. It's like saying that all men are rapists...oh wait, that's exactly what feminists say when they push everyone into "teaching boys not to rape".


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## Dragonconqer (Oct 29, 2015)

Mostly video game look like for men, unless you talk about tomb raider.


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## kuwanger (Oct 29, 2015)

Just to throw in my two cents (and concur with Dragonconqer's comment), the depiction of women in video games is almost always very heavily unrealistic and not merely in the fashion that games over-represent stereotypes in specific video games that are meant to be caricatures in general (GTA) but also in just how many games present those caricatures in the first place.  And to me, that's one major reason this thread has mostly gone off-track to the original question.  When it asks "Do you believe video game marketing disproportionately favors males?", it misses the point that a lot of the sexist views of women are often targeted towards women and often enough made BY women.  That doesn't in some fashion make it somehow "okay" in a moral/egalitarian sense but then again that's not even the question.  It's how much this has a net effect of failing to realistic favor females in providing them enough games to play in comparison to males.  And to that end, no matter how "paranoid" you want to call feminists, if a large percentage of the population IS feminist and games aren't being made for them, then "Yes; and game companies are missing a great opportunity to gain consumers".

I mean, seriously, if we turned this whole thread into a question of "Do condiment makers favor ketchup users?" and said "Horseradish users are paranoid", that'd just be silly.  But then it'd be silly if we acknowledged that there was a large customer base for horseradish users and the games weren't being made for them.  The argument that horseradish users just want to make a lot of noise and even if there were a lot of makers horseradish wouldn't be bought?  I don't buy it.  The free market isn't some infallible system where entrepreneurs see a wide open niche and always fill it.  All sorts of things can interfere with it from an audience which lacks the money to actually by the product to the risk involved in actually trying to make a product and sell it (see traffic jams in cities and how public transport has to be government funded/ran because of said issues of money and logistics of trying to build out more roads/subways/whatever; see also things like jet packs and flying cars which invoke way too much cost and risk to be practical no matter how much demand there is for them as demand in the free market doesn't just mean want but also a means to actual front the resources to pay for something).

PS - Having said all the above, whether you're a "gamer" or not and whether you play "AAA" titles or not, there still are a lot of mobile games, puzzle, hidden object, etc games that are actually rather popular with women.  There's no reason to waste AAA level money and in the popular press/popular sentiment those people might not count, there might be some regard it's a niche market, etc.  But then DOOM is actually a niche market too.  The only reason people at large put any regard behind it isn't the technology, the fun, etc but that id developers were able to buy Ferraris with DOOM's success.  By that standard, Candy Crush is a success and why people at large can and do consider it worth consideration.  This is, after all, a discuss driven more than anything by money.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Oct 29, 2015)

Lucifer666 said:


> Anyway I think discussions like these are pretty useless on a site that is predominantly male. Ladies need to have their opinions heard in matters that revolve around them surely.


Actually, this is precisely the reason I thought this would be a good question for this site in particular


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## Selim873 (Oct 29, 2015)

I said No, but I remember when EVERY publisher would refuse Life is Strange until Square Enix stepped up.


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## Lucifer666 (Oct 30, 2015)

Vipera said:


> I'd like to thank FrozenIndignatio because I don't have to write as much as I was going to do. I'm just adding one thing.
> 
> I'm male and I'm a gamer. Big shock, right? Even if I play a lot of offline games, I also play some online games. I also used to play MTG.
> Do you know when people talk about gaming girls the most? When they have to bash ALL OF THE MALE PLAYERS because they found done trolls. If a girl finds one, it's newsworthy and all men are pigs. If a boy finds one, he just needs to "man up".
> ...



You can't be serious. Are you complaining about being called a rapist or whatever?

Do you genuinely think that being called out on the actions of men *as a collective* (not _every_ man) is worse than the shit women go through?

Listen buddy if I punched someone in the face I wouldn't complain that my fist hurts. Just no.

I read this comparison once. It was something along the lines of "Imagine a jar with 100 candies. Around 20 of them are poisoned. Not all of them, just 20 or so. Would you stick your hand in and have some?" Probably not, yeah? Concept applies with gender inequality. It's not that all men perpetuate sexism. Not even most men. But enough men. Enough for it to be a serious problem.


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## Vipera (Oct 30, 2015)

Lucifer666 said:


> You can't be serious. Are you complaining about being called a rapist or whatever?
> 
> Do you genuinely think that being called out on the actions of men *as a collective* (not _every_ man) is worse than the shit women go through?
> 
> ...


Are you REALLY asking me why I don't like being called a rapist if a very small percentage of men rape? Do you know that women rape too but they get away with it because in some states a woman raping a man isn't even something "law-worthy"?
Do you know that a man is the victim of domestic abuse every _37.8 seconds _in America? Should I call every woman a violent bitch?


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## BORTZ (Oct 30, 2015)

Lol what is this, Polygon?


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## Lucifer666 (Oct 30, 2015)

Vipera said:


> Are you REALLY asking me why I don't like being called a rapist if a very small percentage of men rape? Do you know that women rape too but they get away with it because in some states a woman raping a man isn't even something "law-worthy"?
> Do you know that a man is the victim of domestic abuse every _37.8 seconds _in America? Should I call every woman a violent bitch?



Women aren't the only victims of sexism but the issue is largely not in their favour. It's absolutely true that women can (and do) rape too, and it's absolutely true that it's absolute bull*** that a lot of places don't prosecute women for doing it. I'm with you on that.

That statistic is useless though because it's not contextual: It's dependent on the size of the population of America (1 every 37.8 seconds out of a population of say, 4,000,000 for example, isn't aaaall that much.) Secondly it doesn't say that the perpetrator of domestic abuse is a woman (LGBTQ+ people exist)

EDIT: Seriously though I'm not trying to say that women > men end of. I'm a guy myself but I just think that when women have issues to talk about, it's cool to sit the heck down and listen. Feminism is just courtesy, not political radicalism.


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## Twili (Oct 30, 2015)

I'm posting in non-hacking threads lately because I'm bored. But my only view is that video game creators can and should do whatever they want and people are free to enjoy whatever they want. Pixels don't have rights, feelings, etc.


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## Lucifer666 (Oct 30, 2015)

Twili said:


> I'm posting in non-hacking threads lately because I'm bored. But my only view is that video game creators can and should do whatever they want and people are free to enjoy whatever they want. Pixels don't have rights, feelings, etc.


Corporations have a lot of power and influence over society and "freedom of speech" or whatever is not a get-out-of-jail-for-free card for being offensive imho

It's actually really easy not to be sexist; shocking how many people fail at it


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## Twili (Oct 30, 2015)

Lucifer666 said:


> Corporations have a lot of power and influence over society and "freedom of speech" or whatever is not a get-out-of-jail-for-free card for being offensive imho
> 
> It's actually really easy not to be sexist; shocking how many people fail at it


I just don't believe that polygons can be offensive, as opposed to footage of actual people. I believe that video games and animation are the only mediums where people forfeit their right to call something offensive.


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## The Catboy (Oct 30, 2015)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> Since discussion has slowed, I'm going to chime in again:
> 
> I'm surprised no one from either side has mentioned these yet:
> 
> ...



Sex appeal in marketing is not actually a new thing nor gaming exclusive. People have been using sex to market, pretty much since the invention of the market. Does it make it ok or acceptable? Eh, that's actually personal perspective. Some debate that using your body to market is actually exploiting the market because people are easily brought in with sex. Some could argue that it's exploiting the person's body because it's being used for marketing. Which those arguments are not gaming exclusive.
Now for the topic of, "Are games sexist?" Well like I just said, some do use sex appeal as a marketing ploy, but that really doesn't make the game itself sexist. Using both your examples, yes the Game of War advertisements use sexually attractive women to advertise their games, but the actual content of the game does not reflect the advertisement. The game is not about sexy women building up an army well wearing revealing armour, even the icon on the game itself is some male knight. Meaning that the game itself isn't the issue, it's how they are marketing the game that is debatable. Same with the GTV covers, playing through games, their covers really don't reflect the game very well. Only one of the characters on that cover actually show up in the game and I will give you a hint, it's the dude in the middle of the cover. Meaning this falls back under marketing again. The debate on marketing sexism almost warrants an entire thread onto that.

Honestly I think the bigger debate here is marketing. Regardless of which side of the spectrum people fall on, they still help the game sell. People who bring up the "evils" and "sexism" in games, more often than not help push the game sell more. Well people who are countering them, often end up buying the game to use as a counter argument. No matter what happens, it often just ends up making the game sell better. If a game has an interactive quick time sex scene with twins, people are going to buy it. If Feminist Frequency starts attacking a game, then people will go out of their way to counter her, thus promoting better sales for that game. It all comes down to the simple fact that there's no such thing as bad publicity, all publicity is good publicity and gaming is no exception.


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## Vipera (Oct 30, 2015)

Lucifer666 said:


> Women aren't the only victims of sexism but the issue is largely not in their favour. It's absolutely true that women can (and do) rape too, and it's absolutely true that it's absolute bull*** that a lot of places don't prosecute women for doing it. I'm with you on that.
> 
> That statistic is useless though because it's not contextual: It's dependent on the size of the population of America (1 every 37.8 seconds out of a population of say, 4,000,000 for example, isn't aaaall that much.) Secondly it doesn't say that the perpetrator of domestic abuse is a woman (LGBTQ+ people exist)
> 
> EDIT: Seriously though I'm not trying to say that women > men end of. I'm a guy myself but I just think that when women have issues to talk about, it's cool to sit the heck down and listen. Feminism is just courtesy, not political radicalism.


Women do have issues, absolutely. There are many arabian countries where the woman is seen as an inferior creature, in places like rural India there is a rape culture, and so on.
But I can't take feminism seriously when they go the extra mile to talk about a non-existant wage gap, when they bitch about women not taking science courses or when someone smiled at them, therefore it's rape. All this thanks to "male oppression".
Do you want to talk about statistics of LGBT people? Sure. Did you know that lesbian couples are more likely to have violent partners? Crazy, right? Where is the male oppression there?
Or maybe how, when someone calls the police on a couple fighting, regardless of who called, for the woman is enough to say "he assaulted me" to put him in jail? Unless he has video evidence?


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## TotalInsanity4 (Oct 31, 2015)

Just so everyone knows, the Debate Club will be going on hiatus for one week due to Halloween (everyone have a happy and safe one!). I will leave this thread open for continued discussion for an extra week to compensate


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## Clydefrosch (Oct 31, 2015)

of course games are heavily catering to the male audience because they're perceived as the bigger market. also because they have so much more experience catering to them. the gameboy wasn't named gameboy by accident.
of course, in recent years, females have become more of a target, but companies try to woo them going with the most superficial stereotypes (cooking mama and super princess 'i'm emotionally instable' peach' etc) so i absolutely understand the growing anger towards the status quo from female audiences.

thing is, when everything is said and done, this kind of marketing is also the reason why less females have the same level of obsessive interest in videogames. 
instead of simply making the existing games more inclusive (with a female hero choice for example, that's not going to be chosen by guys because a thinly clad ass will wiggle in front of them for the big save the world adventure) they try to sell them the same bull thats been sold to them for decades -girls need ponies and giggling and some kind of house and family stuff happening.

i feel like the generation of females that has a more fleshed out interest in videogames, because they've been at least included to some extend and through the unisex platform of smartphones, have much more socially accepted contact with videogames in general, is just growing up right now.i mean, i've been to school at a time where every boy had videogame consoles while more than half the girls in class never even played a videogame (and showed no interest in trying either, whether because they actually didn't care at all, or because the idea of videogames being a boy thing had been so deeply ingrained, they felt like admitting to want to try was kinda wrong, the same way boys would rarely admit or try playing with dolls that werent disguised as action figures, i cant say)
as the next 10 years go by and that generation grows up, there will be a lot more demand coming from the female userbase and the companies that dabble in videogames will have to react to them. things will absolutely change, the catering to the male gamer will be pulled back some, thats for sure and i personally don't mind whatsoever


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## Clydefrosch (Oct 31, 2015)

Vipera said:


> Women do have issues, absolutely. There are many arabian countries where the woman is seen as an inferior creature, in places like rural India there is a rape culture, and so on.
> But I can't take feminism seriously when they go the extra mile to talk about a non-existant wage gap, when they bitch about women not taking science courses or when someone smiled at them, therefore it's rape. All this thanks to "male oppression".
> Do you want to talk about statistics of LGBT people? Sure. Did you know that lesbian couples are more likely to have violent partners? Crazy, right? Where is the male oppression there?
> Or maybe how, when someone calls the police on a couple fighting, regardless of who called, for the woman is enough to say "he assaulted me" to put him in jail? Unless he has video evidence?



if you want to cite statistics, cite the fucking statistic please.
people oppress. i seriously doubt that there's more violent humans among females than among males, meaning there's a ridiculously high chance whatever statistic you pulled that tidbit from reeks of bad study design from miles away.

just because xth generation feminism in america has degraded to nonsense doesn't automatically mean that xth generation gender discrimination isnt a thing anymore though. the sad part being that there'd still be more than enough issues a serious feminism could tackle. few of it is specific male oppression. but a lot of it is simply institutionalized leftovers of the times when it was still a thing. you put a new coat of color on a rusty bike, the think will still be rotten below the surface.

yes, the wage gap is the result of men being more likely to be in full time employment. but why is man more likely to be fulltime employee? because women are still more likely to be pressured to be the housekeeper in a family, to take care of children in a family, to put a career on hold for that and never be able to catch up afterwards. because there's still very much a bias in the way a career man and a career woman are perceived by society. one is seen as positive, the other as negative. and as social creatures, that does have a tremendous effect on the way we live our life.

and yes, with gender bias came the occassional positive for females, no doubt.
the way that we as a society still have a problem to understand females as anything but victims, to have such a hard time to imagine women raping children and stuff like that. but we're also working on that. in recent decades, more and more women have been fined or put to jail for violence and abuse. and once men become more comfortable with actually calling in being physically or sexually abused by their female partners, these statistics will continue to even out.



FrozenIndignatio said:


> Honestly, sexualizing female characters is WAY easier to do than to sexualize a male character. I DARE YOU to try and sexualize a male character without making it look hilarious.



thats the way you as a male perceive it. because you, as well as most other males, are uncomfortable with the thought of controlling magic mike fighting the forces of evil, you call it hilarious.
its way easier to please a male audience with a sexualized female character (the opposite is true as well, though admittedly, sexualized males for female audience tend to be a bit more subtle than sexualized females for male audiences=

being objective though, sexualized heroines are nothing but hilarious and i can guarantee you, hilarious is probably the word of choice when you have women describe the sexy female hero characters of our generations. going to battle wearing basically a swimsuit. the mightiest heroine carries around giant jugs and makes no attempt to at least wear something to give them enough stability to not be in the way at every single second of the adventure. of course, she also has long, beautifully flowing hair, that no one ever grabs and uses against her too.
instead of using her swords to fight tactically and clever, she makes a point to stretch her body into unnecessary poses, opening herself widely to attacks, just to make sure you as the player notice that she could just jump into a hustle photo shot and do a good job.
oh and of course, despite barely being 110 pounds without any discernible muscles or anything, her short sword sends 300 pound thiefs flying with every hit. (course, at times, thats true for male heroes as well)


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## nintendarium (Oct 31, 2015)

attacking mario because of the role of peach was the low of feminist movement against videogames ...
no respect for them only because of that!!!!
(i respect REAL feminists that fight against abuses everyday and support women around the world)


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## LunaWofl (Oct 31, 2015)

_On an unrelated note: with an influx of single mothers, a female teacher dominance in schools and basically the entirety of a child's early life being female dominant (and with any male interacting with kids, it's almost always considered that he's a pedophile, EVEN when it's the child's father); What does it say about us with ALL of this female exclusive experience that we still consider ourselves sexist? Do you really think games contribute to sexism more than a childhood built up mostly from female interactions?_



kuwanger said:


> Just to throw in my two cents (and concur with Dragonconqer's comment), the depiction of women in video games is almost always very heavily unrealistic and not merely in the fashion that games over-represent stereotypes in specific video games that are meant to be caricatures in general (GTA) but also in just how many games present those caricatures in the first place.


Isn't that essentially what all game do? To both male and female characters? Or do you think the majority walk around with an intense amount of steroids, that requires cardboard cover to protect from a bullet allergy and difficulty using spoons?


kuwanger said:


> And to me, that's one major reason this thread has mostly gone off-track to the original question.  When it asks "Do you believe video game marketing disproportionately favors males?", it misses the point that a lot of the sexist views of women are often targeted towards women and often enough made BY women.  That doesn't in some fashion make it somehow "okay" in a moral/egalitarian sense but then again that's not even the question.


And I'd extend an olive branch in saying male treatment isn't any less sexist. In a nearly identical vein. Larger murder, overly unrealistic body expectations, elements of male expendability.


kuwanger said:


> It's how much this has a net effect of failing to realistic favor females in providing them enough games to play in comparison to males.  And to that end, no matter how "paranoid" you want to call feminists, if a large percentage of the population IS feminist and games aren't being made for them, then "Yes; and game companies are missing a great opportunity to gain consumers".


82% this year don't. And that number has been getting smaller and smaller.
And we don't know how many actually advocate feminist points (we know not all).
And if they were, it does not mean there would be an influx of market potential.



kuwanger said:


> I mean, seriously, if we turned this whole thread into a question of "Do condiment makers favor ketchup users?" and said "Horseradish users are paranoid", that'd just be silly.  But then it'd be silly if we acknowledged that there was a large customer base for horseradish users and the games weren't being made for them.  The argument that horseradish users just want to make a lot of noise and even if there were a lot of makers horseradish wouldn't be bought?  I don't buy it.  The free market isn't some infallible system where entrepreneurs see a wide open niche and always fill it.


Well if a company ends up selling a slanted base towards ketchup and don't sell their horseradish product as much (or at all), and can stay afloat with profit from selling ketchup, there's no reason to further expand horseradish unless they can project a reason to make a further profit, after market, product, and production research; then, after assessing the start up costs, risks and can  actually better attempt to fill that market niche, there's no reason they should, nor do they have any obligation to do so.


kuwanger said:


> All sorts of things can interfere with it from an audience which lacks the money to actually by the product to the risk involved in actually trying to make a product and sell it (see traffic jams in cities and how public transport has to be government funded/ran because of said issues of money and logistics of trying to build out more roads/subways/whatever; see also things like jet packs and flying cars which invoke way too much cost and risk to be practical no matter how much demand there is for them as demand in the free market doesn't just mean want but also a means to actual front the resources to pay for something).
> 
> PS - Having said all the above, whether you're a "gamer" or not and whether you play "AAA" titles or not, there still are a lot of mobile games, puzzle, hidden object, etc games that are actually rather popular with women.  There's no reason to waste AAA level money and in the popular press/popular sentiment those people might not count, there might be some regard it's a niche market, etc.  But then DOOM is actually a niche market too.  The only reason people at large put any regard behind it isn't the technology, the fun, etc but that id developers were able to buy Ferraris with DOOM's success.  By that standard, Candy Crush is a success and why people at large can and do consider it worth consideration.  This is, after all, a discuss driven more than anything by money.


I tend to agree with this.

*NEXT*


Lucifer666 said:


> You can't be serious. Are you complaining about being called a rapist or whatever?
> 
> Do you genuinely think that being called out on the actions of men *as a collective* (not _every_ man) is worse than the shit women go through?


Considering what women DO actually have to go through, having plane policy, kindergarten employment policy, primary school policy, basically ANYTHING to do with kids in employment or in the home, domestic abuse policy and more; This whole image problem of men being predatory and toxic to the point where instead of targeting the population (ie; psychopaths and sociopaths) being the perpetrator (and repeat perpetrators at that; And yes, same applies to women predators), you end up with stuff like the University of Warwick having compulsory consent classes. 
This does a total of jack and shit to help prevent rape and sexual abuse. In fact, it adds to it. A damaged individual will do things regardless of if they know it's right or wrong.
TARGETING A PROFILE OF THE INNOCENT DOES NOT MAKE PERPETRATORS EASIER TO CATCH.

As for collectives of people based on a very minor percentage, why?
You realize that women rape men in a VERY comparable number to vice versa right (unless you go by self selected)? Oh, I'm sorry, it's not "rape", it's "made to penetrate" because men are "ambivalent about their desires" when they get held down against their will by someone. Or forced to at gun point. Or what have you. Thanks Mary Koss.
Or perhaps we should take something that women almost exclusively: infanticide. Yet somehow we have the good sense to NOT think all women kill their children because we're at least RATIONAL IN MIND.
Let me take you to an absurd level of that logic: Some women are transwomen, therefore we should think all women are transwomen?
Yeah, no.



Lucifer666 said:


> Listen buddy if I punched someone in the face I wouldn't complain that my fist hurts. Just no.
> 
> I read this comparison once. It was something along the lines of "Imagine a jar with 100 candies. Around 20 of them are poisoned. Not all of them, just 20 or so. Would you stick your hand in and have some?" Probably not, yeah? Concept applies with gender inequality. It's not that all men perpetuate sexism. Not even most men. But enough men. Enough for it to be a serious problem.


All black people commit majority of crime, now I'm not saying all are poison, but maybe (insert massively exaggerated statistic here) percent. Would you stick your hand in and have some? Probs not- FLAWLESS LOGIC
Now insert that with any other demographic. Sounds wrong right? Bigoted? Presumptuous?

Although as for sexist, I suppose everything is.




Lucifer666 said:


> Women aren't the only victims of sexism but the issue is largely not in their favour. It's absolutely true that women can (and do) rape too, and it's absolutely true that it's absolute bull*** that a lot of places don't prosecute women for doing it. I'm with you on that.


I respectfully disagree. I have yet to see a third wave feminist issue that isn't a giant misconception, or outright lazy in it's statistics or execution.


Lucifer666 said:


> That statistic is useless though because it's not contextual: It's dependent on the size of the population of America (1 every 37.8 seconds out of a population of say, 4,000,000 for example, isn't aaaall that much.) Secondly it doesn't say that the perpetrator of domestic abuse is a woman (LGBTQ+ people exist)


Is kinda cute though.


Lucifer666 said:


> EDIT: Seriously though I'm not trying to say that women > men end of. I'm a guy myself but I just think that when women have issues to talk about, it's cool to sit the heck down and listen. Feminism is just courtesy, not political radicalism.


If anything, it's more like "men > women, liek, oh em gee, women have like, so much wurst, you big strong men are so powerful *swoon*" but let's not split hairs. I'm happy to sit down and listen, but just the same, I'm going to question everything I've heard.
And you're absolutely correct, Feminism isn't political radicalism, it's rather mainstream at this point. It's been for a very long while.



Lucifer666 said:


> Corporations have a lot of power and influence over society and "freedom of speech" or whatever is not a get-out-of-jail-for-free card for being offensive imho
> 
> It's actually really easy not to be sexist; shocking how many people fail at it


What's wrong with being offended? >_> like really, you're offended. So what? Should I go out and say "Freedom of speech is not a get out of jail for free card for making me laugh/cry/feel ANYTHING I didn't want to"?

As for "really easy not to be sexist", I dunno.

*NEXT*


Clydefrosch said:


> if you want to cite statistics, cite the fucking statistic please.
> people oppress. i seriously doubt that there's more violent humans among females than among males, meaning there's a ridiculously high chance whatever statistic you pulled that tidbit from reeks of bad study design from miles away.


Aww, but that's so sexist of you to assume~

Domestic violence is equal, ie: gender parity.
http://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/Dutton_GenderParadigmInDV-Pt1.pdf
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID45-PR45.pdf

Sadly these statistics do have a very minor problem ;^; it treats men and women equally in asking instead of asking men how they abused and women how they were abused.

But you're not wrong I guess, they're about as violent as each other.



Clydefrosch said:


> just because xth generation feminism in america has degraded to nonsense doesn't automatically mean that xth generation gender discrimination isnt a thing anymore though. the sad part being that there'd still be more than enough issues a serious feminism could tackle. few of it is specific male oppression. but a lot of it is simply institutionalized leftovers of the times when it was still a thing. you put a new coat of color on a rusty bike, the think will still be rotten below the surface.


Since I gave you the courtesy of sources, would you be willing to name me a few?



Clydefrosch said:


> yes, the wage gap is the result of men being more likely to be in full time employment. but why is man more likely to be fulltime employee? because women are still more likely to be pressured to be the housekeeper in a family, to take care of children in a family, to put a career on hold for that and never be able to catch up afterwards. because there's still very much a bias in the way a career man and a career woman are perceived by society. one is seen as positive, the other as negative. and as social creatures, that does have a tremendous effect on the way we live our life.


I suppose firstly, you'd be happy to know that young women (between 18 and 30) are now out earning their male counter parts.
That aside, let me list some other possibilities as to why men are more likely to be fulltime employee; the increase of single mothers relying on child support, the myth that women are earned less making justification for that... err... "pressure" (because clearly it would be logical to have the one who earns more money do the work for the sake of family, right? ). Being given more choice in what they want to do.



Clydefrosch said:


> and yes, with gender bias came the occassional positive for females, no doubt.
> the way that we as a society still have a problem to understand females as anything but victims, to have such a hard time to imagine women raping children and stuff like that. but we're also working on that. in recent decades, more and more women have been fined or put to jail for violence and abuse. and once men become more comfortable with actually calling in being physically or sexually abused by their female partners, these statistics will continue to even out.


While we're at it I can't wait for them to stop arresting males first and abandon the feminist instituted duluth model for handling domestic .
And stop telling men they are at fault for being hurt by women .




Clydefrosch said:


> thats the way you as a male perceive it.


Uhh. I'm female. 


Clydefrosch said:


> because you, as well as most other males,


Checked, still female


Clydefrosch said:


> are uncomfortable with the thought of controlling magic mike fighting the forces of evil, you call it hilarious.


Apologies though, that movie doesn't really interest me. Still female though  Probs shouldn't assume :/ but then, what does gender matter at all to discussion?

Point I was trying to get across was that by comparison, you need something HIGHLY overt happen to men before people will acknowledge it was "sexualizing", whereas doing so for a female character seems so easy it's laughably absurd. Sorry for not being clear enough.


Clydefrosch said:


> its way easier to please a male audience with a sexualized female character (the opposite is true as well, though admittedly, sexualized males for female audience tend to be a bit more subtle than sexualized females for male audiences=


Try; justified as "not the same" or "not actually harmful sexualization" or any myriad of excuses.



Clydefrosch said:


> being objective though, sexualized heroines are nothing but hilarious and i can guarantee you, hilarious is probably the word of choice when you have women describe the sexy female hero characters of our generations. going to battle wearing basically a swimsuit. the mightiest heroine carries around giant jugs and makes no attempt to at least wear something to give them enough stability to not be in the way at every single second of the adventure. of course, she also has long, beautifully flowing hair, that no one ever grabs and uses against her too.
> instead of using her swords to fight tactically and clever, she makes a point to stretch her body into unnecessary poses, opening herself widely to attacks, just to make sure you as the player notice that she could just jump into a hustle photo shot and do a good job.
> oh and of course, despite barely being 110 pounds without any discernible muscles or anything, her short sword sends 300 pound thiefs flying with every hit. (course, at times, thats true for male heroes as well)


Sounds like an entertaining read, link me some pls.


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## amoulton (Oct 31, 2015)

FrozenIndignatio said:


> try and sexualize a male character without making it look hilarious.


Um is nobody else attracted to the man from doom? He could like...rip me in half- in a good way


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## Demifiend (Oct 31, 2015)

FrozenIndignatio said:


> All black people commit majority of crime, now I'm not saying all are poison, but maybe (insert massively exaggerated statistic here) percent. Would you stick your hand in and have some? Probs not- FLAWLESS LOGIC
> Now insert that with any other demographic. Sounds wrong right? Bigoted? Presumptuous?



Not the majority actually, studies showed that only a 15% of the total people in your country is actually legitimate black, most of the crimes are done by people from White race, hell, some studies proved that a "White" person is more able to betray and shoot everyone on their way that a black person, not saying that the latter can't, but is more probable to do so.

https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/why-are-black-people-so-nonviolent/

The charts say that in the crime reports, while Black People has it big shares of crimes, it didn't mention (that clear at least) that people from the other race, were also sharing a big part, and not only that, they were more probable to attack people from the same race and black people, so in conclusion, there isn't a "massively exaggerated statistic here" since if that were the case, both races have that, in a way or another, but remember that White people were killing a lot even before Black People were introduced.

I know this is kinda off-topic, but i just wanted to make it clear, while i'm not living nor i don't know a lot about your country, since you know, i was never there, i'm from fuckin Sri Lanka, with brown skin instead of black or white, so, i'm practically in the most neutral position possible, but if you're gonna say something, at least say it with some books or pages as references when it comes to anything you say.

Lastly, just to avoid going to other branches, I say that videogames are well, videogames, you can make a piece of shit game being starred by a man, and a incredible masterpiece being starred by a Woman and viceversa, in the end, it's now if the protagonist is male or female, is if the fucking game is good, and how it passes the test of time compared to the many games is going to be released.

Example, Metroid passed the test of time, since it has well and interestingly designed 2D segments, with fun elements, and is an excellent series overall, but as Metroid could, Super Castlevania IV also did that, with it's smooth gameplay and excellent music, every game has it's own way to tell things, and in the end, it's the gameplay what makes a videogame, some people might care for the characters used, but i just don't care, female or male, I'll play it and then say if the game is worth of my time or not.


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## LunaWofl (Oct 31, 2015)

Demifiend said:


> Not the majority actually, studies showed that only a 15% of the total people in your country is actually legitimate black, most of the crimes are done by people from White race, hell, some studies proved that a "White" person is more able to betray and shoot everyone on their way that a black person, not saying that the latter can't, but is more probable to do so.
> 
> https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/why-are-black-people-so-nonviolent/
> 
> ...


For the record, I wasn't serious; was basically going off a stereotype as a means of hyperbole. Basically a stereotype hyperbole countered with another stereotype hyperbole. Intent was to show how absurd the line of thinking is. 
My apologies for not making that more clear, and thank you for the link .


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## amoulton (Oct 31, 2015)

Demifiend said:


> Not the majority actually, studies showed that only a 15% of the total people in your country is actually legitimate black, most of the crimes are done by people from White race



That is not what the study showed. It's what one random blogger suggested in your linked article, but Wordpress isn't exactly the most reputable news source in America 

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

Check out this official DoJ report showing African Americans accounting for 52% of homicide offenders, despite them only accounting for 13% of the population


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## barronwaffles (Oct 31, 2015)

Demifiend said:


> legitimate black


Fantastic.

Here's some other interesting articles on race and crime with a somewhat different viewpoint :

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime/19439
http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race-and-violent-crime/

I myself wouldn't pin the statistics on race, but poverty - and unfortunately poverty and violence tend to be cyclic.


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## Demifiend (Oct 31, 2015)

barronwaffles said:


> Fantastic.
> 
> Here's some other interesting articles on race and crime with a somewhat different viewpoint :
> 
> ...



It also depends on how a person is raised, you can have the nicest Black person in the world alongside with the most violent white person, and viceversa, I was just pointing statistics, this also changes depends on the State itself, if you were going to Canada, the stereotype against the Black is far much harsher, and most of the crimes in there are from White people as well. 

Some articles may not agree with this, and others yes, but people, no matter the race (If it's Black, White, Brown, etc.) all should be treated with equal respect, and sadly, the lack of respect is what may lead future battles and wars in the future.


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## amoulton (Oct 31, 2015)

Demifiend said:


> It also depends on how a person is raised.


Exactly, for example- Barack Obama is a great African American man (obviously) but he never exactly spent time inside a public school as a child.


barronwaffles said:


> but poverty


Bingo, and impoverished Americans have this really bad habit of rampant anti-intellectualism despite our 'no child left behind' educational system

edit: wait what was this thread about??


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## NintendU_the_great (Nov 2, 2015)

Dragonconqer said:


>



the picture is so random LOL


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## TotalInsanity4 (Nov 2, 2015)

amoulton said:


> edit: wait what was this thread about??


Meh, I'm on hiatus, the thread can go anywhere it wants this week as long as its actually discussion and not shitposting (and I can easily see how it transitioned from one subject to the next). I would rather it stay on videogames for the sake of the topic but for this week I'm not too concerned about it


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## Hungry Friend (Nov 2, 2015)

I chose option #2 because gaming is still fairly male dominated although not nearly as much as it used to be. Also, I think some people get offended way too easily over female characters in sexy outfits along with other stuff that's present in the entire entertainment industry.(using sex as a selling point) There are so many things in the world that are genuinely offensive that I find the issue of sexism in gaming to be insignificant, and quite frankly if polygonal women in sexy outfits offends you, your skin is way too thin. I'm not saying there's zero sexism in gaming but I think a lot of people exploit this issue to get attention. I don't wanna give this woman publicity but there's a woman whose first name starts with an A that exemplifies the type of disgusting attention whoring and sensationalism I find disgusting.


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## Sterling (Nov 5, 2015)

There are a few ways of looking at this "issue", and as a heads up I don't view it as an issue at all. I usually split sexism in games down the middle between the marketing and the games themselves and begin with the question: "Is there sexism in video games?"

Yes. Yes there is. But like any reasonable person can point out, there's sexism everywhere. Sex (ism) sells because there's a wide swath of industries that panders to one half of the gene pool over the others. Ever see men represented in maternity ads? No. Because that market is made up of women and some transgendered people.

How about something more specific like... romance anything. That's because they pander to women who are the main share of the market. That's sexist, but is it an issue? You decide.

In video games, the demographic is mainly male for most big named titles. Some compaines make games that pander to their vast majority male demo. Most women don't seem to have an issue with that. Many prefer it because who doesn't like looking at visually pleasing character models?

Where the true issue lies is in the people who play the game itself. I refer to them as the verbal minority. They're the people who say nasty shit to someone just because they're a hormonal pubescent who isn't taught proper manners. In this case, the problem is not with the game itself, but with the people who have free access to games.

That's where the true problem arises, and is coincidentally why a REPORT and MUTE button actually exists. Harassment is never okay and everyone should acknowledge that. But for the imaginary problem people see in a fictional narrative? No, there's a wide variety of fiction in video games and just because a story doesn't pander to your sensibilities, doesn't mean it's sexist or racist or transphobic or homophobic or humanphobic. Video games aren't raising an army of misogynistic fuckboys, bad or non-existient parenting is. Games generally provide an uplifting message when it comes to females, and with plenty of non-shoehorned female protagonists you can find without a magnifying glass, I'd say most games do a swell job at being diverse even if there's always room for improvement.


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## vayanui8 (Nov 5, 2015)

I really don't see why it even matters. Its just a game. Its entertainment and its all for fun. Rather than flipping our shit over the arrangement of some pixels why can't we just enjoy the games and focus on the actual quality of the product rather than wasting our time getting offended. Some people are bound to like these types of designs and others will inevitably dislike them. What somebody enjoys is their business and I see no reason in complaining that a product is being designed for a different audience. If you don't care for a product, don't buy it. If enough people agree with you then it will simply be discontinued. However, chances are lots of other people do enjoy the product as it is and thats their right. Rather than complaining about it, why not let those people enjoy their product and find one more suited for your tastes. if it doesn't exist, why not try finding a way to create it. Chances are there are other people looking for something similar to what you want. It just seems like such a waste of time to me to get all bent out of shape over something so stupid when you could just enjoy the games.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Nov 5, 2015)

I think the problem most girls see is in multiplayer games where the only choice for their avatars are super sexualized females or unrealistically proportioned males, and the harassment that ensues from choosing either (either "why are you pretending to be a guy bitch" or "those boobs would be good for taking my sword, if you know what I mean ")


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## vayanui8 (Nov 5, 2015)

The multiplayer behavior isn't the games problem though, its the people playing. Pretty much everyone I know doesn't give a shit if the other player is a male or female, they just play the game. Dipshits are everywhere, you just have to deal with them.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Nov 5, 2015)

vayanui8 said:


> The multiplayer behavior isn't the games problem though, its the people playing. Pretty much everyone I know doesn't give a shit if the other player is a male or female, they just play the game. Dipshits are everywhere, you just have to deal with them.


I would agree with you, but female gamers _are _definitely on the rise and game devs continue to model their female characters in more and more unrealistic ways to attract male gamers, which can be both off-putting to the female demographic they're ignoring and mildly dangerous to people (both male and female) who think that those body types are "ideal."


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## Vipera (Nov 5, 2015)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> I would agree with you, but female gamers _are _definitely on the rise and game devs continue to model their female characters in more and more unrealistic ways to attract male gamers, which can be both off-putting to the female demographic they're ignoring and mildly dangerous to people (both male and female) who think that those body types are "ideal."


Got any examples? Because I grew up thinking that the coolest bounty hunter was Samus Aran.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Nov 5, 2015)

Most MMORPGs. LoL and Starcraft come to mind


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## Blaze163 (Nov 5, 2015)

For every 'sexist' character played for sex appeal there's an equal number of strong female role models in gaming. Feminists just cherry pick shit because in the internet age you have to be the loudest and most obnoxious to get senpai to notice you. Actually presenting a coherent debate backed up by properly researched facts and stats is entirely optional. So long as you're loud and sensational, your Patreon gets fed and you can make a pretty decent living by just complaining. But because it's the latest fad, everyone latches onto it. Give it time and feminists will eventually shut up when we all get bored and stop donating to their PayPal Tips Jar.

And for all the feminists out there who think there are no strong non-sexual female role models, here's a short list.

- Blaze Fielding from Streets of Rage. A character so in control that the game clones her as a boss at least 4 times.
- Elena Fisher from Uncharted
- Samus, obviously
- All the female gym leaders in literally all Pokemon games.
- More or less all the female characters in most RPGs.
- Any female unit in any Fire Emblem game.
- Literally any female whatsoever in Monster Hunter.

I could go on but I'm already bored.


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## LunaWofl (Nov 5, 2015)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> I would agree with you, but female gamers _are _definitely on the rise and game devs continue to model their female characters in more and more unrealistic ways to attract male gamers, which can be both off-putting to the female demographic they're ignoring and mildly dangerous to people (both male and female) who think that those body types are "ideal."


Curious thoughts, and you believe the muscular male characters with unrealistic proportions (well I suppose they could have muscle like tumors growing) are any better? Perhaps tangential, but on dating sites you find that statistics are skewed to women having unrealistic expectations of attractiveness, with 80% of men being marked as below average, curious no?


> Paradoxically, it seems it’s women, not men, who have unrealistic standards for the “average” member of the opposite sex.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Nov 5, 2015)

FrozenIndignatio said:


> Curious thoughts, and you believe the muscular male characters with unrealistic proportions (well I suppose they could have muscle like tumors growing). Perhaps tangential, but on dating sites you find that statistics are skewed to women having unrealistic expectations of attractiveness, with 80% of men being marked as below average, curious no?


What do you think contributes to that?


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## DarkCoffe64 (Nov 5, 2015)

Girls play videogames? 

Nah, just kidding. I know that, out there, exist female gamers, but I never saw one. Rare creatures they are.
But, yeah, talking about the topic, I think marketing is still going with the mentality that there exist only male games.
Not as much as years ago, tho. I do sometimes see some ads for gaming with girls (mostly 'bout "girly" games like Animal Crossing),
but the majority is still all focused on a male demographic. Not that I care much, if you like videogames, no matter what sex you are,
you just play them. Who cares about ads? I want the games!

And this post probably adds nothing to the on-going discussion. Sorry for wasting time and... Server space or what?


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## LunaWofl (Nov 5, 2015)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> What do you think contributes to that?


Who knows =q=
Entitlement
Mate value being associated with biological limitations
Unrealistic expectations
Larger interaction pool from males to females
Psychological differences
Brain differences
Society
Upbringing
Influx of single mothers

Considering that correlation does not equate to causation, I think answering that with any absolute certainty would be tricky.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Nov 5, 2015)

DarkCoffe64 said:


> Girls play videogames?
> 
> Nah, just kidding. I know that, out there, exist female gamers, but I never saw one. Rare creatures they are.
> But, yeah, talking about the topic, I think marketing is still going with the mentality that there exist only male games.
> ...


No, please, all comments are welcome, it's an open debate 


FrozenIndignatio said:


> Who knows =q=
> Entitlement
> Mate value being associated with biological limitations
> Unrealistic expectations
> ...


Fair enough


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## Hungry Friend (Nov 5, 2015)

As far as body image goes in games and every other entertainment medium today, male body image is just as warped and unrealistic as the "ideal"(most marketable) female image. Seems like every single fruity looking actor these days takes asstons of steroids to the point of looking like a bunch of goofy, blown up cartoon characters which is just as silly and unrealistic as female stick figures with gargantuan fake tits. I like a little meat on the bone myself  Basically fuck madison avenue and don't let their advertising nonsense make you feel bad about your own appearance. Instead of getting offended, why don't we make fun of how fucking dumb the entire entertainment industry is?

This post may be a little incoherent because I'm really tired but I'm sure you all get the gist.


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## Sterling (Nov 5, 2015)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> I would agree with you, but female gamers _are _definitely on the rise and game devs continue to model their female characters in more and more unrealistic ways to attract male gamers, which can be both off-putting to the female demographic they're ignoring and mildly dangerous to people (both male and female) who think that those body types are "ideal."


Keep in mind that you can't stop players from doing what they want within the game's boundaries. Games are for fantasy, not for realism. Most people don't want to look at an average avatar, they want it to be a fanatastic representation of themselves. The average person full well knows that their avatar is idealized because the average person can separate fact and fiction.

The people who can't will be trouble no matter what the medium. You can't change that, and it's not a developer's nor marketer's responsibility to account for that kind of person.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Nov 7, 2015)

Ok, this thread's gonna get closed now. Tomorrow's debate will be on the Confederate flag.


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