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

even if no one wrote them up in the media, they'd still be (and have been for years and years) harassing any woman with an opinion in fandom, tech, whatever. better to shine a light on these turds and have someone actually stand up for what's right, especially as more women and minorities are included as both fans and creators. I don't see the downside to keep saying "don't act like an asshole, dipshit."

yeah also imo it is good for newly arriving fans to hear often and repeatedly that this behavior is shitty and uncool. like i've said before, arriving on the internet at 11 or 13 or whatever, seeing all these usenet faqs explaining what a flame is and how it isn't cool.. useful training in understanding what the norms of a community are and so on. i like the idea of newly-minted gamernerds knowing from the get-go that you should avoid people grinding axes about the evils women and minorities and social justice, that this is gross behavior and to be shunned. idk.

it's true, we need some universal rules posted

like a little bot that messages you the rules when you enter the door

"It looks like you're trying to post some hate speech. Would you like help?"

<3

sounds like the soul calibur 6 development team is really thinking hard about how they represent women

“I’ve played SoulCalibur games, and I used to play a lot of Cassandra. I was playing Sophitia just now,” I told Okubo after playing a few rounds of the upcoming game. “I noticed that, in this version, her breasts are more prominent. You can see up her skirt. Ivy, still, is wearing not that many clothes. When I play a game like SoulCalibur, I feel like it’s not for me. I feel like it’s for men who might be interested in these characters. I’ve always sort of felt that about SoulCalibur. Is this something you consider?”

Here’s what Okubo said: “Of course, I am a man, as well as many of the people on the development team. That’s something that we should probably consider if that’s the opinion of a female perspective like you in the future. We weren’t necessarily going out to try and intentionally make something sexy for the purpose of being sexy.”

...“It’s interesting you say you don’t set out to be sexy,” I continued, “because SoulCalibur has traditionally had really elaborate breast physics in the game. That doesn’t exist for gameplay, of course.”

“I think, as a result, the characters as a result end up being sexy,” replied Okubo. “That’s not something we can deny necessarily, but in the process of game design, we just really try to go after what we think would be cool actions, cool movement, strong, powerful movements. That is kind of a byproduct of this pursuit of trying to find what we think is pretty cool.”

https://kotaku.com/at-e3-soulcaliburs-objectified-women-felt-like-a-relic-1826929714

what came first, the boob physics or the sexiness

makes u think

after months of months of boob physic development, okubo all of a sudden was like "whoa. i think some people are going to think these boobs are sexy"

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/91/1c/34911c61d423d0c23ccc1276b5231e73.gif

Ivy feels like a bit of a relic of a past’s mainstream, like lead paint or cocaine for toothaches.

i'm actually more surprised he even tried to defend it. why not just be shameless and say I LOVE BREASTESES?

and the article even mentions Senran Kagura at the end as an example of this

i'm actually more surprised he even tried to defend it.
yeah, it was such a worthless, transparently thoughtless reply.

i think the first time i can remember thinking about how women are depicted in videogames was back when the first tomb raider came out in 1996. this issue, specifically:

https://i.imgur.com/Q7jJyCZ.jpg

in the interview, lara croft's polygonal hotness came up, and the developer guy was like "we figured if you're going to spend 20 hours playing as someone, they might as well have a nice arse." i think that was also the second time i noticed someone use the word "arse" (after braveheart in 1995).

This is whats good about Destiny - the female characters have booming strong thighs and solid armour and no boobular action going on.

“Before Gamergate I was a pretty standard liberal or even a socialist,” Ralph told me. “I’d write hit pieces on right-wing figures. It was a hobby. But when Gamergate broke out and I got an audience that happened to be more reactionary, I thought, It’s my job to do propaganda for Gamergate. The ethics in video game journalism stuff, I didn’t care about that.”

these lines caught my eye (from: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/lane-davis-ralph-retort-seattle4truth-alt-right)

His breakthrough came in the form of a three-hour, 20-minute video titled “#GamerGate: Actually, it’s about...” The May 2015 video, which cuts from talks at tech conferences to journal articles to Twitter screenshots, advances a mind-bogglingly complex theory linking the geopolitics of the late Bush and early Obama years to a plot by elite institutions to take control of the American education system through an open source gaming console called the Ouya.

does noted ilx ouya-owner karl malone know about this? is he in on it???

I only played it once, I swear!! It’s somewhere in my closet, buried under camping gear! Oh shit, did I give it my wi-fi password?!?

I should have just build a retropiiiiiiie *voice disappears downs a dark tunnel*

karl is a soros agent CONFIRMED #qanon #ouyagate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KW4gu7L6uE

found that linked within this feature: https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/25/17593516/video-game-culture-toxic-men-explained

That was an incredible read, thanks. I really liked the bits from Dr. Gray & Soraya Chemaly.

OH, THE '90s

https://kotaku.com/inside-the-culture-of-sexism-at-riot-games-1828165483

Wowze, not a good look.

it's a typical LA-based showbiz company that makes all of its money off a "free to play" game full of its own IP comic book characters, plus esports franchising and sponsorship deals - it's not just NAGL, it's a fucking way of life

I hate everything

https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/3/17800798/this-land-is-my-land-preview-native-american-western-stealth-game

Seems intersting but this givesme pause:

The hero is a man who makes use of traditional weapons as well as modern guns to stem the invasion. According to the game’s development lead Denis Khachatran, he represents an amalgam of western tribes.

https://steamed.kotaku.com/total-war-game-gets-review-bombed-on-steam-over-women-g-1829283785

That seems to be against the trend described in the thread title. Good. Fuck those sad little people.

CDPR making transphobic tweets again to promote their shit

too bad people will give them infinite benefit of the doubt forever because they made witcher 3

shocked, shocked, etc.

well, that's a bummer. i didn't know that was a thing.

yeah it's the 3rd time this year iirc

what benefit of the doubt? witcher 3 wasn't a tour de force for trans issues. they can be transphobic and also make excellent games the two are not related.

they always make these tweets in some way that's just vague enough to have plausible deniability for the people who want to defend their favorite game dev. i just mentioned witcher 3 because that's what built that goodwill

this one was a bit more pointed/aggressive than the previous instances though, it's clearly intentional

https://kotaku.com/gog-account-publishes-yet-another-awful-tweet-1829939458 for those who missed it.

this is from 2015, but check out this important "debate"

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-11-10-street-fighter-5-sparks-censorship-debate

Post beta update, her crotch at this moment is off screen.

it's like, just imagine being part of this debate

Capcom had said the boob jiggle was a bug.

haha

What if casual racism/sexism in games has been bugs all along?

i get the appeal in soul calibur but street fighter characters don't even look good anymore in 4 and 5 it's such an ugly art style

the appeal of wanting to see close-up upskirt shots during character intros you mean?

hmm no not that

speedrunners exposed as altright nazi scum, Games Done Quick refusing to disinvite them saying it's "not our policy to ban people from our events for differing opinions"

Here we have the biggest nazi in speedrunning, @RWhiteGoose linking and quoting Jordan Peterson, then posting some hateful anti-woman propaganda along with famed GDQ Runner @graviton29 spewing extremely transphobic garbage in a safe-space nazi speedrunning discord pic.twitter.com/soO76NaeGK

— 🏴 Antifa Andrea 🌹 (@pizzaparty531) November 27, 2018

the phrase "the biggest nazi in speedrunning" just broke my brain

I like how it ends up with "ha ha yes well I'd probably still meet up with an attractive trans person just to check. say if they were hot irl then it would still be a good story. ha ha imagine, I guess I'd probably sleep with them if they were nice lol, good story to tell, gooooood... story."

"not our policy to ban people from our events for differing opinions"

also the opinions shared in that discord chat are probably also shared by a huge chunk of their audience

There’s more than a couple trans women who run at GDQ and at least one who I think is an organizer, fwiw, I will look for some individual reax

After receiving additional information on the situation that was brought to our attention today, we were able to confirm the authenticity of the screenshots we received. As such, the people in question will not be representing us at any GDQ events indefinitely.

— Games Done Quick (@GamesDoneQuick) November 28, 2018

I guess that’s that, then. I’m glad they made the right call eventually, but let me be clear: it shouldn’t have taken this much additional information and blowback. I won’t be forgetting this.https://t.co/cKJW54buHM

— the eevee respecter respecter (@princessproto) November 28, 2018