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

what does concentrating on 'games as games' mean. are you saying video games should be 'colorblind.'

think he wants to shut down the whole avenue of narrative and hyperreal game design just so there won't be any humanoids to put racisms on

won't stop people who play in arcade fighter tournaments from shouting "rape" and "nigger" though!

um

i'm saying games ought to refrain from drawing in narratives obv. modeled after other media around it. If it does this, it would at least avoid the racist/sexist and all other baggage as a minimum.

xp sorry dayo I was trying to jocularly make a point about the audience being as much of a source of the problem itt as the creators

i mean games ought to do this anyway as a means of growth for the medium as a whole. the whole not bringing in 100 years of problematic culture in is a bonus.

this reminds me, I need to get onto marketing my new competitive fighting game Niggerrape

at least then the catcalls will be game-appropriate

I am going to now go off and do some massive penance for that joke

hehe "massive penance"

so philip, getting rid of RPGs would be a good first step right?

narrative is not something that's self-contained in literature/film/comics/tv, narrative is human experience related. you're being willfully naive here philip

unless your answer to reducing sexism/racism in video games is to make 100 more angry birds

RPGs are pretty broad but yeah Gygaxian RPGs don't really make sense on a video game platform.
I'd argue that in its purest form, video game narratives are incidental, rather than tacked on.
I'm in favor of games ditching its macho posturing audience as well (which i think is going to happen anyway with casual gaming)

and yes angry birds is a step in the right direction. next step will be slightly peeved birds, then indifferent birds.

ok now your arguments have now literally detached you from earth you are floating into space goodbye it was nice to know you

the video games industry should just stick to remaking tetris

this is an acceptable solution imo

narrative and worldbuilding are incidental in video games. that's why halo slash fiction literally doesn't exist. nobody on this planet except for maybe 3 people total have ever cosplayed. people only care about how fast their ping times are and whether or not they can pull off a 45-hit combo in marvel v. capcom 2.

i've seen sexist tetris though -- though i'd argue that's again borrowing from pinball cheesecake.

I would be down w more abstract and non-figurative games.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/ios-games/id6014?mt=8

Don't have an iphone. Let's see EA spend tens of millions of dollars on an abstract game and I'll be there.

The top 10 retail video games in the United States in 2012:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
2. Madden NFL 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV, Wii U)
3. Halo 4 (360)
4. Assassin's Creed III (360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
5. Just Dance 4 (Wii, 360, Wii U, PS3)
6. NBA 2K13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, Wii U, PC)
7. Borderlands 2 (360, PS3, PC)
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
9. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSV, PC
10. FIFA Soccer 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV, 3DS, Wii U, PSP)
(Source: The NPD Group)

clearly abstract/non-figurative games do great

Clearly alot of people paid to see Transformers.

what is this transformers argument

Dollars earned != good content

lol so your answer to addressing issues of sexism/racism in the video game industry today is to plug your ears and play tetris... cool

I'm glad you wrote it out for me.

Dollars earned = good business, which is the argument being floated to move against changing the narratives to have broader/more realistic minority characters

you guys are engaging in the most shameless "have your cake and eat it too" argument

also Closure is awesome re: abstract games; it's not even clear that the protagonist has a gender

Even if video games were purely a reflection of other aspects of culture, having a disproportionate number of them reflecting the most regressive parts of culture probably isn't desirable.

That list is why there aren't more games with female protagonists or protagonists of color.

Also it is a list entirely populated by sequels.

I mean, unless you only watch movies with guns, tits, and gangsters

oh god I've described half the audience for the top ten games listed

pretty sure there are people of color in Just Dance 4 #naturalrhythm

also lol at looking at a list that contains basketball, football and soccer games and having the first reaction be "why all the white people?"

lol

that's the first reaction because "acting ethnic" in a video game involves funny accents or stereotyped characters and basketball players in games don't talk, iirc

like, god forbid there be characters who are boring, normal people who are not white

my point in posting that list was that fully half of that list is dominated by narrative-driven gamers that heavily depend on worldbuilding to achieve their success, to spell it out

narrative worldbuilding and killing stuff

also lol at looking at a list that contains basketball, football and soccer games and having the first reaction be "why all the white people?"

Haha somehow I looked past all the non-narrative games on the list since they basically do not involve characterization, but this is a fair point.

putting aside the "macho posturing" of that list, is Assassin's Creed III the only one in that top 10 to have a protagonist of color?

xp My NBA2K13 MyCareer player "Mr. Clutch" would have to disagree with you, then slam his teammates at a press conference

Why is the top 10 list of games entering this conversation? Most of those don't really prove anyone's points

which btw are super clear

everyone's points, i mean

narrative is not something that's self-contained in literature/film/comics/tv, narrative is human experience related. you're being willfully naive here philip

Dollars earned = good business, which is the argument being floated to move against changing the narratives to have broader/more realistic minority characters

you guys are engaging in the most shameless "have your cake and eat it too" argument

narrative is certainly self-contained in movies w/r/t video games when it is being advanced by cut-scenes, for example. Most games you can pretty much pick apart in this way leaving very little narrative left to call its own.

i make all my characters black gay women in the character creator so i have multiple tiers of roleplaying going on do u c

um

on an unrelated note, I'm going to be thinking through my ideas a few times before typing them into ilx for a while

narrative is certainly self-contained in movies w/r/t video games when it is being advanced by cut-scenes, for example. Most games you can pretty much pick apart in this way leaving very little narrative left to call its own.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, April 2, 2013 3:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

this is both true and completely immaterial to this discussion

it's material in that within these often ham-fisted attempts at appropriating cinematic narratives into video games that sexism/racism come along for the ride, though apparently that arkham game decided to one-up its source material? lego batman seemed alright though.

appropriating cinematic narratives into video games

Games with linear plots or parallel linear missions that later reconcile to an endgame, which possibly has variations, are not necessarily comparable to cinema to a greater degree than they are to anything else! I mean, we aren't saying that books are sexist, so you can't blame video games based on books for being sexist. The idea that any particular medium can't determine it's own path because it's just a shadow of something else is stupid.

Would you agree that it's harder to forge your own path and escape a set of cultural and commercial expectations when it is under the shadow of that other thing, though?

no, because you are still within the culture that has all of the baggage