"They want the male video game culture to die."
Wow, that's completely baseless and false.
Wow, that's completely baseless and false.
The Zoe Quinn sex-for-reviews scandal
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
Yup, not even going to touch that one either.
Sheesh, and you complain about Sarkesian being smug and speaking down to her targeted group.
Also, the correlation of a drop in crime and the rise in the popularity is a terribly bad correlation. There are confounds aplenty involved in those trends.
Sheesh, and you complain about Sarkesian being smug and speaking down to her targeted group.
Also, the correlation of a drop in crime and the rise in the popularity is a terribly bad correlation. There are confounds aplenty involved in those trends.
GasBandit
Staff member
Except many of them basically say exactly that.
Pitard, meet hoist.
Violent crime in general, as I've said in many threads in the past defending video games and guns and whatnot, has gone down every single year since the release of DOOM. Violent video games don't make kids violent, and while there are sexist video games, they are not as prevalent as the neo-feminists say, and on top of that, apparently have not that much effect on how gamers behave in real life.
"But what about all the rampant sexism I hear in Xbox live voice chat?"
Well, you also hear rampant racism, antisemitism, homophobia, xenophobia etc in the same places, but that isn't indicative of the actual majority mindset. In fact, I wonder if it isn't just a temporary swelling of competition-based aggression looking for an easy outlet, you mexican jew lizard.
"If they're young, tell him he's too young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat."
Citation required.
You really don't understand how behavioral statistics work, do you?Firstly, without causal experiments, any correlation is useless, I know that you know science enough to know that this is true. As MD pointed out earlier, empirical studies have shown that violent videogames can increase aggression. Does that mean that it's pumping out little murder machines? Not in the least.
As for the falling crime statistics, that can be attributed to any number of factors that have nothing to do with movies, video games, comic books or whatever else cultural boogeyman you want to compare it to.
The long and the short of it is that NO ONE has enough evidence to conclude this definitively for sexism or violence one way or the other, so arguing over it is like pissing in the wind.
As for the falling crime statistics, that can be attributed to any number of factors that have nothing to do with movies, video games, comic books or whatever else cultural boogeyman you want to compare it to.
The long and the short of it is that NO ONE has enough evidence to conclude this definitively for sexism or violence one way or the other, so arguing over it is like pissing in the wind.
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GasBandit
Staff member
Outside of tumblr (where they do loudly and often, but it's tumblr), they do so by presenting it as a fait accompli. You need look no further than the articles mentioned in this thread and its sisters - they say things like "Gaming is no longer the sole province of the male, it's a fact" or "gamers, as a (white male) identity, are over" or "there are more women gamers now than men, and the marketers have had to accept that, it's already done." Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, gaming is now "more female than male?" The male gaming culture has died, they proclaim in their wishful thinking... leaving actual gamers staring around at their sausagefest and wondering which planet the columnists are doing their research.
Temporarily, the man said. You know what else increases aggression temporarily? Every single competitive sport.
I'm not saying video games cause lower crime, I'm saying that the continued decrease in crime shows the assertion that video games cause violent crime is baseless - the number and popularity of violent video games has increased exponentially over the last few decades - surely if there was any casual relationship between them and actual violence, there would not have been an observed marked decrease in violence to such a very notably huge degree.
What you're saying in no way contradicts what I'm saying. We're agreeing.
Again, I'm not comfortable saying one way or the other as this is simply a correlation. You're implying that there is no causation based off of this correlation, but this is a false assertion. I'M saying that I'm not comfortable saying either way if this is true or not because there are far too many possible confounding variables to draw any direct causal link, positively or negatively to this.
You're also assuming that I'm arguing that video games cause violent crime, which I never have.
What really needs to be done is a longitudinal study on the cumulative effect of these temporary increases in aggression, if any. Even if it doesn't cause violent crime, it could possibly have other detrimental effects that we're not aware of.
So, long story short, I'm viewing this as as a social scientist, not a media alarmist as you seem to think that I am.
As to the objectification of women in video games (regardless of what effect they have on women) is a real thing and you can find examples of it. It is definitely worth discussing if this is a good thing or a bad thing. This is getting into moral territory, not scientific territory.
Personally, I find it icky, tacky and, as I said earlier, ludicrously stupid at points, but that's my personal opinion.
Should women be allowed to have a voice and choice as to what sort of games they want to play? I would say that the answer is yes. I don't see what the problem is with allowing postpubescent boys having their tittie flashing games along side other games. Diversity in an entertainment medium is a good thing.
It also IS a fact that male gamers are no longer the only gamers. Even if it's only a percentage of the gamers who are women, that doesn't mean those people no longer exist because they aren't in the majority.
my views in most things tend to be a bit moderate (even though I'm certainly a little left of center on many issues), but I find that in today's political, media, and internet climate, the reasonable moderate tends to be overshadowed by loud extremists on both sides.
I think the real problem with this is that you could never get a large enough sample size that you could control for all the factors you'd want to test in any meaningful way. We aren't testing a soft drink here... we're testing the long term effects of an entire medium on developing minds of different ages, socioeconomic situations, race, and sex. You also need to do this over a long enough period of time (we're talking at least early childhood to teenage years) to get the kind of results you need.
But the biggest factor? You kind of need kids who LIKE video games at an early enough age to start the tests and you need them to keep liking them for the years of testing. This means we're talking prior exposure at minimum, which defeats the point.
This is all I want in this craziness. I get angry because I feel people like Anita enrage a certain base not towards inclusion or diversification, but by demonizing all female sexuality as "exploitative" and "misogyny" in the game space. Though that has little to due with my issues with Zoe, which has less to do with her gender and more to do with the fact she is exploiting the same people Anita enrages for her personal promotion and gain.
This is, in a nutshell, why experimental psychology is hard.[DOUBLEPOST=1410920008,1410919835][/DOUBLEPOST]I also forgot to mention that even if women themselves aren't half the gaming population, the fact that this is such a divisive issue across gender lines would indicate that there are some male gamers who are just as sick and tired of the way women are portrayed in video games. Of course, that's never even been considered in this whole debate, for the most part.
What the hell is the male gaming culture anyway? Call of Duty + Mountain Dew + Doritos? Magic the Gathering tournaments? Civilization 5? A World of Warcraft raid?
GasBandit
Staff member
I'm trying to ascertain what the thing is that people are afraid they'll lose. I had to ask why earlier in the thread and Ashburner explained. Now I'm asking about the what.
They think it's a zero sum game: that any game designed for and by women won't appeal to them, so therefore every game designed that way is millions that could have been spent on something THEY would have wanted instead. While this is true to an extent (every time a soulless shooter is made, something more interesting withers on the vine) it's also amazingly elf-centered. Never mind that every game isn't designed with that particular audience in mind... this thinking basically says that devs should be catering to them exclusively instead of making what they want.
I'm still not sure where this "male gaming culture" came from. Granted my experience is anecdotal, but relevant to the topic: growing up, almost everyone I knew had a Nintendo, regardless of gender. (This is in a lower-middle class area, just for reference.) We all used to pass around Nintendo Power and talk about tricks and achievements between boys and girls and there was never a mention of this being "not for girls". We had birthday parties and hang-outs that involved long periods in the arcades where us girls were pumping our quarters into the machines for hours. In the 90's, I knew more girls who had the later systems (Sega Genesis, etc.) than guys. (Most, not all, guys I knew stopped at the NES). In fact, I remember one slumber party around '96 where we had two TVs setup: One playing Empire Records while the other was used for a Mario* round-robin tournament since there were 8 of us and only 2 controllers.
I know in another thread Gas posted a graphic about gaming-inclusion that started around '95, which would probably be roughly when we started to feel pushed out: as graphics improved, women characters were getting designed more and more sexually objectifying, beyond the occasional bathing suits from the past. We had been making the same purchases at Funcoland and The Wiz, but suddenly, once "gaming" was getting called a "hobby" rather than just fun entertainment, it started to become a "no girls allowed" environment. I admit, like a number of my girl friends, I took a break from gaming, but I knew a few who didn't, despite the growing noninclusive attitude. (The exception may have been Pokemon: the great equalizer.) But as I also said in that other thread, girls who were gaming, or interested in gaming, didn't get the same attention or have a way to have our voices heard. Being depicted through "the male gaze" (for lack of a better description) can be disheartening, especially when we're playing the games for the same escapism or power fantasy that guys are. I don't think it's taking anything away from gaming by calling out the worst examples. The jury is still out on how much affect is has on one's attitudes towards gender roles, but it's still insulting to a large part of the gaming audience, both men and women. Personally, I don't think the over-all quality of these games wouldn't drop if they remove overly-sexual or sexually violent situations, or maybe it would emphasize how horrible they really are if they were far less common.
(*I can't remember which Mario-I want to say 3? But I do remember we were taking about RENT and the Chicago revival. How's that for 90's imagery?)
I know in another thread Gas posted a graphic about gaming-inclusion that started around '95, which would probably be roughly when we started to feel pushed out: as graphics improved, women characters were getting designed more and more sexually objectifying, beyond the occasional bathing suits from the past. We had been making the same purchases at Funcoland and The Wiz, but suddenly, once "gaming" was getting called a "hobby" rather than just fun entertainment, it started to become a "no girls allowed" environment. I admit, like a number of my girl friends, I took a break from gaming, but I knew a few who didn't, despite the growing noninclusive attitude. (The exception may have been Pokemon: the great equalizer.) But as I also said in that other thread, girls who were gaming, or interested in gaming, didn't get the same attention or have a way to have our voices heard. Being depicted through "the male gaze" (for lack of a better description) can be disheartening, especially when we're playing the games for the same escapism or power fantasy that guys are. I don't think it's taking anything away from gaming by calling out the worst examples. The jury is still out on how much affect is has on one's attitudes towards gender roles, but it's still insulting to a large part of the gaming audience, both men and women. Personally, I don't think the over-all quality of these games wouldn't drop if they remove overly-sexual or sexually violent situations, or maybe it would emphasize how horrible they really are if they were far less common.
(*I can't remember which Mario-I want to say 3? But I do remember we were taking about RENT and the Chicago revival. How's that for 90's imagery?)
I think there may be relationship to the rise of the "bro-gamer" and this trend of delineating between female and male gaming culture, but that would be complete conjecture on my part.
Actually, the more I think about it, this may actually hold some water. It seems like as this demographic got tapped, originally through the sport franchises then eventually Halo and COD and the like, corporate culture started viewing video games as an actual "blockbuster" revenue screen. This may have led them to ratchet up their demographic targeting (those sweet, sweet white male 18-24 dollars).
Actually, the more I think about it, this may actually hold some water. It seems like as this demographic got tapped, originally through the sport franchises then eventually Halo and COD and the like, corporate culture started viewing video games as an actual "blockbuster" revenue screen. This may have led them to ratchet up their demographic targeting (those sweet, sweet white male 18-24 dollars).
GasBandit
Staff member
I remember we (and others, as illustrated) have posited that the rise of the bro-gamer coincided with when video games started to suck more than they used to... but this is an interesting point you raise, too.
I'm almost certain it's a reference to Blasto, which was a TERRIBLE game.
Holy shit yeah that was awful. Almost unplayable. And by almost, I mean "returned to Blockbuster after 2 hours".
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Which is all the more funny because Mass Effect has a character named Blasto.
That article doesn't make any sense to me. They're mad because journalists are sharing opinions with each other on a private distribution list? I don't see any sort of mandating that one thing or another can't be published. If they were actually colluding with publishers/developers, I'd get that there was an issue showing collusion to sell video games, but this doesn't look like anything other than a conversation about the situation.
Pretty much this. It's all baseless conjecture based on some small, circumstantial evidence. Since when are people from different gaming sites not allowed to talk to each other? That's like artists or writers at Marvel and DC not allowed to talk with each other.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-ways-gamers-still-suck-at-dealing-with-women_p2/
Cracked seems to be really focusing on this these days. Though out of all the posts, this one felt like it hit the most proper notes about why this whole issue and why nothing will change. You can't bring up legitimate issues about unethical self-promotion because asstards like to turn everything into who can shout the most obscenities and sexist/racial slurs, and it is true women get this the worst. People like me who care more about the unethical promotion over the "OMG SHE IS A WHORE LOL" might as well just not say anything, because any maturity I try to post gets drowned out by those assholes and my entire argument never matters.
Cracked seems to be really focusing on this these days. Though out of all the posts, this one felt like it hit the most proper notes about why this whole issue and why nothing will change. You can't bring up legitimate issues about unethical self-promotion because asstards like to turn everything into who can shout the most obscenities and sexist/racial slurs, and it is true women get this the worst. People like me who care more about the unethical promotion over the "OMG SHE IS A WHORE LOL" might as well just not say anything, because any maturity I try to post gets drowned out by those assholes and my entire argument never matters.
GasBandit
Staff member
The Breitbart article doesn't say anything we didn't already assume was happening - that these sites collude to present a consistent narrative, much like the mainstream media does in political news. The way they all suddenly started declaring "gamers are over" in unison pretty much confirmed that.
Still, it does undermine their legitimacy. If 9 out of 10 doctors recommend Crest, it kinda tarnishes the recommendation if 7 or 8 of those 9 colluded in private before hand, deciding that "yes, we're going to all recommend Crest because Darren's tight with their sales rep."
Still, it does undermine their legitimacy. If 9 out of 10 doctors recommend Crest, it kinda tarnishes the recommendation if 7 or 8 of those 9 colluded in private before hand, deciding that "yes, we're going to all recommend Crest because Darren's tight with their sales rep."
It's disappointing to see Cracked so crassy try to cash in on the controversy with obvious clickbait such as this and the article they got Quinn to write. They used to be better than buzzfeed. Still, one can't expect too much from a publication that will mostly be remembered as being desperate to fill MAD magazine's shoes but always being overshadowed by it.
Did they though? Cracked has always been poorly written, click bait, that for some reason a lot of people want to take as Gospel because it's in a list format and the author is arrogant and snarky.
They sometimes do have decent posts. Yes, it's a comedy website, and should always be looked at as such. However, even the worst comedians sometimes have a jewel of truth in them. Though I wish they were a bit more impartial. They obviously side on the opposite side of me when it comes to the unethical claims.
GasBandit
Staff member
John Cheese's stuff is pretty good.
Did they? There was that Leigh Alexander article that claimed this and then like 200 "Are gamers over?" articles that discussed it.
fade
Staff member
As a parent, I can tell you that the games may not make my son and his friends more violent, but it most definitely desensitizes them to violence and gore. How that translates to causing violence, I cannot say. However, I do worry about a snowball situation where someone starts something, and these desensitized kids all start participating because it isn't shocking to them.
Probably depending on personality. I wouldn't say participation is a likely next step, but caring? Hard to say. Considering the games I had as a kid were Mario Bros, Sonic, and Final Fantasy VII, I'd say I'm more desensitized to violence through movies I saw and books I read than the games I played. There's always something now.
But there are certainly people who should not play violent video games because of who they are and the unique way it affects them, which is where it comes down to the parents to know their kid. I was allowed to watch those movies because my parents knew I had a clear distinction between fantasy and reality, and they let me read those books because they didn't screen them first and totally wouldn't have let me read them if they had. Books can fuck up a brain as much as any game. Don't let 10-year-olds read Dean Koontz.