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Sexism has long been a major issue in gaming and will likely continue to be so for some time to come. Recent issues such as these only highlight how much further the gaming world still has to go on this topic.
Kudos to Goblinworks for being tantamount to pioneers in this regard.
I know sometime in Alpha 6 the developers switched up the ratio of male Thornguards to female Thornguards by making them equal.
They also have actually made the effort to clothe and properly armor female characters- a vast difference from many other games on the market today.
As a man and a Feminist, thank you GW for making the game a safer space for women. Keep up the good work!
Goblin Squad Member
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Wow. Threats of rape and murder, with home addresses posted. Unbelievable.
From what I understand, GW intends to provide characters of both genders with choices of armor/clothing styles that range from practical to stylized, and modest to provocative. That seems like the best course of action to me. As long as the various styles within a given armor type provide equivalent protection, nobody needs to feel coerced into, or restricted from, wearing a particular style.
Kudos from me, too, GW.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My first post ever at Paizo was testing the waters about armor and if it was going to serve the male gaze like 99.9% of games since graphics were invented.
Male gaze in this context - graphics of both masculinity and femininity are designed to be appealing to only heterosexual males and no one else is considered. Women are sexually available and men look strong and in command, it's all about what the boys want to see. (No, it's never been about how much skin is showing).
My plate has mild boob bumps but overall I'm really happy with the lack of traditional video game values as far as this goes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My first post ever at Paizo was testing the waters about armor and if it was going to serve the male gaze like 99.9% of games since graphics were invented.
Male gaze in this context - graphics of both masculinity and femininity are designed to be appealing to only heterosexual males and no one else is considered. Women are sexually available and men look strong and in command, it's all about what the boys want to see. (No, it's never been about how much skin is showing).
My plate has mild boob bumps but overall I'm really happy with the lack of traditional video game values as far as this goes.
Ditto! I'm a veteran of the years of Appearance Tab threads in WoW, and it's VERY nice to know I'm not going to find my characters shoved into "sexy" armor here!
<- Just noticed the long hair on Proxima's avatar.
Separately, I wonder how many people are absolutely terrified by the title of this thread? :) There are two very big, fiery words in there, and they don't begin with S or F :P
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think Call of Duty has a higher proportion of dudebros. It's a different environment when the average age is mid-30 and every other player has kids and every fifth player has grandkids.
Obviously, until we're damned into the fiery pits of OE.
As for noticing the long hair, when we went escalation scrubbing this weekend one of the first things someone said to me on Mumble is my character is hot.
Well... baby steps.
(To which I reply, Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?)
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Goblin Squad Member
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LOL, I am not sure I have made a character in PFO that I would consider "hot" yet.
But this discussion is not just for gaming. It is in every aspect of society, and women in general have been just as much at fault as men are. I would say that the only reason it bothers me is because 1) I have a daughter, and 2) I have had too many female friends that dive right into this and end up as the type of women that are just annoying shallow husks.
LOL, dudebros, never heard that one.
It has been amusing to see the number of games that have female characters with enormous "personalities" and show every piece of skin possible to the point of almost being porn. I dont play those games, they are usually not much more then mindless nonsense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is in every aspect of society, and women in general have been just as much at fault as men are.
...
I have had too many female friends that dive right into this and end up as the type of women that are just annoying shallow husks.
This type of argument reads a bit too much like victim blaming.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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My first post ever at Paizo was testing the waters about armor and if it was going to serve the male gaze like 99.9% of games since graphics were invented.
Male gaze in this context - graphics of both masculinity and femininity are designed to be appealing to only heterosexual males and no one else is considered. Women are sexually available and men look strong and in command, it's all about what the boys want to see. (No, it's never been about how much skin is showing).
My plate has mild boob bumps but overall I'm really happy with the lack of traditional video game values as far as this goes.
You have a very narrow and caricaturing view of males and females.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want my character to have large white shiny teeth, smoldering eyes and run around bare-chested so the girls can see my wonderful six pack abs! Oh, and a nice head of hair.
You know, like the Fabio model from all those romance stories lots of women read - either admitting to it or do it secretively. :-)
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Goblin Squad Member
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This type of argument reads a bit too much like victim blaming.It is in every aspect of society, and women in general have been just as much at fault as men are.
...
I have had too many female friends that dive right into this and end up as the type of women that are just annoying shallow husks.
Not victim blaming at all. I do not think they are victims, just saying that they had a change of personality after going down that road. Also that it was their choice to wear nothing and be proud of it.
Thats it. It is our society, and it will not change any time soon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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GamerGate and the death threats are turning out to be pretty difficult to explain to non-gamers. "How did accusations of collusion between developers and review Web sites escalate and mutate until a university was threatened with a mass shooting if it allowed a lecture on feminism in gaming to take place?" Truth be told, I can barely follow that chain myself, much less explain it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want my character to have large white shiny teeth, smoldering eyes and run around bare-chested so the girls can see my wonderful six pack abs! Oh, and a nice head of hair.
You know, like the Fabio model from all those romance stories lots of women read - either admitting to it or do it secretively. :-)
I want my character to have a beer helmet, a mullet, tank top, and finally speedos.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You want a beer belly with that Speedo? I saw a picture of a very out of shape Arnold S, in a speedo. Shudder! :-)
Maybe it is still floating around the Web somewhere. I think it was taken while he was governor.
edit
Found the pic using Bing!
look for this: arnold schwarzenegger swimsuit
and look in images.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You want a beer belly with that Speedo? I saw a picture of a very out of shape Arnold S, in a speedo. Shudder! :-)
Maybe it is still floating around the Web somewhere. I think it was taken while he was governor.
Oh no, all that is built on the perfect frame, with six pack and all!!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want my character to have a beer helmet, a mullet, tank top, and finally speedos.I want my character to have large white shiny teeth, smoldering eyes and run around bare-chested so the girls can see my wonderful six pack abs! Oh, and a nice head of hair.
You know, like the Fabio model from all those romance stories lots of women read - either admitting to it or do it secretively. :-)
PFO probably will still follow most MMO's in that all avatars look trim and athletic.
I am still hoping that we can create avatars with pot-bellies and pear-shapes. It would make so much more sense for a player who wants to be a Commoner, Trader, Crafter, Officer or any of the other roles that are not pure combat.
Look something like this: a Very Wealthy Merchant
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just so the ladies here understand. I agree that what PFO is doing for female armor at etc is great. It looks good and is what I would expect to see in D&D. What other games are doing is just meh.
I am just not a believer that its all the mans fault.
That's a discussion about privilege and silencing and the difference between acculturation and what each individual does with it. Like dudebro, who even is this "the man" whose fault it isn't?
Chris Lambertz will be happy to know that's a rhetorical question because this isn't the forum to get into that, literally. There are plenty of great resources already out in the world.
GW is doing a good job on the issue so far, trying to represent all the kinds of people that might want to play their game. That's the thread.
(To which I reply, Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?)
OH! YES! CAN I!? Is she single? Does she like to cook? Does she mind if I urinate on myself when I get aroused? All my four-legged lady friends *love it* when I do that :)
Silly goats.
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GamerGate and the death threats are turning out to be pretty difficult to explain to non-gamers. "How did accusations of collusion between developers and review Web sites escalate and mutate until a university was threatened with a mass shooting if it allowed a lecture on feminism in gaming to take place?" Truth be told, I can barely follow that chain myself, much less explain it.
I think the short answer is, there are some very mentally and emotionally unhealthy people in the world, and some of them are gamers. It is a very tenuous thread that would take a person from healthy human baby to the sort of threats arising in the GamerGate scandal; but it is one that, nevertheless, still seems to form on rare occasion. And in this day of age, it only takes one.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You have a very narrow and caricaturing view of males and females.
That's not my personal view. I'm very down with the womens I even have friends that are ladies.
I was explaining a very common and reductive point of view in the entire entertainment industry basically, and why it's good that GoblinWorks isn't doing the same thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Like dudebro, who even is this "the man" whose fault it isn't?
Like no way girl, no u dittent!!
Seriously though, you know what I was saying.
Most of those games are targeted at men, because most gamers are men. As I said, I think its nonsense. Its all about money just like most comercials on TV are about a woman telling a man what to do, or a woman telling another woman what to do, or a woman talking about how great something is. That target audience is women for a reason.
All about the cash and who it flows from. Nothing else matters.
I do applaud GW for not falling into that. (in this case)
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
GamerGate and the death threats are turning out to be pretty difficult to explain to non-gamers. "How did accusations of collusion between developers and review Web sites escalate and mutate until a university was threatened with a mass shooting if it allowed a lecture on feminism in gaming to take place?" Truth be told, I can barely follow that chain myself, much less explain it.I think the short answer is, there are some very mentally and emotionally unhealthy people in the world, and some of them are gamers. It is a very tenuous thread that would take a person from healthy human baby to the sort of threats arising in the GamerGate scandal; but it is one that, nevertheless, still seems to form on rare occasion. And in this day of age, it only takes one.
Two things.
First, it's not so much "rare occasion" as it is "daily". If you're fortunate enough to know a girl gamer, just watch for a while as she tries to play the current widely popular game of the day.
Second, the answer to Karl's question is a solid two years of social science courses at least, and honestly makes a great Master's thesis. It is a REALLY complex web of social systems and actions that both give and reinforce specific constructed perceptions about different types of people and a separate notion that it's okay to use any means necessary to preserve and defend those constructs. Of course to the average person all that is like water to a fish - it seems so "natural" that they don't consciously realize it's there, they just exist in it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Most of those games are targeted at men, because most gamers are men.
And THAT sentence is PURE sexism.
Now get me on this, you personally are not trying to be prejudiced against women. But you ARE receiving that idea directly from sexism and reinforcing sexism by expressing that gender-assumption as fact. The difference between personal prejudice (the "I have a friend" defense) and systemic sexism is the the major thing that many, many people don't get when talking about equality.
The fact is 40-50% of gamers are girls and women, and it's easy to assume more would be if they had a safe and accepting place to be a gamer with real products built for them (not a bow and lipstick slapped onto regular Pac-Man).
All about the cash and who it flows from. Nothing else matters.
You're also touching on the chicken:egg issue in gaming and entertainment more broadly. Are women not interested in gaming because their ovaries said so, or are they not interested in games built specifically to be looked at by stereotypical hyper-masculine-emulating dudes?
Most of those games are targeted at men, because most gamers are men.And THAT is an assumption based PURELY on sexism.
There are actually studies out there. The one I found first said that 84% of WoW gamers are men.
I don't think that's an argument based purely on sexism, although it might be an outdated survey (the data is from 2005) and it might be hasty generalization (WoW is only one game, albeit a very important and influential one), but it's still an empirical finding.
And if I want to get in on the WoW market, that finding is going to influence almost everything I do, from marketing to basic game design. I'd rather go for 5/6 of the market than 1/6.
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Most of those games are targeted at men, because most gamers are men.And THAT is an assumption based PURELY on sexism.There are actually studies out there. The one I found first said that 84% of WoW gamers are men.
I don't think that's an argument based purely on sexism, although it might be an outdated survey (the data is from 2005) and it might be hasty generalization (WoW is only one game, albeit a very important and influential one), but it's still an empirical finding.
And if I want to get in on the WoW market, that finding is going to influence almost everything I do, from marketing to basic game design. I'd rather go for 5/6 of the market than 1/6.
When you factor in casual games on platforms like phones or facebook, that number gets blown out of the water. It ends up being almost 50/50 at that point.
That being said, what that really illustrates is there are two different markets here that are being conflated in the media. From a pure business perspective, if you market dudebro action shooters to dudebros and candy crush clones to middle-aged housewives you won't go wrong.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Most of those games are targeted at men, because most gamers are men.And THAT is an assumption based PURELY on sexism.
Maybe you are in a different generation then I am, but most gamers I have ever seen in any game type. Whether it was SWTOR, Eve, TT, or anything else are men.
Now get me on this, you personally are not trying to be prejudiced against women. But you ARE receiving that idea directly from sexism and reinforcing sexism by expressing that gender-assumption as fact. The difference between personal prejudice (the "I have a friend" defense) and systemic sexism is the the major thing that many, many people don't get when talking about equality.
The I have a friend comment, was about women that I went to high school with and were friends with. They were not gamers. It was not a defense but an observation.
What most people do not get when talking about equality... I can say this being a middle class white male that everyone in society targets as the evil oppressor.... Is that they want their equality at the expense of the other and not to be lifted up to be equal with.
The fact is 40-50% of gamers are girls and women, and it's easy to assume more would be if they had a safe and accepting place to be a gamer with real products built for them (not a bow and lipstick slapped onto regular Pac-Man).
I dont know about the 40-50% part. It may be true in statistics, but I never saw that ratio at the local game shops or GenCon for that metter.
You are correct though, from what I have seen at times at the local shops.
All about the cash and who it flows from. Nothing else matters.You're also touching on the chicken:egg issue in gaming and entertainment more broadly. Are women not interested in gaming because their ovaries said so, or are they not interested in games built specifically to be looked at by stereotypical hyper-masculine-emulating dudes?
I do not see why a woman would be interested in a game with bouncing personalities. The thing is, it goes right back to what I said. There are many men that would buy a game just for that reason... Hence the developer makes quick money.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Most of those games are targeted at men, because most gamers are men.And THAT is an assumption based PURELY on sexism.There are actually studies out there. The one I found first said that 84% of WoW gamers are men.
I don't think that's an argument based purely on sexism, although it might be an outdated survey (the data is from 2005) and it might be hasty generalization (WoW is only one game, albeit a very important and influential one), but it's still an empirical finding.
And if I want to get in on the WoW market, that finding is going to influence almost everything I do, from marketing to basic game design. I'd rather go for 5/6 of the market than 1/6.
When you factor in casual games on platforms like phones or facebook, that number gets blown out of the water. It ends up being almost 50/50 at that point.
That being said, what that really illustrates is there are two different markets here that are being conflated in the media. For a pure business perspective, if you market dudebro action shooters to dudebros and candy crush clones to middle-aged housewives you wont go wrong.
Those two statements nailed what I was saying.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First, it's not so much "rare occasion" as it is "daily". If you're fortunate enough to know a girl gamer, just watch for a while as she tries to play the current widely popular game of the day.
Gods. My 12-year-old math-wizard niece is just getting into gaming, and currently wants to be a game developer. I hope this vicious cycle spins itself out before she's grown.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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This is a bad place for this entire discussion. There are so many people that are wrong and will have trouble admitting it, and the tribal affiliations and arguements as soldiers biases will shout down all of the actual discussion that is attempted.
Yes, I've said things here that break solidarity with the people who agree with me, by pointing out their biases. If that is a problem, it is part of the point.
Most of those games are targeted at men, because most gamers are men.And THAT sentence is PURE sexism.
Now get me on this, you personally are not trying to be prejudiced against women. But you ARE receiving that idea directly from sexism and reinforcing sexism by expressing that gender-assumption as fact. The difference between personal prejudice (the "I have a friend" defense) and systemic sexism is the the major thing that many, many people don't get when talking about equality.
The fact is 40-50% of gamers are girls and women, and it's easy to assume more would be if they had a safe and accepting place to be a gamer with real products built for them (not a bow and lipstick slapped onto regular Pac-Man).
All about the cash and who it flows from. Nothing else matters.You're also touching on the chicken:egg issue in gaming and entertainment more broadly. Are women not interested in gaming because their ovaries said so, or are they not interested in games built specifically to be looked at by stereotypical hyper-masculine-emulating dudes?
And the fact is that the studies that reflect more than 40% gamers to be female use different definitions of gamer than most people within the gamer community. For instance, playing 10 minutes of candy crush a week constitutes people as a gamer by some of the studies. Men are significantly more likely to play more than 20 hours of video games a week, on the order of about 4 to 1. They make up about 60% of gamers who play between 5 and 20 hours. There are enough women in the category of less than 5 hours a week in some of the studies to skew the gender ratio in favor of women despite very few people in that group self-identifying as a gamer.
As a side note, I have heard females currently make up more than 50% of active WoW accounts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Okay, if we're gonna play Social Science Study Bingo, here's the first thing I found with the keywords "study percentage female gamers". Study: More women than teenage boys are gamers Washington Post, August 22, 2014. Most relevant paragraph:
Men still make up 52 percent of the game-playing population, but women, now 48 percent of the gaming population compared with just 40 percent in 2010, are closing in. The rising popularity of mobile gaming is one reason why.
Edit: Caineach, that's why I described what we're doing as Social Science Study Bingo. Quoting studies at each other won't have much effect if we're all using different definitions of core terms like "gamer" and "gaming".
Like dudebro, who even is this "the man" whose fault it isn't?Like no way girl, no u dittent!!
Seriously though, you know what I was saying.
Most of those games are targeted at men, because most gamers are men. As I said, I think its nonsense. Its all about money just like most comercials on TV are about a woman telling a man what to do, or a woman telling another woman what to do, or a woman talking about how great something is. That target audience is women for a reason.
All about the cash and who it flows from. Nothing else matters.
I do applaud GW for not falling into that. (in this case)
Actually, I think besides being awesome people who like to see things like good representation in gaming, they also recognized that they have a niche product and a large part of their target audience is in a counterculture that supports these types of things, so it also makes sense financially.
When you aren't trying to appeal to mainstream with the core of your product, you have more freedom to try to court non-mainstream people with other aspects of it.
Okay, if we're gonna play Social Science Study Bingo, here's the first thing I found with the keywords "study percentage female gamers". Study: More women than teenage boys are gamers Washington Post, August 22, 2014. Most relevant paragraph:Men still make up 52 percent of the game-playing population, but women, now 48 percent of the gaming population compared with just 40 percent in 2010, are closing in. The rising popularity of mobile gaming is one reason why.
Which study did they use? In fact, "The rising popularity of mobile gaming is one reason why." supports my claim. Most people within the gaming community, and many people outside of it, do not consider those people gamers IME. A problem is the term is being used by different groups to mean different things.
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Okay, if we're gonna play Social Science Study Bingo, here's the first thing I found with the keywords "study percentage female gamers". Study: More women than teenage boys are gamers Washington Post, August 22, 2014. Most relevant paragraph:Which study did they use? In fact, "The rising popularity of mobile gaming is one reason why." supports my claim. Most people within the gaming community, and many people outside of it, do not consider those people gamers IME. A problem is the term is being used by different groups to mean different things.Men still make up 52 percent of the game-playing population, but women, now 48 percent of the gaming population compared with just 40 percent in 2010, are closing in. The rising popularity of mobile gaming is one reason why.
Looks like the 2014 ESA numbers (Link: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2014.pdf)
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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That 9-year-old study is the paper equivalent of the 3% of people with a college degree that say climate change isn't a thing.
Sociology, isn't a thing. It's a 40 years old scam engineered to promote leftist ideas like "women are as strong as men, it's just cultural" or "multiculturalism is great".
And by the way, I remember the time in the late 90s when only 3% of people said that climate change was a thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You want data? The Entertainment Software Association has spreadsheet nerds do that every year. Here is the info for 2014
Edit: Karl beat me by five minutes mentioning it, but I was getting the link! :0)
Granted this particular group has seen a 10% rise in female players in the last five or six years (38% TO 48%) which goes to say the 2005 WoW study might have been fairly accurate for that game at that time and also that it's wildly unrepresentative of anything happening now.
The entire point of labeling it a chicken and egg situation in gaming is to say that if 90% of games produced have no thought at all to appealing to women so female population is heavily underrepresented in gaming, can you really say that women just aren't into video games?
Spoiler Alert: No dude, you can't bro.
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It seems to me that targeting a demographic that your competitors don't is a good business practice.
Well... it can be, but it's a risky proposition. Creating a market is always very hard. Not only do you have to be very sure that a demographic exists in that space (i.e. 20-35 year old males who are also knitting enthusiasts), you then also have to compete with every other thing that that demographic spends money on. Personal anecdotal observation (which, to be honest, ranks rather low on reliability I will admit) tends to bear out that being the second or third company on the scene of an emergent market tends to be the winner, as the actual market creators will have exhausted their own resources by the time the market comes to fruition.