On Wednesday I posted "Proof that internet feminists have no chance against sexism in gaming". You would guess that those who argue in the comment section are internet feminists claiming they have a chance against sexism in gaming.
But no, I had to argue with sexists who claimed that sexism in gaming doesn't exist and wearing lingerie as armor is fine. It's not. Feminists are completely right that this has the message that female power comes from being appealing to men instead of from being competent in the job they are in (slaying monsters in a monster slaying game). Feminists are completely right that men are treated very differently from women, male outfits, poses, animations and camera zooms are about competence and not sex appeal. Can you imagine the camera zooming to the shaking butt of a male character which is half-covered in skin-tight leather?! Finally feminists are completely right that women should have equal opportunities as men in everything, including gaming.
On the other hand I believe feminists and SJWs in general are completely wrong in their methods of reaching this. The post was another evidence to prove that while sexists are ready to put their money where their mouth is and buy sexist outfits for their characters, feminists and SJWs in general are offering nothing but drama and headache to game developers. They never even offered that anything good can come out of following their advises, they merely state that they will make you miserable if you don't follow their teachings. This is simple blackmail and when some dev bows to it, the gaming community is rightfully outraged over the coward.
None of the feminists ever tried to form gaming clubs or multi-gaming guilds for those who want equality. They never offered "make a game we like and we'll play your game and pay for it", despite having audiences that I can't even dream of. They never tried to prove the sexists that they are wrong despite competitive gaming offers very easy way to it: pwn them. I'm sure that even the most obnoxious misogynist would think again after losing a fair game to a woman. I tried, with my very limited resources and with pretty good results: my no-offtopic chat guild got above-average raiding results and my totally random raiding results were top 1% (there cannot be sexist chat when nobody chats anything outside game-technical things).
I believe feminists are part of the problem as they are a perfect straw-women for sexist: they are a bunch of entitled harpies giving a tantrum over things not going their way while doing absolutely nothing to change that. If those who cheer Anita Sarkeesian whenever she gives a speech about her horrible tribulations would buy a game and play it together, they would achieve more than Ms Sarkeesian could ever dream of (unless what she dreams of is fame).
PS: In BDO they designed tanking armor for the Valkyrie class. I mean real tanking armor. The only problem is that they forgot the "boob jiggle" animation. When your character stops turning, everything - except her boobs - stop instantly like they have no inertia. But the boobs swing left and right for a long time even after tiny moves. Now, the breast region of a full plate armor obviously can't move independently from the rest of the armor. Except when devs fail hard. Thanks reddit, I would have paid $30 for it just out of principle!
PS2: I keep just playing and exploring the World, still thinking about a project. I got my camel and the default armor is somewhat revealing, but not immergion-breakingly stripper-looking:
But no, I had to argue with sexists who claimed that sexism in gaming doesn't exist and wearing lingerie as armor is fine. It's not. Feminists are completely right that this has the message that female power comes from being appealing to men instead of from being competent in the job they are in (slaying monsters in a monster slaying game). Feminists are completely right that men are treated very differently from women, male outfits, poses, animations and camera zooms are about competence and not sex appeal. Can you imagine the camera zooming to the shaking butt of a male character which is half-covered in skin-tight leather?! Finally feminists are completely right that women should have equal opportunities as men in everything, including gaming.
On the other hand I believe feminists and SJWs in general are completely wrong in their methods of reaching this. The post was another evidence to prove that while sexists are ready to put their money where their mouth is and buy sexist outfits for their characters, feminists and SJWs in general are offering nothing but drama and headache to game developers. They never even offered that anything good can come out of following their advises, they merely state that they will make you miserable if you don't follow their teachings. This is simple blackmail and when some dev bows to it, the gaming community is rightfully outraged over the coward.
None of the feminists ever tried to form gaming clubs or multi-gaming guilds for those who want equality. They never offered "make a game we like and we'll play your game and pay for it", despite having audiences that I can't even dream of. They never tried to prove the sexists that they are wrong despite competitive gaming offers very easy way to it: pwn them. I'm sure that even the most obnoxious misogynist would think again after losing a fair game to a woman. I tried, with my very limited resources and with pretty good results: my no-offtopic chat guild got above-average raiding results and my totally random raiding results were top 1% (there cannot be sexist chat when nobody chats anything outside game-technical things).
I believe feminists are part of the problem as they are a perfect straw-women for sexist: they are a bunch of entitled harpies giving a tantrum over things not going their way while doing absolutely nothing to change that. If those who cheer Anita Sarkeesian whenever she gives a speech about her horrible tribulations would buy a game and play it together, they would achieve more than Ms Sarkeesian could ever dream of (unless what she dreams of is fame).
PS: In BDO they designed tanking armor for the Valkyrie class. I mean real tanking armor. The only problem is that they forgot the "boob jiggle" animation. When your character stops turning, everything - except her boobs - stop instantly like they have no inertia. But the boobs swing left and right for a long time even after tiny moves. Now, the breast region of a full plate armor obviously can't move independently from the rest of the armor. Except when devs fail hard. Thanks reddit, I would have paid $30 for it just out of principle!
PS2: I keep just playing and exploring the World, still thinking about a project. I got my camel and the default armor is somewhat revealing, but not immergion-breakingly stripper-looking:
40 comments:
Well my first reaction to this post gevlon was resentment that your dismissing my points as hey just a sexist poster, but intellectual honesty requires me to go away and think about it as you might be right. I've gone away and thought about it and I still think your wrong that sexy outfits are only bought by the boys to leer out. A kind of internet porn if you will. I don't think thats the case at all. I will offer 2 examples if I may the first is my main in swtor: http://imgur.com/a/0rwCG the 2nd is my girlfriends fav toon http://imgur.com/a/6VCL8
Note they are both jug warriors, so think darth vader/obi wan types who charge at you and melee. Its not just a male thing to have an attractive avatar. Just because you don't value it you must see that other men do and my point is that so do other WOMEN. The same way in eve online people pay alot of isk and also real live cash in the form of AUR for pretty ship skins. Why? a rokh does exactly the same performance regardless of what color it is! Answer because people like to look at nice things and to have nice things.
I think, I honestly do, that you and the feminists are confusing misogyny with social aspiration.
I already know you won't post this (just found out there's a 4096 character limit), but it's worth writing in the off chance you may actually read all of it.
Time to tear apart more strawmen. First, we must define sexism and feminism. Wiktionary says:
Sexism:
>1. The belief that people of one sex or gender are inherently superior to people of the other sex or gender.
>2. Different treatment or discrimination based on a difference of sex or gender.
Feminism (1 is archaic):
>2. A social theory or political movement which argues that legal and social restrictions on women must be removed in order to bring about equality of both sexes in all aspects of public and private life.
Now for the text:
>I had to argue with sexists
Per 1, no one made the claim "one sex is inherently superior to the other." Per 2, it's a given that men and women are treated differently... because men and women aren't the same! Men have bigger muscles and better spatial awareness; women have greater pain tolerance, multitasking ability, and emotional intelligence. Which one is "superior?" It depends on the task. More on this later.
>who claimed that sexism in gaming doesn't exist
Besides you either ignoring or being completely oblivious to the fact that female characters and roles have been increasingly more masculine and equal for many years now, "sexism in gaming" cannot exist because everyone is free to play whatever game they want, in whichever way they want. That is what equality means. The problem with dumblr and "radical feminism" is that what they want isn't equality, they want inequality through female supremacy. Trying to dictate what developers put into their game is the opposite of equality.
>wearing lingerie as armor is fine.
No one made the claim "wearing lingerie as armor is fine."
Again, you ignore the facts that BDO is an asian game in which this kind of thing IS fine, and that there are near-naked options for both genders (and were-creatures.) In fact, in almost any game today you can get "lingerie armor" for both genders by simply taking their clothes off. All that aside, in a fantasy game, anything can exist for any reason and any purpose. "I don't like lingerie armor because it doesn't make sense / I hate women / it offends me" is not the same as "lingerie armor is sexist." A game is incapable of discrimination. It can only be an act from one person towards another. No one is forced to play BDO or buy optional stripper armor. "I don't want males to play games in which females wear underwear (god forbid)" IS discrimination. Sexist discrimination, at that.
>this has the message
Messages aren't inherent to an object, they are values inscribed by individuals. Femininsts may see lingerie armor and think "the devs are telling people that female power comes from being appealing to men instead of from being competent in the job they are in." Other females may see "a safe space to express my sexuality." Don't forget, many places in real life would stone a woman for even thinking about wearing lingerie at all. (Yes, hating lingerie armor and accusing males of sexism is actually an attack against women.) Normal people would simply roll their eyes and ignore it, or see "just another cash grab" and pass no value judgements about other people. If some really like the game despite having lingerie armor, they could make "no sexism" communities and impose whatever rules on its members they want. That is what equality allows people to do.
At first, your avatars aren't sexist at all. Compare them to the lingerie armor from the previous post.
Social aspiration is obvious, but irrelevant. Just because socials want to fit in and follow ANY herd they see around themselves, it doesn't mean we should blanket consider EVERYTHING OK. It's like "dude isn't a terrorist, he just blew up a dozen people because all his friends are in the IS and wanted to fit in". Sure, one can, and SHOULD say "I don't follow the herd", but that only makes his personal life better. If you want to make difference in the World, you must try to somehow influence the herd. So even if large amount of sexist armor buyers do it for no other reason than Rokh skin buyers do: "mah freinds haz them too lol", it doesn't make it stupid - and the case of lingerie armor: more harmful. The "haz pretty Rokh" is harmful too as it translates to "must have cool car instead of just one that is safe and comfortable".
The lingerie armor is further indoctrinating socials into sexism which means:
- a woman must work on her sex appeal instead of her professional skills, resulting a bunch of women who consider ALL OF herself a failure just because she failed to have a bikini bridge.
- a man must be work on how rich and powerful he looks to be an "alpha" and consider ALL OF himself a failure just because he doesn't have 2 Ferraris and a dozen minions to humiliate.
Sexist people (men and women alike) are likely live alone and hate their lives, as it's objectively impossible for most people to be extraordinarily beautiful or rich/powerful. The solution would be teaching them that their professional skills matter to earn enough for their pasttimes and their pasttime preferences should matter in dating (if you are a gamer nerd, pick a gamer nerd, if you like surfing, pick another surfer)
"They never tried to prove the sexists that they are wrong despite competitive gaming offers very easy way to it: pwn them. I'm sure that even the most obnoxious misogynist would think again after losing a fair game to a woman. "
You are very wrong, many women are involved in raiding, one of the top CS teams was/is female, this has not done anything to stop misogynists being obnoxious.
Does losing a fair game to a black person make an obnoxious white supremacist think again?
When women occupy top positions in business or politics, this should stop obnoxious misogynists making comments on them, right?
The problem why there aren't any feminists trying to fix these problems productively is because few of them are even gamers. Feminism, as in 3rd wave feminism, is dominated by a rather small but vocal group of women who seem to either just hate men, are M&S that want freebies or desire fame/money.
Consider for example Anita Sarkeesian. She tries very hard to be viewed as a gamer, for obvious reasons, yet the footage used in her Feminist Frequency series has been taken from lesser known Let's Players. Of course without attribution. With some $160,000 of donations, money for equipment, games themselves can't have been the issue. So I can only conclude that she, for whatever reason, doesn't play video games.
There are of course still lots of women that are deterred from playing games. A good indicator of that are mobile games, where often the female player base is significantly larger than the male one. But they seem to vote with their feet, not playing the games at all, instead of telling devs to make non-sexist games.
@Anonymous who wrote the War and Peace:
Men ON AVERAGE have bigger muscles and better spatial awareness; women ON AVERAGE have greater pain tolerance, multitasking ability, and emotional intelligence. This is true and completely irrelevant as you never meet with "the average man". You meet with a particular and unique person and must judge him/her by his/her abilities. Sexism says that you can skip that and judge based on the averages. It IS true that the average man swims faster than an average woman. By the sexist logic, if you need someone who swim fast, you should prefer a random guy over Katie Ledecky.
Sexism in gaming exists BECAUSE everyone is free to play whatever game they want. This was the point of the previous post. People are sexist, so the games they support with their money will be sexist too and internet feminists can't change that with TedX rants.
Lingerie armor is sexist because it places sex appeal over armor function. This is what sexism is about: focusing on sex in inappropriate situations and judge people based on their sex appeal where they should be judged by performance.
Video games are NOT proper places for "a safe space to express my sexuality." Video games are about testing your skill against a pixellated opponent (AI or opposing player). They are kind of sports, that's why many games are called e-sports.
"Males AND females can be seductive. Why WOULDN'T they use that to their advantage?" of course they should. If you can get something just for shaking your private parts, the more power to you. The sexism comes when women are encouraged to be or generally described as seduce-users when males are not. The lingerie armor is always on females, never on males. I demand equal opportunity for being a psychopath who exploits people with their sex appeal!
I never bring up glass ceiling. However "women aren't interested in those types of jobs" is a problem to be solved and not an explanation to be accepted. I don't think baby girls born with a natural hate towards high-paying jobs. They are just taught that "it's not for them" or simply waste too much time front of the mirror and get behind the men who spend it studying.
I'm sorry, I never experienced being a sex object. Nor I ever seen men around me treated as one. I often see women treated as sex objects.
I'm fully aware that females don't buy games and this is why I WROTE THAT FEMINISTS HAVE NO CHANCE TO CHANGE GAMES. I'm not a feminist and consider feminists part of the problem.
@Next anon: SOME women raiding somewhere won't change Joe's mind. Joe himself must be defeated by a woman to have an effect.
@Hanura: quite right and that's what I'm telling. Not preachers, paying players would be needed. Without them, the games will always be "boys club".
could you please clarify something for me:
is your issue the lack of choice between porno armor and chain mail or the presence of skimpy stuff in itself?
which of the following gui options would you argue is preferable:
1) you can influence how your avatar looks (armor design, jiggle-factor, make up, etc) and this is then enforced on the other players. [they see what you want to look like]
2) you can change the full design style of the game (influencing the look of armor, etc) but only on your client. [everyone sees the world that he wants to see]
1 is the normal way of cash shop items while 2 is more like modding a game.
this also ties in with the french case this week and their prohibition on burkini at beaches (france thus went with forcing others in the presence of them having a choice, which imo is the most retarded and least liberal way).
@Riful: 2 would definitely fit me better, but I don't really see it implemented as it would decrease the cash shop value of items. No one buys lingerie armor if he can't show it off.
First of all, games are a place to explore whatever the hell. They are not just for competition. There are some pretty genius sexuality-exploring games out there, and the world is better for that.
In fact, regarding competition and sexuality, a very odd formula has been found in adult games where you actually need to lose to see XXX scenes. You get access to more scenes if you don't lose, but you don't actually see them until you do lose. Works pretty well for motivation, especially in story-driven games.
Either way, i simply don't get the point of the whole "sexist" discussion. Who exactly is getting harmed by a skimpy dress avatar that someone else's pixel representative is wearing?
As we have already learned over the series of many previous posts, actual story immersion is no longer the goal of modern MMORPGs. If immersion is no longer the goal, who cares about any sort of immersion-breaking?
@Gevlon
I agree that reducing the ability to show off the sexy armor would reduce the cash shop value of items. However, i'd like to point out that people do enjoy playing avatars with lingerie armor (or any other visual customisation) as much as they enjoy showing them off. Plenty of even single player games out there getting paid through visual customisation options (f/ex crossy road).
Also, there is always an option to show off on a game stream.
@maxim: if story immersion is no goal, why does the story and the scenery exist at the first place. The game world could be replaced by a few rooms where the players can "grind mobz 4 lewt". There is a huge effort spent to create a believable game world, just to be instantly broken. It makes no sense.
By sexism, the socials get harmed. As they are mere products of their environment, they learn that a woman must be sexually appealing instead of productive to be successful, while men learn that such women are prizes to compete for. As a result the majority of the socials (not pretty women and not rich men) will consider themselves failures and respond with actions harmful to the society ranging from sitting in their room on welfare to joining IS for slave girls.
Of course you can say "screw socials", but as they are the majority, their quality of life and GDP generation will affect you. A society where women have the same GDP generation potential as man has higher GDP. A society where women don't consider it a fail to be not-super-sexy while men don't consider it a fail to be with non-super-sexy women is a happy and peaceful society.
@Gevlon Have you checked Crowfall approach to this?
@Gevlon
If story immersion was a goal, then there wouldn't be such deliberate story-breaking elements.
The way the story usually goes is that a system started with immersion being the goal, built up all the story and pretty graphics and then got overtaken by people to whom immersion is secondary to cash shop. The cash shop people then simply continue to support the same artists that provided them with the cash cow until the said cash cow dies, with no real consideration of how much immersion said artists are actually able to make.
So we are once again in the "damage is already done with introduction of cash shop" scenario.
The "products of their environment" argument is lost on me.
I am a humanist and believe every human being being a product only of their own free choices.
And if i were to accept the "products of their environemnt" premise, then i'd have to point out that i have seen a lot more objectification from people who stayed for a long time in prudish environment than from those actually exposed to adult material.
@Anon: as Crowfall is not published yet, I don't check on it.
@Maxim: "every human being a product only of their own free choices." is scientifically proven to be wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
You once again mix sexuality and sexism. It's a language thing since "sex" means both "making love" and "being a male or female". Sexism refers to the second, it means that people should be behaving differently based on their genitals in situations where genitals are not used. "Women should be in the kitchen" sends people with vagina to the kitchen, despite no work is done there with vagina. This is why feminists use the term "gender", but it's artificial so I avoid it.
@Gevlon 2a:
This is the most important part, so pay attention.
>Sexism in gaming exists BECAUSE everyone is free to play whatever game they want.
You have understood exactly zero of anything I've explained to you. A game cannot discriminate. A game can't do anything without a player starting it up and interacting with it, and until games can see through the screen and determine the gender of the person controlling the avatar, a game cannot be sexist. Guns don't kill people. At BEST, you could say "this particular person on this particular team who worked on this particular game decided to add a particular thing to it specifically to prevent a certain type of person from making a purchase..." and then you'd get laughed right out of the courthouse. That's the same as saying Tesla is discriminating by making expensive cars instead of cheap cars anyone can buy. Outside of very specific circumstances (like bribery), the opinions of a person behind a product has nothing to do with the product itself, and in a free world, sexist devs can do whatever they want and the people will be the judge. If you don't like the people's judgement, that's not the dev's fault.
The reason why people like you are taking arms against videogames is because you're entering another world and can't separate fiction from reality. Let's say female BDO characters only had lingerie armor and nothing else. If BDO were a real place on Earth, and all females were forced to wear lingerie at all times, every humane and civilized country on the planet would clearly be against it. But you don't get to dictate how other cultures function unless you go to war, take over the lands, kill everyone in charge, and force your own laws on the people. Which is awfully similar to how sjw feminists act against people they don't like.
Now, in this real life BDO, if you were to move to BDO country and saw that you had to wear lingerie or be deported, what makes you think you can demand the laws be changed for yourself? By moving to BDO country, you have signed the social contract dictating your obedience to their laws. Your options are to follow the law, go through their democratic process if they have one (write a letter to the devs), start a grassroots movement (build followers, design your own armors and submit them to the devs on the promise that your following would pay for it), or leave.
Even in this example, it's not the literal ground of BDO country that's performing sexual discrimination.
I'm pretty certain there is an option to completely switch off the boob physics. I thing it's something like unchecking the 'character physics' box, I don't remember. While I was playing my sorceress' boobs were very non-gelatinous.
@Gevlon 2b:
>Lingerie armor is sexist because it places sex appeal over armor function. This is what sexism is about: focusing on sex in inappropriate situations and judge people based on their sex appeal where they should be judged by performance.
Are you starting to see what the problem is? You're using the single word "sexist" and giving it 50 different definitions, then sticking it behind every individual idea you find issue with to push an agenda. It's the equivalent of the Hitler argument. "Hitler was a bad guy, nobody want to be caught saying they agree with him, so if I stick Hitler everywhere they'll be unable to say anything that opposes me."
And then I showed up.
There are four distinct issues in your quote. "Placing sex appeal over armor function." "Focusing on sex in inappropriate situations." "Judging people based on sex appeal." And "judging by non-performance metrics in performance-based scenarios."
Now that I've put things in a form that makes sense, and as we both agree that sexism is about gender differences, we can now clearly see that sexism has nothing to do with any of this! NOW there can be an earnest debate about concrete and clearly-defined ideas. I prefer tanks that look like tanks. There is a time and place for sex. Sex shouldn't be the coin that determines a person's value. Performance should be highly valued. The extent of these things can be debated, but generally we're on the same side. No "sexism" here, sir. I'd imagine all of your commenters can agree on these points. Just screaming "sexist" over and over doesn't get anyone anywhere.
Maybe now you can start to understand why objects cannot be sexist.
I'll keep the rest super short: video games can be anything and sex games have been around for decades, e-sports are retarded, women are encouraged to be sexy because men are seen as the ones in power and many feminists find pro-female sexuality to be empowering, sexy male armor is out there and you aren't looking hard enough and don't know what women find sexy, women not liking masculine things is NOT a problem and your comment about babies is much more accurate than you think, I already said females are 48% of the entire gaming population and therefore buy 48% of games, "socials are mere products of their environment" shows an A S T O U N D I N G lack of education about sociology and biology, and your sterile sexless society would be a global catastrophe.
@Gevlon
Asch experiments only show that society does influence people to an extent. Going from that to calling people a "mere product of their envirnoment" is a pretty big leap of logic. And it certainly doesn't prove that seeing skimpy outfits in games necessarily incentifies someone to objectify women. That's the argument on the level of "violent games lead to killers".
That's all without getting inside the nitty-gritty of the experiment itself. If we were to get into that, we'd quickly find that the way the experiment is set up presupposes it's own conclusions and therefore is tainted to begin with.
The "sex" vs "sexism" thing is actually interesting.
First off, as far as i'm concerned, it really is impossible to separate gender from sexuality. To the point where people will change their genders (whether we are talking about gender identities or actual sex change operations) if those don't fit their sexuality.
Well, if i were to entertain the "just sexism" approach, then i'd like to point out that the apparent sexism of games is a product of how very limited the game options are in terms of representing oneself as male or female. What's a girl to do in a world where the only means of expression is obliterating and looting everything in sight?
Or is the very notion of wanting to perform one's gender identity sexist? Now wouldn't that be fun :D
Finally, your notion of "stay in the kitchen" is weird. Nobody is forcing anyone to wear skimpy outfits in games, so i don't see how that is relevant.
@Maxim: Asch experiment is an extreme form of social influence as completely random people influence the subject to do something obviously wrong. Social pressure usually comes from people you know and strongly related (friends, family, coworkers) and try to influence you in uncertain things (fashion, morality of actions). Do you think that someone who is ready to claim "long is short" just to please total strangers will ever resist his parents on pro-life/pro-choice?
Violent games lead to killers will be a post.
YES, I do think that "wanting to perform one's gender identity sexist" and always looked gender changers as idiots. If they want to get laid by men, they should just be gay instead of getting long and expensive surgery.
The characters are forced to wear skimpy outfits in games.
@Gevlon: no, they do not want to get laid by men, they wanted to be treated like women by the society. Which is basically sexist, because men and women should be treated equally, apart from cases related to biology, most of which are related to reproduction, which is not an option for transgenders anyway.
For some reason, this kind of sexism is allowed and I think I know the reason, but it does need discussing here right now. Anyway, I'm fine with it, since it's definitely not a first world's problem.
@Tolstoy anon: you are so wrong in many points, actually almost in every single one of them, I'll start with the most gaping hole: your reference to babies' development. You referenced a scientific article which I cannot read because I'm supposed to pay for it, which I am definitely not going to do just to prove someone on the internet wrong. Yet, in the synopsis of the article I clearly read: "Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed with regard to biological predispositions, cognitive development and environmental influences on toy preference."
They are probably real scientists, they don't do baseless claims just as they like. They admit that the difference between boys and girls might come as well from "cognitive development and environmental influences". This is only one research, but in the larger view there's no common conclusion on this matter currently. Any sane person would understand that an article that claims that boys' and girls' toy preferences MIGHT come from biological differences, is not a proof of ANYTHING. But hey, a scientist wrote it, so he must be right that preferences SURELY come from biological difference. Right? Right?
My personal completely nonscientific observation: a young girl had no option to go to a kindergarten in her early years, was raised by her non-sexist parents and demonstrated absolutely equal interest towards cars, robots, lego blocks, teddy bears and toy princesses. When she finally went to a kindergarten, she INSTANTLY (in a week) became a big fan of princesses, pink color, toy cutlery. Was it some magic? When I just entered the kindergarten and took a look on how nannies treat kids there, everything became super clear to me. I didn't hear A SINGLE WORD from them which was not straightforward sexism! "Hey you, you shouldn't do that, you're a boy!", "come here, girls, you need to be good girls, so you must", etc., etc. - I had a strong impression that the only thing nannies actually did there was teaching kids to be proper boys and proper girls - that is, to indoctrinate gender differences into them.
And then some anonymous shows up and tries to convince everyone "it's all biology, folks". Sorry, not going to happen.
Unfortunately, seems I too need to write part two.
Part two.
1. "If you don't like the people's judgement"
Gevlon is one of the people who judge. Even if anonymous thinks that the only proper way to judge is to pay or to leave, Gevlon doesn't have to obey. You'll have to somehow deal with it. Also, "judging only by wallet" has flaws. E.g. if some country allows open selling of narcotic substances, people will gladly buy them and eventually die. Yes, people enjoy sexism, and it's harmful for the society in a way they don't see. The difference is that in games there are yet other ways to influence the situation other than governmental intervention.
2. "By moving to BDO country, you have signed the social contract dictating your obedience to their laws."
No, the only thing he did is signed EULA, and I believe there was nothing about not expressing his opinions on ingame sexism.
3. "sex games have been around"
So what? If someone wants to stimulate their imagination to masturbate, these games are totally proper for them. If someone wants to kill a dragon in a raid, seeing prostitute outfits around him is improper. Yes, I'm aware that in modern MMOs it's surely possible to do spell rotation with one hand while masturbating with the other, but please don't tell me this is the way people are supposed to play.
4. "sexy male armor is out there"
And most of it is non-revealing. On the other hand, ALL female armor in BDO is revealing, and what makes it worse, doesn't look like cocktail dresses (which actually are perfect in attracting males, and could be decent armors for sorceresses types), but as prostitute outfits instead. Barbarian male armor might be revealing, but that bears different cultural message.
5. "Maybe now you can start to understand why objects cannot be sexist."
Sure they can't. But Gevlon mostly uses the line "there is sexism in the game", saying nothing like "game is sexist", and sometimes he uses the line "armors are sexist" which is wrong, but could be easily read as "armors are sexually objectificative". The latter is long to type, so there's a reason to replace it for brevity.
6. "your sterile sexless society would be a global catastrophe"
Random baseless claim. To reproduce, a woman does not need to be "a proper woman" loving pink color and kitchen work. She needs a vagina and an uterus. To be attracted by a woman colleague, a man does not need to see her in lingerie while at work, in a theater or at a picnic. Apart from displaying common human merits, she can express her sexuality in tons of other non-intrusive ways, even in contexts such expressing is not expected.
People will not die out because of lack of lingeries. It's not dictated by biology, our ancestors somehow managed to survive without them.
@Antze: the toy preference is biological. Even 1-2 days old newborns have it, baby girls are more interested in human faces and baby boys in dangling little toys. These are natural things to make girls grow up to be good mothers and boys to good hunters. The solution is realizing that we are no longer cavemen, men don't spend their time hunting mammoth and women are spending only fraction of their time nurturing children. Sexism IS natural, just like body smell, violence and urinating in public places.
about 4: "Barbarian male armor might be revealing, but that bears different cultural message." is circular "sexist message is bad because it's bad cultural message". The real difference between male barbarian and lingerie is that "revealing" doesn't mean "sexually appealing." These female dresses are revealing, still not sexually appealing, but practical: http://img.bleacherreport.net/img/slides/photos/002/501/641/hi-res-6468430_crop_north.jpg?w=630&h=420&q=75
Otherwise, fully agree.
@Antze: look up a video series called "Hjernevask". Watch it. Then stop spouting nonsense.
"toy preference is biological"
Parts of it, surely are biological. That referenced scientific article is also not something I'm going to throw back, it just doesn't prove that all of these differences comes from biology. I might even believe that "most" comes (maybe if I read the article), but for now I stick with "some", because of the personal experiences that I mentioned.
I must also clarify, I never stated that sexism was always harmful for the society. In earlier days, it was quite effective in organizing the sex roles. The point is that it is harmful for the modern urban society.
"They never tried to prove the sexists that they are wrong despite competitive gaming offers very easy way to it: pwn them. I'm sure that even the most obnoxious misogynist would think again after losing a fair game to a woman."
Instead of trying to justify the loss irrationally in long-standing gaming tradition, using luck/"broken game"/"hacks"/whatever as an excuse rather than admitting that they were simply better at the game?
Have the years taught you nothing?
@Gevlon
Rhethorical questions are not a substitute for logic. Especially when examining the validity of a scientific experiment.
You will be surprised how many people out there are perfectly okay with little white lies to strangers but fight to the bitter end against any attempts to infringe upon their worldview even against people close to them.
Looking forward to your treatise on how violent games produce killers :D. I expect the comments on that one to be even more delicious than here.
I also consider all forms of actual physical gender-bending a stupid thing to do. Always seemed to me like an attempt to blame other people on a person's own inability to advance. However, this doesn't change anything in terms of sexuality being more important than physicality. If a person really can't find any smart way to work out his or her sexual issues, then the stupid ways inevitably get used.
"The characters are forced to wear skimpy outfits in games" may be true in some games, but not in BDO, which happens to be our primary working example here.
(I assume by "characters are not being forced" we mean "not being forced by anyone other than the player controlling them". Because an avatar-player relationship is a whole other can of worms entirely)
@Antze
The big issue with most "groups define people" proponents is that they completely exclude all human agency from their analysis. If we go into "completely nonscientific observations", then regarding specific "kindergardens influence girls" thing: in my experience, it is incredibly hard to force kindergarden kids to spend any sort of time on stuff they are not genuinely interested in. Especially outside of class.
Girls that don't really want to have anything to do with dolls usually just don't. Most girls are genuinely interested.
On point (3):
Both you and Gevlon keep falling in the trap of thinking how people are "supposed to play". There is no "supposed to play", there is only how they actually play, whether you like it or not.
On point (6):
That rather depends on what you consider a "catastrophe". If nothing short of human species dying out is a catastrophe, then i guess you'd be right.
As someone who has actually lived through a period of natural birth rates being lower than natural death rates in my country (through no fault of wars and the like), i can wholeheartedly say that the outcome is very much catastrophic. Even if the catastrophe in question is protracted in time and is not immediately flashy.
As for the "a woman doesn't need to be womanly to have kids", this is indeed true. And it is also true that i don't have statistics that outright prove that women not behaving in a traditional way have less kids. It has, however, been my personal experience that this is indeed so. Simply because women who are very modern have less time for kids, to the point of some of them adopting a "child-free" stance.
And this is not even touching on the question of social adaptation of people, who didn't have the luxury of having examples of both traditional gender archetypes among the elders they respected.
@maxim: all game design discussion is about how people "supposed to play". The devs finally make a decision and ban/make impossible the ways they think not supposed to be.
Feminists claim that devs should ban stripper costume. I claim devs should allow us to cosmetically hide the stripper costumes of other players.
@possibly the same anon: So, your level of discussion is to suggest a person to spend hours of his life to watch a TV show (which he would probably avoid, so the internet victory will be yours), instead of telling the actual point of the whole show, like Gevlon did.
Well, I had some time right now to watch the first episode (don't even try this again, you must be able to make your point clear yourself). I admit that I did it by quick fast-forwarding in 5 minutes, subtitles helped me much. So, apart from random chatter, actor play and stuff, there was exactly 2 minutes with something worthy, the research which showed that young boys and girls indeed are interested in different toys.
They showed it very briefly, didn't focus on the conditions of the experiment: were the kids isolated from social influence? what were exactly "masculine and feminine toys"? Well, Gevlon was so nice to explain much more to me just in one sentence, than these guys did in 38 minutes (and he didn't just throw in a random fact, he explained how it works). You should learn to read what HE explains to you, not blaming him for not understanding you.
So yes, now I admit that girls might be biologically more interested in human faces, and in toys with human faces (dolls), and boys might be interested in complicated mechanisms. Now let me remind you where it all started:
-> I don't think baby girls born with a natural hate towards high-paying jobs.
-> "Women should be in the kitchen" sends people with vagina to the kitchen, despite no work is done there with vagina.
So, how the baby girls love for faces prevents her from a high ranked manager job, which is all about talking to people? Oh wait, they are NOT INTERESTED - didn't want that salary anyway. How does it make her a good kitchen worker, despite no work there needs human empathy, but often is about working with complicated mechanisms (and sharp knives!) Maybe some part (big part, actually) of the differences come not from biology but from what society expect from socials? No, that's definitely nonsense. And what I witnessed at the kindergarten firsthand, must be dismissed: I just saw some shit.
Ah yes, about Gevlon not knowing anything about sociology. That's a laugh, he doesn't only know things, he's able to put them to practical use - unlike some (pay attention, I didn't say "all") sociologists with diplomas.
@Gevlon: Re "I claim devs should allow us to cosmetically hide the stripper costumes of other players." -- devs creating enough non-stripper costumes would be enough for now. The Tolstoy anon is actually right that if some girl wants to put on a erotic plate bra while fighting a dragon (it's magically enchanted so gives protection) in a stupid attempt to attract males, she might have the right to do so. But there's actually many social girls who prefer decency, so if there was such an option, ingame cities would quickly switch from being love parades to normal, with occasional freaks flashing their butts over mailboxes. But there has always been such people.
""The characters are forced to wear skimpy outfits in games" may be true in some games, but not in BDO, which happens to be our primary working example here."
Unless you are a ranger.
All other classes I can find non-negligee default outfits.
"Feminists claim that devs should ban stripper costume. I claim devs should allow us to cosmetically hide the stripper costumes of other players."
Devs should allow for (like in WoW), transmogging, so, I dont need to have my ridiculous blood elf plate bikini showing.
@maxim: "it is incredibly hard to force kindergarden kids to spend any sort of time [...]"
Kids are actually interested in everything, with varying levels of passion. The only hard thing is to keep them from doing something they are VERY interested in, if this is required for some reason. If a girl is interested in robots and spoons, but laughed upon by other girls for robots, and nannies kindly explain to her that spoons are better for her, and take robots away, she will cry for a bit, but then it happens very quickly and "natural". She will never be interested in robots any more, maybe even if there are attempts to raise such interest.
Cats are close to unable to do anything that they are not interested in, yet there are cat trainers. People are much more flexible in adapting.
Re 3: I stated that no dev considers significant amount of MMO playerbase playing the game in a "masturbating while raiding" fashion, and no dev designs a game for such playstyle. Really care to argue?
Re 6: Sure, but the reasons of birth rates are probably not in lack of lingeries, but rather in economical, social situations, maybe even some social attitudes. That's what usually needs to be addressed.
Women who have many kids are indeed usually not of the "businesswoman" type, but they are mostly not of "lingerie wearing strippers in MMOs" type either.
"They never offered "make a game we like and we'll play your game and pay for it", despite having audiences that I can't even dream of."
This isn't true. People do pick the games with the visuals they prefer (there's a reason, for example, that Final Fantasy 14 tweaked it's costumes to be more sensible 'for the western market')- just feminists who make a noise about it online tend to get shouted down and abused.
No actual possibility to discuss this.
Why?
It's a lie.
Most of... oh, maybe I have to say "misrepresentation and assumption".
No, I don't have to beat you in WoW to have right for my own expectations. I bought the game - it's more than enought.
Yes, female-friendly projects get the money - from farms at Facebook up to EA titles.
Yes, I do play games with my female gamers friend. Every day now - you know, Overwatch is really nice. By the way I have a thing about female characters there so I have to choke on them because of the game itself.
I'm member of the female gaming community in social network because that's how I can see more Chloe and Max friendship arts then Triss and Yen boobs.
That's why it works. Because there are no abstract feminist harpys from outer space. Hello!
@Gevlon
A game designer that expects people to play the way they are "supposed" to is not worth his paycheck. One of the first hard truth anyone designing games learns in the first year on the job is that people never play the way they are "supposed" to.
While you do want to limit unwanted behaviours, if you kill all possibility of unwanted behaviours in a game, then the game itself because boring and nobody will play it.
@Antze
I literally saw the opposite things happen far too many times. In that the child withdraws into oneself and keeps playing robots at the expense of social interaction.
Also "never interested in robots again" is a very strong statement. Maybe "not interested in robots for a while", but child interests seldom truly go away.
Ultimately, what i am getting at, is that a child picks between things he or she is interested in, not forced to be interested in things he or she is not. So it appears to me that you are saying that we should forcibly limit the ability of, say, a girl to express interest in girly stuff.
Re.3: You'd be surprised :D. Game design is not a very moral profession, due to the subversive nature of games themselves.
Re.6: Sure, and one of the social attitudes that needs to be addressed is that there is entirely nothing wrong with a girl who actually wants to both have girly things and express her femininity.
I do agree that current games have an issue with feminine expression (owing to the fact that feminine expression requires other people and we don't have AIs on that level just yet), but going on a crusade against skimpy wear in gaming seems like a wrong hill to die on. If you seriously want to be up and arms against that kind of thing, than i suggest you direct your attention not to games, which - in this aspect - are mostly a derivative of the culture climate, but rather to the books and movies that have been popularising this kind of approach for over half a century now. Might want to read up on the history of the phenomenon, called "Sexual Revolution".
@maxim:
Well, that really becomes wild and non-constructive, so no wonder if Gevlon stops approving those comments, but you're saying so weird things that it's really hard for me to refrain from answering.
"you are saying that we should forcibly limit the ability of, say, a girl to express interest in girly stuff"
Hell, what are you reading instead of my words? I'm saying that we should not forcibly limit the ability of a girl to express interest in robots.
There are two (more, but let us discuss two here) common mechanisms to discourage a person (or a kid) from something: ban/fear and shame. The latter works with huge efficiency, kids included. If a girl can't play with robots because it's forbidden, she will keep the interest. If she can't play because as long as she starts, every single person around her points their fingers and calls her stupid (and she remembers that if she starts again, it will happen again), the result will be very different.
"You'd be surprised"
You are conversing with a game development programmer here :) I know an artist who made female models in a way so players could extract them from game resources and "enjoy", I know a coder who's seriously into lingerie armors and wants to make eroge, I know why said eroge are made to be played with one hand, and I know players who installed nude patches and enjoyed the MMO content in a "surprising" way (which is really not very surprising) - yet NOT while raiding. I never heard about designing MMO raiding with that approach. Come on, once again read what I'm actually writing and stop trying to find cunning ways around my statements just to test your wits. If you know straightforward case of "masturbative raiding" game design - present it.
Regarding all the rest, it's well described with the "First they came..." quote.
When there were games with occasional stripper armors, it was never a problem for me (maybe for feminists), and I did not speak out. I could play properly dressed female characters, that girl next door could do the same, she could buy stripper armor to "charm" someone, and actually I could do the same if I felt kinky.
Now we quickly arrived into situation when every armor out there is stripper, and it's almost late to "speak for us". You cannot go outdoors without meeting love parade, you are the part of the said love parade, you are also dressed as a prostitute, shops no longer sell anything else than prostitute outfits, "that's what market wishes". And wanting something alternative just to be sold somehow limits the rights of those who want to express their sexuality (not femininity, actually)?!
Do you now realize the problem? It's like in countries with unstable governments sometimes: streets are filled with mini-shops selling alcohol and cigarettes, and it becomes a serious quest for those who want to buy some bread. No, I am NOT discussing complete ban on cigarettes here.
Suggesting me to read up on sexual revolution is touching. Seriously, I didn't go out of a cellar in North Korea just yesterday, I'm aware of the phenomenon and I have no clue how it's possible to be unaware of it for a person who participates in gender discussions on the Internet, which is what I'm doing here right now. Well, maybe only if my stance were "women should be in the kitchen", and it's not that.
@Antze
Sorry, please give me a quote from which you infered that i would approve forcibly limiting the interest in robots. On another hand, you seem to be very much against girls playing dolls.
I have actually witnessed a conversation between two MMO designers that seriously considered the "fap factor" as a part of their community strategy. Maybe MMO designers are a bit wilder than the norm where i live, i have no way to tell :D
I personally never found the "First they came" quote convincing, sorry. So i am not really swayed when this is used as some sort of a self-evident argument.
Regarding you taking offense on "sexual revolution", it really does seem to me that, despite being familiar with the term you haven't really made the connection on how it informed trends in media. Basically, even if you somehow remove all suggestive content from games, the underlying trends that started during sexual revolution will still be there. And, before long, the games will once again reflect them.
If what you really want is "sexual counterrevolution", then maybe that's what we should talk about. It does actually sound like an interesting topic.
P.S: assuming Gevlon permits this vastly offtopic conversation, naturally
@maxim
While you make some sense with your words, you were totally debating not with me so far but with some imaginary person who wants to stop little girls playing dolls and women being sexual, so it's the last time I write in this thread. I would stop earlier, but "boobs appeared in games because of sexual revolution" needs being disproved, for future reference.
You did not (approve forcibly limiting). The society did, e.g. in my kindergarten example above (please watch the conversation flow to understand my phrase appearance). I was never against girls playing dolls (you won't find a quote of me either), maybe I'm against "all girls forced to play dolls".
Fap factor is obviously not equal to fap-straight-during-the-raid factor, I already admitted existence of the former, it does not contradict my words, and I myself mentioned "wild" game designers.
The quote wasn't meant to convince or prove, it was meant to describe the reasons behind the current antagonism towards stripper outfits.
Again, I don't want to "remove suggestive content", I want games to stop being 100% made of suggestive content in the area of female player outfits. Trends that started the sexual revolution did not make MOST girls wear stripper outfits in real life in streets or at work (some people experimented with that, lost interest afterwards; in some states women won the right to walk topless, MOST of them don't use the right, etc.). So there are no SR reasons "for it to happen again in games". Also, the sexual revolution ended in 1980s and for some reason games were perfectly fine without not being assaulted by boobs for the whole 35 years! Trends which caused boobs infestation are different.
I'm not interested in discussing counterrevolution, I'm happy with the results of the revolution and girls being able to display sexuality in games. I'm not happy with girls being forced to display sexuality in games all the time, e.g. including raiding.
Actually I talked to one girl about this matter yesterday, she mentioned girls from her social circle, while occasionally buying stripper outfits, considered wearing those in raids and dungeons inappropriate and often expressed disdain towards people who did that (the game was Perfect World). Wearing stripper outfits ALL THE TIME is NOT what all girls naturally want! They tolerate it, sexist boys do want it, the result makes it market effective, end of story.
@Antze
Seeing as how you said that you won't write in this thread anymore, this reply is probably pointless.
But, seeing as you went to the trouble of writing your piece, i do find it to be common courtesy to provide a response.
The only thing your kindergarden example proves is that the kid in question found the dolls more interesting, having been exposed to possibly more new and interesting ways to play them in kindergarden. Saying that society has somehow conditioned the kid to enjoy dolls over tech requires proof, which you didn't supply. I, on the other hand, have seen plenty examples of girls who just keep doing their thing, kindergarden or not (along, obviously, with many examples of girls who learned the joy of dolls in kindergarden).
So your point that society forcibly limits the interests of girls seems to me, at best, an exaggeration based on fallacious reasoning.
Being false is important, because no matter how much you describe something that is false, it is rather pointless unless you can somehow prove or convince that it is true.
The assertion that girls are forced into sexualised outfits 100% of the time is simply wrong. Even in WoW, there are plenty of non-sexualised outfits which you can wear without loss of stats. Also it bears mentioning that the game you found culprit (Perfect World) comes from the orient, and is simply not subject to western brand of moral judgement on sexuality.
I don't think the sexual revolution ever "ended". It just won in some places, having moved on to others.
Games were "assaulted with boobs" as early as Duke Nukem 3D, which was in mid 90s. Before that, a lot of games have drawn inspiration from fantasy and sci-fi cover art of late 80s, which featured quite a lot of nearly naked booty.
TLDR: i am both unimpressed and actually a little disappointed.
@maxim: the problem here isn't that what girls naturally tend to do. The problem is that our society works one way and kids must be taught to be able to operate in this World. Boys are naturally more aggressive. But instead of accepting this natural fact, nurturing goes a long way to battle it and - besides a few % violent criminals - it succeeds in "creating" grown men who do not commit violent crimes.
There is no doubt that girls are genetically programmed to be submissive. What I claim is that - unless this is nurtured out of them - they'll be unable to meaningfully contribute to the society, they'll be in dead-end jobs or become glorified kitchen robots for men - a pretty big waste of a human.
A girl should constantly be pushed toward skills that will be useful against her natural preference, just like a boy is constantly pushed toward nonviolent conflict solving.
The problem of women is that a boy who remains "naturally violent" is abusing other people, so the society is strongly motivated to do something about it. A girl who remains "naturally submissive" only abuses herself (or rather, opens herself up to others abusing her), which is her problem. However smoking is also one's own problem, yet advertising smoking is forbidden to prevent idiots harming themselves. Sexism should be treated the same way.
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