Arguments About Videogame Sexism Dumb Down Discussion

HPP: In some arguments, nobody wins and everyone loses.

[derkasan]

"If we can do all this, then maybe gaming discussion will be about compelling issues again – with the overriding aim being mutual enlightenment, not brain-dead partisan bickering."

Here here.

[rainslacker]

Unfortunately, when you are addressing dumb comments to refute them, you often have to make dumb comments yourself so the people your refuting can understand them. The second of the dumb comments is usually true though.

But fortune cookie wisdom always prevails.

"Only the stupidest and wisest of men never change"

[yarbie1000]

Sexy isn't Sexist. Chinese Room should apologize

[BrickHardcastle]

Why should they apologise? For having an opinion? They should explain their opinion better, and be willing to defend it, but why should they apologise merely for having an opinion about a videogame? For the record, I disagree with said opinion.

[Omnisonne]

The problem is the opinions remark itself. The term ''sexist'' refers to discrimination toward someones sex. nobody in that picture is being discriminated, belittled or otherwise disadvantaged.

Perhaps I'm hammering too much on the term itself here, but he/she is using it to point out a disagreement on the woman in the picture, which is fine if you have something against women dressing like that I suppose.. but they shouldn't mold it into something it's not. The term is being slung around just as recklessly as "racist/racism"

[Grap]

If i know anything about SJW, they do every thing but explain their opinion.
it just cheap shot from below mediocre developer.

[Godmars290]

" They should explain their opinion better, and be willing to defend it, but why should they apologise merely for having an opinion"

Then that need to do this, otherwise they're only contributing to the further disintegration of societal communication.

[garrettbobbyferguson]

Because they don't have an opinion. They're calling a company a name which implies that they discriminate against a person's sex, particularly in this case women. If you're just gonna throw around misogynist and sexist, you better have some shit to back it up, that's a pretty serious accusation to be calling against someone. Imagine if this was a workplace? Said person would be investigated and potentially lose their job. Meanwhile companies like The Chinese Room are throwing around "sexist" like it's casual talk.

[BrickHardcastle]

I think some people are confusing what Chinese Room are saying about CD Projekt with what they're saying about Cyberpunk 2087. Just because they're saying the game looks sexist doesn't mean they're slandering or smearing the people who are working on it. I agree that they seem to be being unfair and jumping to the worst possible conclusion, but how does it help anything to be even more nasty back? It just creates a cycle of anger and misunderstanding that gets worse with every week. People get way too angry about this kinda thing way too quickly, and that's why it keeps happening. I'm just as sick of it as everyone else, but it's only going to stop when we start taking the high road and calmly discuss things we disagree on, and ignore the people trying to make clickbait out of a weekly "controversy".

[asadachi]

Anyone can have an opinion, but when you post it publicly and you're a business, it can have negative backlash like this. Anyone with PR should know better.

[rainslacker]

They should apologize for misusing terminology to try and serve a political agenda and subsequently dumbing down the portion of the human race who actually listens to them by making them believe that it's the proper use of the term.

They can have their opinion all they want, but if they're going to share it, at least make it based on actual proper usage of terminology and reasonings. What they said is slanderous, which in itself is a civil crime. Regardless of the actual context they were trying to convey, the actual statement is untrue outside of facts which prove otherwise, and I'm afraid having sexy women in your game or marketing is not going to hold up in court as discriminatory to get TCR off the hook for making slanderous remarks.

Now I doubt it would ever go to court, although CDPR is within their rights to do so, but I am waiting for the day some company actually does so just to make these types of people think for more than a second before they decide to spew their idiocy across the internet.

@Brick

It's still a misuse of the term, and slanderous in it's connotation, even though not in it's context.

They said CP2077 "is just as sexist if that image is anything to go by" in response to CDPR saying it's more ambitious than TW3.

Well, TW3 wasn't sexist either, and again, it's a misuse of the term to state as such. Saying the game is sexist, at least in the literal, means that the game itself is discriminatory. However, a game is not capable of doing this, so by extension, the only way discrimination can be achieved is if CDPR were selling or presenting the game in a discriminatory fashion, thus they are basically calling CDPR sexist.

I know context plays a big part in understanding what TCR actually meant, but what they actually said is slanderous and untrue unless they have some evidence to support that CDPR actually is sexist, or TW3 discriminated in some way towards females.

[AgentSmithPS4]

CR hasn't responded yet? I was hoping to see news about a suspension and an apology that explains why they were wrong.

So which one of these 'Chinese' people made the comment? My bet is on the woman that looks like someone that'd be jealous and say something like this, but I'd like to know for sure.

[fenome]

I honestly think it's better that they don't even give them the time of day. That'll just open them up to get pounced on by bandwagoners. Sometimes silence says more.

I'm so tired of everybody being so offended by everything, it's ridiculous. There's nothing wrong with embracing sexuality, there are real world issues out there people should be offended by, but that takes too much effort, they'd rather sit at a keyboard and lash out at a videogame. Smdh

[uth11]

"What seemed oddly absent though, was anyone asking The Chinese Room: “can you elaborate on your opinion a little so we can talk about it?”"

Well they had an opportunity to do this, but instead they took a cheap shot. Nobody should be surprised when others respond in-kind.

[BrickHardcastle]

Oh, I'm not surprised at all. This kind of thing seems to happen every week now. I'm just hoping, futiley or not, that instead of people responding to a cheap shot in kind, we can start trying and elevate the discourse instead of dragging it further into the ground.

[dead_pixels]

Agreed wholeheartedly, but people love to be incensed about something. No-one has time for discourse when they could be throwing jabs at one another.

[uth11]

I don't think that will happen. Not much room for middle ground in that debate.

[rainslacker]

I don't know if you were around before Sarkeesian blew this whole female representation thing into overdrive, but that was how the conversations were. Forum goers mostly just blasted "gamer girls" which at the time were kind of annoying due to the number which weren't actually gamers using their sex to try and gain attention. The real discussions though were taking place in other forums with actual developers and industry people talking about it in contributor blogs and in the follow up comments. Gamasutra had regular articles on the topic, and they were mostly civil and productive discourse. Gamasutra shifted gears after GG/Leigh Alexander, but before that it was a great place to read all this stuff.

Now though, the discussion has been brought down to the lowest common denominator because the arguments themselves are about as dumb as they can be, and don't actually look at anything of worth to discern why the problem exists, and the demands on how to fix them are both unreasonable and quite honestly just stupid in a capitalistic venture of selling video games to a wide market.

The problem isn't the reactionary back and forth we keep getting now, its that the entire argument has been derailed by those seeking attention and money, with very little interest in actually furthering the discussion to a productive end which is acceptable by most.

I would love to see the discussion go in a way you say because I've seen how that kind of discussion can be. But the only way to really do that is to remove the problem of idiotic statements and even more idiotic arguments which start the discussion. However, even removing them now, it's going to take a while before the discussion can go back to a good place, because now everyone's defenses are set to high, because it's become more about attack the males, dissolve any dissenting opinion, than it is about logical and productive discourse.

[rainslacker]

@uth

I highly disagree there is no middleground. I've seen plenty of middle ground, where many of the same topics brought up by Sarkeesian and her ilk have actual developers asking what kind of changes the person making the argument propose. Then they receive suggested changes, and then those are discussed.

Those changes aren't demanded, and the arguments are brought up to highlight topics of what the author thinks are important to address, but never once do they go and imply that the entire industry has to do so, but rather, it may be worth exploring more options to draw in more people. The conversations were about how to get more customers, which is the kind of talk that appeals to devs and publishers. It didn't make them have to try and appear all PC, while making their current fan base suffer. It was the middle ground approach which make people think on how to be inclusive, instead of being exclusive to a new set of potential customers.

Unfortunately, this kind of middle ground talk disappeared in the dev/pub communities when Sarkeesian decided to change the landscape of the discussion, because not 100% agreeing with these new arguments is seen as an attack, and any attempt at trying to get to an amicable solution were ignore or even seen as an attack, and devs/pubs get heat for not doing so. so now, most of them remain silent on the topic, or in some cases make the same idiotic remarks the SJW class now does, with the only reason I can see being they want to pander to a group who will support them regardless of the quality of their games.

I guess now the problem is that no one is willing to compromise. SJW won't accept any compromise and expect everything to change for them. Other people shouldn't have to compromise, because we are purchasing a product, and we will spend money on what we want. It's how we've always been, and there's no reason to change what it is we're willing to spend money on. It's up to the devs to decide if they want to try and bring in more people with their designs, not for us to have to compromise.

[BrickHardcastle]

@rainslacker I was the dude who wrote this article. I admit it, guvnor. I was around before this whole weekly sexism drama started. I took a paragraph to mention how rich, diverse and interesting gaming discussion used to be before all the nastiness started. The argument you're making about how this drama gets furthered by those with a vested in it is actually kinda similar to the one I made. This kind of drama is only gonna stop when we start rising above it or ignoring it, and the people who keep trying to start it.

[Hitoemi]

Or we could keep SJW the hell out of gaming and let art be art.

[milohighclub]

ffs ppl still going on about sexism in gaming I figured people would have gotten bored about it by now... here's my 2 cents

when I was younger I was called all sorts of names names nerd, geek ect I was laughed and scoffed at by women for been a gamer. I'm 29 so I was playing games before the mainstream found it to be cool. later in life when I grew up and got a girlfriend, all I got was grief for playing games, telling me I'm wasting my life, I'm a loser, I'm wasting money etc. the next thing I know it's cool for girls to be gamers (fair do's, welcome to the club) I have no problem with this AT ALL(even though you pretty much made my life miserable for having a hobby, we are glad to finally welcome you in to our nerd community.) what I do have a problem with is, after being welcomed, you then bitch n moan about the way female characters are portrayed. well welcome to equality women nearly every male protagonist is portrayed in such away. except instead of boobs it's muscles and has since pixels have been able to create muscle definition.

http://cdn.makeuseof.com/wp...

http://www.cheatcc.com/imag...

http://www.lazygamer.net/im...

http://www.games4win.com/up...

http://199.101.98.242/media...

http://orig05.deviantart.ne...

stop complaining and just enjoy the games.

[rainslacker]

Very well said, despite the over generalizations(We know what you meant.:)

[phantomexe]

Is it a crime now to be a guy? The game is clearly aimed at guys too imo. Can we have that? Really can we have it? I guess i should take down the posters in my garage then since looking at women bad or wanting to see it. Guess i'm a male pig for being human.

[DragonDDark]

It's funny now because the only sexist comments now are coming from those who "fight against sexism".

[rainslacker]

You can have it, and will always have it as long as males make up a large percentage of the game buying public.

We'll see some annoying things from time to time as devs/pubs try to be inclusive, or whatever, but for the most part, games aimed at guys aren't going anywhere no matter how much some SJW kick and scream and throw a tantrum about how it's somehow discriminatory towards them.

They'll have their games too, and they'll mostly not sell, and then they'll blame us guys for it, despite them being the ones not actually buying the games, and then continue to blame us for not spending our money on games which don't appeal to us, although maybe if a guy game doesn't sell well we can blame them for it because they didn't buy it because it didn't appeal to them and watch just how oblivious they are to their own hypocrisy.

Eventually, the games aimed at them will stop getting made in abundance because there's no money in it, and devs need to make money to survive, and the whining about it won't put food on the devs table. They'll complain some more, and all will return to normal, where games targeted at certain groups, and games made to appeal to a broader audience continue to get made the way they always have with no issue whatsoever between males and females deciding which games appeal to them personally, and we won't have to be told what it is we should be interested in.

These SJW just have it all wrong though. If they really want to get things done, they should just say if we play the games which appeal to women, we'll get laid, then follow through with that promise, and I guarantee that the kinds of games they ask for will get sold.

Better yet, they could just buy the games that appeal to them, and show theres an actual market for them. No more effective way to get certain kinds of games made than show that they sell.

For all the hubbub, when all these games finally get released that pander to these groups fail critically and commercially, this whole debate will not even be paid attention to anymore by anyone making games. And the damage will be long term, as it takes a long time for publishers to try new things if it's been proven a dud in the past. This whole movement will set everything back more than it was when it was started, and it's shameful that the people complaining the most just can't actually see that because they refuse to look at the bigger picture, and instead choose to be led by self serving sycophants.

[Cha0tik]

Maybe Chinese Room should focus on creating instead of worrying about stuff they don't like to see

[KentBenMei]

Just keep SJWs out of gaming.

[Retroman]

why is this article back again?? posted last week.
this was a error for another article.

[dead_pixels]

What are you talking about? The article was published last night.

[DivineAssault]

The thing is, people are going to disagree regardless of the topic.. Thats just the way it is and always was on the internet.. Even in the AOL days, game discussion rooms had people bickering because people have different opinions.. It will never be a happy place or safe box.. SMH i dont get whats wrong with this over sensitive world.. The correct changes have been made for equality among race and sex when they were a problem.. Its not an issue anymore so people look to find problems with media.. Im 100% for equality, but i am also 100% anti modern feminist.. They want special privileges not equality.. Theres nothing wrong with gaming and theres no need for them to attack it. If a dev wants to make a chick with a smoking body, thats on them.. If they want to make fat princess, thats on them.. If they start caving in to social media SJW's, thats on them.. But i will make sure they dont get my hard earned money..