Why is casual racism/sexism more accepted in video games than other forms of media (these days)?

Japan being sexist is a big factor on Japanese games being sexist. I am not commenting on games from other countries there.

I think that comic is more casually racist/sexist than Cooking Mama, is what I'm saying.

but really there are moments when i felt like the game's unspoken racial equality and gay-positivity felt like, idk, controversy avoidance more than anything? maybe i'm too deep in the liberal bubble.

― goole, Friday, April 6, 2012 12:27 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i dont think its controversy avoidance so much as a conscious attempt to go against the grain! it certainly caused more controversy than if there hadn't been any gay characters in it at all. je sawyer wrote something cool on this topic:

http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/2011/06/platonic-forms-of-marginalized.html

http://i.imgur.com/L5lir.png

holy lol

gamers are so smart

haha damn ppl are so ignorant

i guess what i'm trying to say is, the game would have felt more real to me, and braver, if there was NOT ONLY a great gay character like arcade gannon, but also some asshole who's like "what are you doing rolling around with this faggot?" i can't fully understand why there wasn't tho

iirc there were some sublimated hints here and there that people think the Legion is a bunch of angry gays, right?

(i'll have to read that sawyer piece)

veronica mentions her ex-girlfriend's Brotherhood of Steel family not looking kindly on their relationship

what i dig in fallout are the NCR recruitment posters that say "LADIES! EVERY ONE OF YOU THAT SERVES IS A SLAP ACROSS CAESAR'S FACE!"

"the fallout world is free of the the kind of hatefulness we see irl. people want to kill each other but not for the reasons people want to kill each other now, if that makes sense."

i disagree that it is a gamemaker's responsibility to provide the hatefulness. that's the gamer's job.

abbs otm

yeah agreed.

yeah, lets dial up momus so he can justify his yellow fever over submissive women to us.

why did momus stop posting here

he was banned iirc

Too busy jacking it onto his girlfriend's face.

It's true; dude used to post about that unreservedly.

xp or that too

btw there are crazy japanese rape games that are not sold in the US iirc. so good luck putting that on the American consumer.

Part of why the racist/sexist bits can get downplayed in the Fallout world is that you have a clear external enemy that everybody could project their animus against: super mutants and ghouls. With supermutants running around actively trying to ice normals, and rabid ghouls serving in the place of zombies, those should easily fill the slot of "shit to fear & hate" before all the humans get around to going at other humans.

I hope in the upcoming Wasteland 2 kickstarter project, they keep a satirical or just funny tone to everything, only basing it on 80s ideas instead of post-war/pre-cuban-missile-crisis ones

are japan rape games really chart toppers though? i really think japan's cultural influence on video games esp w/r/t nintendo is more infantilization (and therefore inherently less racist, less sexist) there's really no way around being disgusting if you want games that are more "mature". if they're handled poorly, they're going to be disgusting, and even if they're handled well, they're still going to be disgusting.

I guess the only solution is to start importing vid games from all the world's many sexually progressive, wholly egalitarian countries.

utopiastan's video games are totally awesome

tbh if I lived in that country I wouldn't need the numbing escape of vid games

lol abbs otm again

i really think japan's cultural influence on video games esp w/r/t nintendo is more infantilization (and therefore inherently less racist, less sexist)

are you fucking kidding me

do you not really remember, for example, Barrett in FFVII, or all of the grossly exaggerated Italianisms from the Mario games that I posted upthread, or this:

oh no! SPANKING VIDEO GAME! oh no!

xp the reason they're totally awesome is because you live them

mario only gets progressively racist the more gritty and "real" he gets. you'd need to have 'call of duty' level mario to really get offensive.

Can I say the world's progressive/sexually explicit video games also sound boring and creepy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Life_%28video_game%29

"Night Life was marketed as an aid for the sex life of couples. It included such features as a schedule to determine a woman's period, and a catalog of possible sexual positions, with artwork consisting of black-and-white outlines."

Maybe just that one does.

Different aims of a product. when games are designed without the actual gameplay or game-ness forefront, you can get drops in quality. Its one of the reasons educational or advocacy games aren't as good; their primary focus is on teaching or advocacy, not necessary on badass gamery. Implicit messaging in a game because explicit, and subtext becomes text, tending to make you a helluva lot less likely to accept or consume it.

thus the boringness.

it makes more sense to compare those Japanese sex games to Japanese pornography, which it's very much in line with

Abbottttt were you also offended by the chappelle wayne brady skit

I was offended by the horrible cgi

i guess what i'm trying to say is, the game would have felt more real to me, and braver, if there was NOT ONLY a great gay character like arcade gannon, but also some asshole who's like "what are you doing rolling around with this faggot?" i can't fully understand why there wasn't tho

ha this was p much the source of my question about whether mass effect lets you roleplay a homophobe

ernest adams & the Straight Male Gamer http://www.nomorelost.org/2011/04/08/equality-in-the-gaming-industry-interview-with-ernest-adams/

innerestin'

Female games journalist vs E3:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/06/513794/

dunno about that article but i will say that i'm kinda astonished E3 still does the booth babe thing
like how insulting and fratboy is that?

basically the maximum possible amount

couple of reactions to geek cultures:

http://squidygirl.blogspot.com/2012/06/lets-play-game-part-1-catwoman-and-lara.html

http://squidygirl.blogspot.com/2012/06/lets-play-game-part-2-women-vs-tropes.html

for a sec i thought that journo article was gonna be one of those freaky pro-ESDF things

then i finished it and was a little sadder

why is esdf better than wasd?

I'd assume b/c ESDF would have your hand in the homerow position but that's the first I've heard of this particular thing

i take no position on it, as a lefty anyway
http://use-esdf.org/

ugh the comments on that kotaku piece...

The Kotaku piece made me fucking boiling mad, and I havent involved myself in the games feminism thing that much as I'm not a huge gamer. But faaark, the patronising attitude is coming out all over the place lately, every time a woman pipes up and says "guys you know what? This shit actually isn't cool" they end up with a barrage of "die you bitch whore" abuse.

My male gamer friends are astonished at the vitriol. And that makes me even sadder, that they would be suprised it exists.

Laura Hudson, the recently ex-editor of Comicsalliance, was excellent at publishing stories that explored questions of gender and sexism in comics, and her reward was a never ending tirade of sexist bullshit in the comments boxes. Comics and Video Games fandom just seem really regressive and repellent to me; not sure if they're actually any worse that other realms of fandom, but they make no effort - or lack the self-awareness to - mask it.

Also, ex-ilxor, as she was the original mod on ILG with me

I think part of it is that geek and nerd subculture is full of geeks and nerds i.e. people who have a gradient of ASD/socialization problems.

And the Internet is a great way to express unfiltered idiocy. Like sports talk radio.

i wouldn't blame nerddom -- puzzle-game geeks and archie comic nerds aren't spewing ugliness.