Why video games are sexist and we can't do anything about it.

[Bamspeedy]

And the Saw series isn't cinematography.

I'm not sure that in a world full of video game murder simulators I'm particularly shocked that a rape simulator got production value spent on it. I'm not even sure it's actually any cause for concern above Call of Duty, or something like that. Most parents wouldn't let kids openly play Rapelay in the living room, so at least that one is still shunned as inappropriate. A video game can certainly be a violently sexist and mysoginistic fantasy without video games being sexist and mysoginistic fantasies in general, or video gamers being any great example of such.

I guess I got thinking about it as I watched my son play Overwatch on an empty level and he had the character jump off a cliff. He asked why the character screamed. What's really the answer there, other than, "He doesn't want to die?" Overwatch is a pretty tame example of that.

Rapelay (before it was banned) was not, as far as I know, bought off store shelves. Though it was briefly sold on Amazon, otherwise you really had to know how to get it (ordering direct from Japan). I guess perhaps Rapelay is just used to represent all porn games, as there are hundreds of other porn games, but they aren't sold on store shelves (but some are on Amazon). I mean the 'Top 30 sexist games of all time' type lists could have just done it the lazy way and listed off 30 porn games.

 

[Mise]

I guess I was under the impression that there was some disagreement because of the negative way in which you phrased it, but it seems you just have a rather negative image of people in general. ^^

I merely hold computer games to the same standard as film and TV. Of course there's lots of money to be made from peddling mindless, trashy TV. Of course there are plenty of people just watching it "for the plot". I don't know why anyone expects computer games to be any different tbh. I'm just calling it what it is -- crap. Crap TV, crap films, and crap games make a craptonne of money. No kidding!

Nobody seriously defends Keeping up with the Kardashians by saying "yeah but lots of people like it so it must be good". Yet this is exactly what happens with computer games. It's really dumb.

 

[Farm Boy]

Who banned it? Distribution networks refusing to carry it? Aside from the flash in the pan it made around what, 2006ish?, I really don't hear much about animated pornography and censorship aside from occasionally here. I thought the courts smushed a Republican effort to include animation under child porn laws at some point with a rather to-the-point, you can't have child-porn without a child. Or something like that.

 

[Ryika]

I merely hold computer games to the same standard as film and TV. Of course there's lots of money to be made from peddling mindless, trashy TV. Of course there are plenty of people just watching it "for the plot". I don't know why anyone expects computer games to be any different tbh. I'm just calling it what it is -- crap. Crap TV, crap films, and crap games make a craptonne of money. No kidding!

Nobody seriously defends Keeping up with the Kardashians by saying "yeah but lots of people like it so it must be good". Yet this is exactly what happens with computer games. It's really dumb.

But you weren't actually talking about Kardashian-level games, your argument was that:

Gratuitous, oversexualised representations of women in computer games just make the game crap. It's cheap fan service. I mean, I like looking at naked women as much as the next guy, but chucking a fit girl into a piece of media is the oldest and cheapest form of marketing ever. It just makes for a crap game.

That may be true for you, other people seem to not be bothered by it. Nier: Automata has caught some flag for its slighly sexualized main character(s), yet it's an amazing game, possibly the best of 2017. That wouldn't change if the character were running around in a bikini, and had bouncy boob and butt physics. It would still be a great game, with great gameplay, and very innovative design. Your personal enjoyment of the game may suffer, but it doesn't make the game become "crap".

But yeah, I agree that there are games that don't have much going for them other than their sexualization, and that those games are marketed purely on the aspect of sexualization, and that seems to be what you're getting at, but you're phrasing it in a way that is encompasses more games than you really seem to be targeting.

 

[Mise]

But you weren't actually talking about Kardashian-level games, your argument was that:



That may be true for you, other people seem to not be bothered by it. Nier: Automata has caught some flag for its slighly sexualized main character(s), yet it's an amazing game, possibly the best of 2017. That wouldn't change if the character were running around in a bikini, and had bouncy boob and butt physics. It would still be a great game, with great gameplay, and very innovative design. Your personal enjoyment of the game may suffer, but it doesn't make the game become "crap".

But yeah, I agree that there are games that don't have much going for them other than their sexualization, and that those games are marketed purely on the aspect of sexualization, and that seems to be what you're getting at, but you're phrasing it in a way that is encompasses more games than you really seem to be targeting.

The context of the discussion was a hypothetical RPG in which Mithril-infused full body armour provided exactly the same physical damage reduction for exactly the same weight as a bikini and thong. That is clearly mindless, trashy, Kardashian-level gaming.

Furthermore, if Nier: Automata (which I haven't played, full disclosure) did have its main character running around in a bikini with fully customisable jiggle physics, this would be a terrible design choice for the game, and completely ruin the sort of universe, narrative, and "feel" the game is going for. We can -- and should -- criticise this design choice as being crap, even as we acknowledge the merits of the gameplay and innovative design.

Finally, your argument is that people enjoy those games anyway, so obviously my opinion has little value compared to the weight of mass opinion. But people enjoy the Kardashians anyway, millions of people watch it, and it's made loads and loads of money -- so obviously any criticism that Keeping up with the Kardashians is trash TV is merely some personal opinion that can be dismissed out of hand.

This is patently nonsense. It's clear that we can justifiably describe the Kardashians as trash TV, despite its commercial success and popularity; I can describe computer games as trash too, irrespective of their commercial success or popularity. There is no reason why the commercial success or popularity of a game should make it immune to accusations of being complete trash. There are loads of popular, commercially successful things that are trash, so your pointing out that lots of games are popular and commercially successful does nothing to diminish criticisms of these games.

I do wish people would stop bleating about sales figures and commercial success when trying to judge how good a computer game is. A computer game can be utter trash, even if lots of people like it. The argument is simply pointless. If you want to disagree with me, and say that "actually, that hypothetical RPG would be really good, because of XYZ reasons", then fine. But don't just say "yeah but lots of people want tits in their games so your opinion is objectively wrong."

 

[Ryika]

My argument is that this single aspect of the game doesn't decide whether a game is good or not. The Kardashians are trash (at least as far as I understand it, because full disclosure, I haven't seen a second of that show) because it's a show that is focused around meaningless nonsense. That's at the core of the show, and everything around it is built to fit that core. The show as a whole is trash.

If a character is overly sexualized it may destroy the game for you personally, but other people who don't value immersion as much may still think it's a fantastic game with fantastic gameplay and fantastic ideas. It may even improve the game for them, because hey, now they don't have to figure out how to get the camera to expose as much as possible of the characters ass, it's just always in the frame! There's a divide between two groups of gamers, those who are in it for the gameplay, and those who are in it for the story and the immersion (and yeah, of course there's a lot of overlap between both groups).

So again, for people who are not strongly focused on immersion the sexualization of a character has little to no impact on their enjoyment of the game. At least no negative impact when it comes to male gamers. 8) So I don't think your comparison is fair at all.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Who banned it? Distribution networks refusing to carry it? Aside from the flash in the pan it made around what, 2006ish?, I really don't hear much about animated pornography and censorship aside from occasionally here. I thought the courts smushed a Republican effort to include animation under child porn laws at some point with a rather to-the-point, you can't have child-porn without a child. Or something like that.

From wiki:

Three years after its initial release, the game garnered international attention and controversy for its content, and was subsequently banned in USA, Canada, Japan, and in several countries.

Equality Now followed up on the game, urging activists to write to Illusion and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso in protest, arguing the game breaches Japan's obligations under the 1985 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.[6] In May 2009, these actions culminated in the restriction of the sale and production of RapeLay by the Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS), an independent Japanese ratings organization for adult games, making the purchase of the game impossible.[7]

For animation of children, I always figured that stuff was still illegal in the US, and rightfully so. When the age is questionable games usually put in "all characters are portrayed to be 18 or over, or whatever age is legal in your country".

 

[Broken_Erika]

Yeah, Japan does have a sizable number of perverts.....

 

[Farm Boy]

Huh. Hadn't realized it had gone full thoughtcrime.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's not about style, I was talking rather about appropriateness of wearing gender-specific outfit in RPG.
For example, if I play male character, I won't wear bikini or skirt even if they give me somewhat superior stats. Likewise I won't wear them in real life.

Well, no, you wouldn't wear a bikini or a skirt. But you might wear a loincloth or a kilt. There was a time when that was all but the uniform for the up-and-coming fantasy hero. If players are given the opportunity to don the G-String of Protection but not the Jockstrap of Warding, that's a design choice which the designers have made.

 

[caketastydelish]

Yeah, Japan does have a sizable number of perverts.....

They also have some of the lowest sexual assault rates. I'd rather they be perverts and not rapists than the other way around.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

They also have some of the lowest sexual assault rates. I'd rather they be perverts and not rapists than the other way around.

Emphasis; reported sexual assault rates. Which may not mean the sunshine and unicorns that you are taking it to mean.

 

[caketastydelish]

What other data is there, though?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What other data is there, though?

None. That doesn't make the existing data reliable. I recommend putting it in the context of Japanese culture, which has extremely deep roots that would limit reporting.

 

[Ryika]

Japan is probably one of the few countries where assuming that there's a much-larger-than-usual number of unreported rapes is a pretty safe bet. With rape laws that are over a century old, a culture that doesn't exactly empathize with victims of crime in general, and a police force that is pretty inept at dealing with rape cases, that's just what you'd expect the outcome to be, even when lacking hard evidence.

Still, Japan's official rape statistics are 1 reported rape per 100,000 population, Germany alone has 9.4 per 100,000. So even if we assumed that in Germany every single rape was reported, that would mean that Japan needs a dark number of almost 90% to even be on the same level. The United States have 27.3 per 100,000. So I think it's pretty likely that Japan actually does have relatively few rapes in comparison.

 

[Sommerswerd]

They also have some of the lowest sexual assault rates. I'd rather they be perverts and not rapists than the other way around.

The documentary version of Freakonomics (I can't remember if it was in the book too) had a segment on how Japan maintains an astonishingly high crime-solving rate by simply not investigating the crimes that appear to be tougher to solve. That way they can say they solve 99% of murders or whatever the statistic was.

As weve discussed before, selective enforcement/investigation has a profound impact on crime statistics, and the public perception that goes along with it.

 

[caketastydelish]

I wasn't aware of this. Thanks.

 

[REDY]

Most of male protagonists in Japanese games look like women. Is it the solution or just another -ism?

 

[Traitorfish]

Most of male protagonists in Japanese games look like women.

Wll, they look like young men, according to Japanese beauty standards for young men. It's androgyny rather than femininity, and often just a lack of overt masculinity. (Ever notice that a lot of the leading men in the Final Fantasy series, despite their boyish faces and dandyish haircuts, are completely shredded?)

 

[Commodore]

(Ever notice that a lot of the leading men in the Final Fantasy series, despite their boyish faces and dandyish haircuts, are completely shredded?)

Are you saying that being shredded can only be a masculine quality?