Who was it, even Talia al ghul has the exposed midriff deep hemline and skintight black leather
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Thursday, 5 April 2012 04:24 (twelve years ago) link
i really think stuff like this is way more damaging...http://images.swap.com/images/vg/96/1139096.jpg
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 5 April 2012 04:30 (twelve years ago) link
yes, all that shitty gender essentialist shovelware for girls
http://static2.cdn.ubi.com/ncsa/parentscorner/website/img/babyz-fashion.jpg
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Thursday, 5 April 2012 04:37 (twelve years ago) link
I'm not saying that's "worse" than anything that fedora guy in the odious IGN video would have devised, but it's definitely bullshit.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Thursday, 5 April 2012 04:38 (twelve years ago) link
They both stem from the same problem of not really seeing grown women or young teenage girls as people/
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Thursday, 5 April 2012 04:39 (twelve years ago) link
Well more importantly re: the mechanics of this whole thing, as consumers I fear
― sfdgafhtehw (jjjusten), Thursday, 5 April 2012 04:45 (twelve years ago) link
I should expand on that a bit, if this stuff is going to change at any point, given that it is pretty much a 100% business/profit driven venture, all the female non-white designers in the world aren't going to make a difference as long as the publishers keep looking at the bottom line and seeing it as sexstarved basement dwelling mysoginist violent high fiving dudes
― sfdgafhtehw (jjjusten), Thursday, 5 April 2012 04:49 (twelve years ago) link
most of msntrm games guardedly transgressive misogyny seems less overtly harmful than the deep-seated misogyny of p much all major hollywood films, reality tv &c &c like the degree to which 'women in videogames' are divorced for actual real life women is so great as to render the whole thing sorta disgustingly ludicrous but ultimately less 'problematic' than the fucked up messaging in like 'friends with kids' or w/e
i mean idk i guess i think my problem is with the way the thread qn is posed cuz i dont think casual racism/sexism is so much less accepted w/in video games than that it manifest in different ways and even the baseline assumption that women as exist as things to project yr fantasies onto or w/e is sorta '...'
― Lamp, Thursday, 5 April 2012 04:54 (twelve years ago) link
like i guess if im drunk on the internet throwing together an argument like: 'characters' (enh) in games exist to serve as fantasy objects/projections of desire in more personal/direct manner than characters in other media & so theres less purpose in portraying nuanced/humanized characters, most characters are either conduits or roadblocks to pleasure &c &c
― Lamp, Thursday, 5 April 2012 05:00 (twelve years ago) link
"...hence, it exploits...people!"
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Thursday, 5 April 2012 07:30 (twelve years ago) link
all the female non-white designers in the world aren't going to make a difference as long as the publishers keep looking at the bottom line and seeing it as sexstarved basement dwelling mysoginist violent high fiving dudes
absolutely could not disagree more. the kind of decisions you are talking about are not made at the $$$ level -- there's no cigar-munching guy who doesn't give a shit about games going "WHERE'S THE TITTIES" or something. those hands-off money people want to see 1.) sequels to successful franchises 2) whatever's hot (multiplayer modes, microtransactions, etc.) 3) shit they can write on the back of the box. it's depressing to say but i don't think the sex/racism is cynical. i think i'd be happier if it were. but the bottom line is the people who are making those decisions are at the """creative""" level. writers, artists, designers, producers.
on the comic book point btw isn't it a little unfair to say that that whole industry is a shitpile? i mean maybe i don't know wtf i am talking about because my roommate buys a LOT of comics but they're all like Habibi and Hark a Vagrant and Chris Ware & non Marvel/DC stuff. It seems that there's a lot of that kind of non-creepy-superboobs-type stuff out there?
that's a side note though. TLDR i've worked with & for a few of the bigger companies (EA, Atari) & a couple of smaller ones in the industry & i can tell you that the people who make the shitty unfeminist creative decisions are usually writers, or maaaaaybe producers (who are fyi the second-lowest paid people in the industry on average behind QA!) or maybe artists. Not shareholders and suits.
― smash sbros (Will M.), Thursday, 5 April 2012 08:18 (twelve years ago) link
i played an hour each of deus ex and arkham city at a friend's, having already heard the complaints about racism and sexism, and what i was struck by was that the writing was actually offensively stupid on every other level too
― thomp, Thursday, 5 April 2012 09:24 (twelve years ago) link
Haha, and to think, the two biggest sexist targets now are Arkham City and DC Comics.
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Thursday, 5 April 2012 12:26 (twelve years ago) link
By the way, it seems to me that blog isn't really getting any milage out of the hulk thing. Outside of the caps and occasional reference to self in the third person, there's like no "hulk" to the style.
― s.clover, Thursday, 5 April 2012 13:31 (twelve years ago) link
and what i was struck by was that the writing was actually offensively stupid on every other level too
tbf this is a problem with videogames in general
― 1986 tallest hair contest (Z S), Thursday, 5 April 2012 13:39 (twelve years ago) link
FCH has said that it's a deliberate affectation that's gotten him far more attention than when he wrote straight. I like his stuff. Yeah, he varies the amount of Hulkness by the post tho
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Thursday, 5 April 2012 14:09 (twelve years ago) link
― Nhex, Thursday, 5 April 2012 14:27 (twelve years ago) link
For the record, the earlier conversation point from Will has been deleted and the thread is indexed again.Though I think we'd all be interested in seeing that other thread will.
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 5 April 2012 15:13 (twelve years ago) link
rip my post
― dayo, Thursday, 5 April 2012 17:12 (twelve years ago) link
a lot of this handwringing is over a certain subset of things on any platform that seem to be mainstream exemplars, because that's what the specialty shops showcase, but they are actually a minority of the market. probably stuff like archie, disney comics outsell big-boobed grimace warrior stuff (hark a vagrant is definitely outselling frank miller's latest castatrophe), and the most popular videogames are more like angry birds, and that's only racist against pigs. movies and tv are still bigger offenders, relatively speaking.
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 5 April 2012 17:23 (twelve years ago) link
Do they outsell in general, or just in places like Berkeley?
― polyphonic, Thursday, 5 April 2012 18:16 (twelve years ago) link
Angry Birds, just the first version, just on iOS, has done 12 million units, all versions and platforms 700 million downloads. Arkham City across all platforms ~5 million.
Smaller margins, but way bigger audience.
― raw feel vegan (silby), Thursday, 5 April 2012 18:28 (twelve years ago) link
Hark! A Vagrant by Kate BeatonAmazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,838 in Books
Holy Terror by Frank MillerAmazon Best Sellers Rank: #138,622 in Books
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 5 April 2012 18:55 (twelve years ago) link
Ha ha, suck it, frank miller. pwned
i can say with some certainty that i will never need to buy a new frank miller book ever again
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 5 April 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/bXNsGl.jpg
― bnw, Thursday, 5 April 2012 19:16 (twelve years ago) link
and yet they went with a butt shot
― thomp, Thursday, 5 April 2012 19:39 (twelve years ago) link
Plus all the male characters are still muscly male power fantasies and not you know
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/6171158228_5b3c3e0991.jpg
― raw feel vegan (silby), Thursday, 5 April 2012 19:49 (twelve years ago) link
lol or sigh?http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/04/potential-porn-site-sponsorship-causes-split-over-fighting-game-communitys-self-image.ars
― Nhex, Friday, 6 April 2012 02:23 (twelve years ago) link
I think the fighting game community is the same one that had a bunch of dudes earnestly defending trash-talking each other by shouting "get raped" and the like.
― raw feel vegan (silby), Friday, 6 April 2012 02:33 (twelve years ago) link
Did this get circulated around here or did I come across it somewhere else? I totally forget
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/sexual-harassment-as-ethical-imperative-the-ugly-side-of-fighting-games
― raw feel vegan (silby), Friday, 6 April 2012 02:35 (twelve years ago) link
i saw that situation as a horrible example; that stuff does happen unfortunately, but the nature of most hardcore fighting games involving face-to-face situations leads to people being more respectful that you would guess, especially compared to online
― Nhex, Friday, 6 April 2012 03:34 (twelve years ago) link
good thread.
boring answer but i think this is mostly due to a) writing being secondary to gameplay (if this is even a consideration - v. often it is not) and b) videogame writing being completely terrible and embarrassing 100% of the time.
lots of folks have already said this stuff but i am serriously struggling to think of one well-written game and i have played roughly a billion of them. i don't think it's a coincidence that we're still in the dark ages when dealing with nuanced topics... we're in the dark ages PERIOD. so we get bad guys shouting 'bitch' at girls bc its easy shorthand for 'edgy'. lazy writing bc these people are lazy/horrible writers.
― original bgm, Friday, 6 April 2012 04:39 (twelve years ago) link
Earthbound & Mother 3 both well-written, you can count on me to parrot that anywhere.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 05:10 (twelve years ago) link
the last express is better than agatha christie (but this is a once-in-a-decade game, for the most part yeah even/especially the games lauded for their writing do not have very good writing)
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Friday, 6 April 2012 05:14 (twelve years ago) link
agreed on mother/earthbound, very sweet yet haunting games
last express was pretty damn cool, especially because of the way the action happens regardless of what you're doing, and how the game itself was designed around this real-time story with the rewindable clock and such
planescape: torment is legendary, though it could be the nostalgia talking... i haven't played it in about ten years. but i loved the plot/characters, and there was a beastly amount of sheer high-quality text in it
shadow of destiny has all the hallmarks of crappy video game writing - crap dialogue, shallow characters, environments, etc., and as a game it's not very good. but the plot structure is pretty unique and magnificent. basically the concept behind the game is that you keep getting murdered, and given the chance to rewind/alter your destiny, but of course things keep going wrong. then there's time travel involved and a whole bunch of different people and timelines start getting messed with, and a crap load of endings before you get the "true" one that ties everything together. but i'm a sucker for Groundhog Day-type plots
also, not as serious, but i think the comedy writing in the 90s Lucasarts games is very high quality, not just the dialogue but the creativity and general wackiness involved in the puzzles
i see the point there that the writing should be secondary to the gameplay, in general, though it shouldn't mean it should be sacrificed altogether...
― Nhex, Friday, 6 April 2012 06:01 (twelve years ago) link
Like with Grim Fandango and Tim Schafer, Planescape cemented Chris Avellone's legacy forever. I got at least one other Ilxor in this thread to play the game just by mentioned that Sheena Easton voiced the hot chick love interest in the game.
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Friday, 6 April 2012 07:48 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i was about to point to Mother 3 as being incredibly well written, even before seeing abbott's post
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 April 2012 13:27 (twelve years ago) link
Planescape: Torment's real genius doesn't even start until you pump tons of points into the Nameless One's intelligence and his dialogue choices become ridiculous
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 13:45 (twelve years ago) link
Shigesato Itoi who wrote the Mother games is actual proper writer though, isn't he? (also the dad in Totoro!)The best written games do tend to be the "show don't tell" ones though like Portal, exposition through cutscenes needs to die
― zappi, Friday, 6 April 2012 13:49 (twelve years ago) link
Arkham City was written by Paul Dini, the creator of Harley Quinn, which makes the treatment of her by the story an extra layer of creepy to me
also before this thread, I didn't notice the sexism of AC as being overt and off-putting, mostly because I spent most of my time leaping off of buildings and shouting "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" at the television
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 13:54 (twelve years ago) link
I think you mean "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I'M RACIST"
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:44 (twelve years ago) link
I will admit that Batman shouting "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I'M RACIST" when he leaps off of buildings in AC would make this my favorite game of all time
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:46 (twelve years ago) link
let's get ZS on the phone and make this happen
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:46 (twelve years ago) link
The best written games do tend to be the "show don't tell" ones though like Portal, exposition through cutscenes needs to die
yes, yes, YES.
some good good examples of well-written games that I hadn't thought of. a definite 'yes' to earthbound (esp. bc a lot of the good stuff here happens while bumbling around and talking to incidental characters - it's videogamey and not just blindly aping the style of books/films), haven't played mother 3, and was considering grim fandango. it impressed me heavily at the time but it's been so long that I honestly can't say anymore.
I do think it's telling that we've only come up with only a handful of games but I think everyone is in agreement that these games are the exception (and a minor one at that) and not the rule anyway.
― original bgm, Friday, 6 April 2012 15:10 (twelve years ago) link
also, wow @ itoi being the dad in totoro!
― original bgm, Friday, 6 April 2012 15:11 (twelve years ago) link
Mother 3 much better written than Mother 2/Earthbound IMO. Wld argue all the Phoenix Wright games were well-written, funny and sometimes suspenseful. Good female characters in those, too! Though not without some vid game yuckiness eg Trucy's magic panties.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 15:21 (twelve years ago) link
oh videogamepanties
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 15:22 (twelve years ago) link
hahaha
― original bgm, Friday, 6 April 2012 15:25 (twelve years ago) link
feel that Bungie's games, esp. Marathon, are usually well-written although obv a tremendous dearth of female characters
― dayo, Friday, 6 April 2012 15:32 (twelve years ago) link