The big Phil Fish, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian discussion thread

gizmo

jimbob_jones wrote: »

I really thought when the indie games scene started to pick up that the game industry was starting to come full circle for want of a better term and just hark back to the days of the Spectrum and Commodore when folks were cranking out games from the bedroom. Just the old rose tinted glasses I suspect

Why wait on the industry to change when a lot of what you're looking for exists right now? Start by popping over to the TigSource forums and check out the DevLogs, it's chock full of some pretty great projects. From there you should be able to pick up some decent people/projects to follow on Twitter who in turn will help you discover even more interesting people and projects via retweets and the like. Before you know it you'll have a nice feed full of awesome games and dev related updates.

shruikan2553

gizmo wrote: »

it's just that when the dust settles I believe it would be entirely disingenuous to say both sides, in their totality, were as bad as the other.

Give me a choice of being locked in a room with someone who is pro or anti GG to discuss it I'm still going to go through a window.

DeVore

Without saying which side was "worse" ... would everyone agree that both have been "bad"

K.O.Kiki

Four-part critical dissertion of Anita Sarkeesian's video series:
https://medium.com/@cainejw/dishonesty-feminist-frequency-part-1-fe937f6a791e
https://medium.com/@cainejw/dishonesty-feminist-frequency-part-2-damsels-in-distress-pt-1-2309ce61c2a5
https://medium.com/@cainejw/dishonesty-feminist-frequency-part-2-damsels-in-distress-pt-2-fde349026b7d
https://medium.com/@cainejw/dishonesty-feminist-frequency-part-4-b26293b4755b

Haven't had a chance to even read through the first part yet.

BlitzKrieg

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Four-part critical dissertion of Anita Sarkeesian's video series:
https://medium.com/@cainejw/dishonesty-feminist-frequency-part-1-fe937f6a791e
https://medium.com/@cainejw/dishonesty-feminist-frequency-part-2-damsels-in-distress-pt-1-2309ce61c2a5
https://medium.com/@cainejw/dishonesty-feminist-frequency-part-2-damsels-in-distress-pt-2-fde349026b7d
https://medium.com/@cainejw/dishonesty-feminist-frequency-part-4-b26293b4755b

Haven't had a chance to even read through the first part yet.

I'll have a sit down and read, but the opening paragraph has me already expecting very little as while I have seen the arguments on *dishonesty* involving anita's work (wasnt this about ethics in journalism?) opening the piece with numerous examples of acedemic plagiarism you're going to want to actually have a case of actual plagiarism by the end of the read.

Which as far as I have seen no one has accused her of actual plagiarism and academic plagiarism involving media studies and feminism is not something you would easily get away considering there are quite a a lot of academics in this field and unless we are still subscribing to the ridiculous feminist agenda notion they would not let someone use their work to the extent of Anita without credit.

Nollog

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

I'll have a sit down and read, but the opening paragraph has me already expecting very little as while I have seen the arguments on *dishonesty* involving anita's work (wasnt this about ethics in journalism?) opening the piece with numerous examples of acedemic plagiarism you're going to want to actually have a case of actual plagiarism by the end of the read.

Which as far as I have seen no one has accused her of actual plagiarism and academic plagiarism involving media studies and feminism is not something you would easily get away considering there are quite a a lot of academics in this field and unless we are still subscribing to the ridiculous feminist agenda notion they would not let someone use their work to the extent of Anita without credit.

I read the first piece, it's about how they put only the woman in the spotlight, Sarkeeeesssiaaaan, or however you spell it, and the guy she works with is invisible, and how their claims are poorly researched with zero sources cited.
Also, a history of feminism in the US.

kunst nugget

/\/ollog wrote: »

I read the first piece, it's about how they put only the woman in the spotlight, Sarkeeeesssiaaaan, or however you spell it, and the guy she works with is invisible, and how their claims are poorly researched with zero sources cited.
Also, a history of feminism in the US.

I started to read it but it seems very dry and I'm kind of time short at the moment in the run up to Christmas. I will say one thing though, I think where he's coming from is kind of flawed to start with. In essence, he has saying that this is an academic work so it should have the full rigors of academic research, annotation, accreditation etc. But I think the point of the series was to actually present what would be considered dry academia to a wider audience and educate in the same way that science programmes on TV might. Obviously that doesn't excuse the flaws in research.

o1s1n

I really like this part from the second link;

Preliminary research that I am conducting, and has gone through the history of console gaming until the Sega Master System, shows that of 1,800 examined games, only 5% or roughly 96 have the Damsel in Distress trope.

McIntosh and Sarkeesian were able to find 24 games to justify the statement that the Damsel trope is pernicious and problematic as a sign of sexism in gaming.

McIntosh also state there are “literally hundreds of examples.” The Nintendo Entertainment System had 822 games released between 1985 and 1995. The Super Nintendo Entertainment system, active between 1991 and 1999, had 784 games available.

On two systems alone, there were over 1,600 games released. McIntosh and Sarkeesian do not source their claim for “hundreds.” In fact, McIntosh and Sarkeesian state that they purchased “well over 300 games” in one update, but they have “hundreds” of examples meaning that 200–300 of their games had these cliches. Even if one assumes that every game, of which only modern generation games were pictured, had this problem, this is only 12% to 18% of games released between 1985 and 1999.

My examination using any female characters every captured for any reason only returned 5% of games. If we are kind, 18% of the games have the trope. If we use the criteria put forth by McIntosh and Sarkeesian, up to the NES, only 5% do.

Are McIntosh and Sarkeesian really saying that there’s a problem in gaming with objectification of women based on 5–18% of games?

wes

kunst nugget wrote: »

I started to read it but it seems very dry and I'm kind of time short at the moment in the run up to Christmas. I will say one thing though, I think where he's coming from is kind of flawed to start with. In essence, he has saying that this is an academic work so it should have the full rigors of academic research, annotation, accreditation etc. But I think the point of the series was to actually present what would be considered dry academia to a wider audience and educate in the same way that science programmes on TV might. Obviously that doesn't excuse the flaws in research.

In fairness the guy points out that the authors of feminist frequency, are saying it is educational and has a class room curriculum etc, so I think its more than fair to hold it to academic standards in that case.

kunst nugget

…

johnny_ultimate

o1s1n wrote: »

My examination using any female characters every captured for any reason only returned 5% of games. If we are kind, 18% of the games have the trope. If we use the criteria put forth by McIntosh and Sarkeesian, up to the NES, only 5% do.

Are McIntosh and Sarkeesian really saying that there’s a problem in gaming with objectification of women based on 5–18% of games?

If he wants to deconstruct shallow arguments - and no question some of Feminist Frequency's are very shallow - then he needs to hold himself up to the same standards (I'm assuming the author is a he?)

If we're looking at portrayals of females in gaming, '100% of all games' is not the place to start. Whether it's a feminist perspective, trying to prove there is not an issue, or even from a completely neutral, unbiased position this is an unhelpful starting point. '100% of games' has to be whittled down significantly. A significant proportion of games, especially ones popular in the early years of gaming, will not feature narrative or characters - for example almost all puzzle games, racing games, sporting games, shoot 'em ups. Some of these may feature male/female avatars and have gender representations deserving of their own analysis (e.g. the use of 'starting line girls' in racing games), but narrative tropes, clichés etc... cannot be analysed in games where narrative does not exist. It's fair to say lots of games don't feature cliches or tropes when it comes to their portrayal of female characters, but in many cases that's because they don't really feature characters at all.

Even then, a trend, trope or cliche does not need to be present in 51%+ of games to be considered problematic. If it's common enough, then it is worthy of critique. Even if there is only '5–18% of games' that objectify women, that to me is far from a negligible statistic, and well worth highlighting and talking about. To me, the value in the Feminist Frequency videos so far is that they have highlighted just how prevalent a lot of the 'cliches' are in so many popular, successful games, even when we allow for the fact that Sarkeesian has in some case struggled or outright failed to analyse the 'big picture' of individual titles. The series' failings have been associated with rushed, unconvincing attempts to link that with real-world consequences.

A truly thorough academic study of these issues is a frankly dizzying, almost impossible prospect. A mix of qualitative and quantitative research that allows for weighting and considerations of the countless variables. I don't envy anybody who tries to tackle such a gargantuan task.

gizmo

wes wrote: »

In fairness the guy points out that the authors of feminist frequency, are saying it is educational and has a class room curriculum etc, so I think its more than fair to hold it to academic standards in that case.

Which isn't really correct. One of the stretch-goals was to provide a supplementary Classroom Curriculum to the Youtube series.

Reekwind, Cormac, Evade and johnny_ultimate talked about this topic on this very thread back in August. It's around the Post #110 mark or thereabouts.

wes

gizmo wrote: »

Which isn't really correct. One of the stretch-goals was to provide a supplementary Classroom Curriculum to the Youtube series.

How does that make it not correct? The stretch goal was reached, so surely that proves the point correct, then? I would take it that something that is suppose to go into a classroom, should be held to a academic standard, depending on the level there targeting.

Generic Dreadhead

gizmo wrote: »

Reekwind, Cormac, Evade and johnny_ultimate talked about this topic on this very thread back in August. It's around the Post #110 mark or thereabouts.

Ah memories

Evac101

If nothing else we'll always have post #110....

gizmo

wes wrote: »

How does that make it not correct? The stretch goal was reached, so surely that proves the point correct, then? I would take it that something that is suppose to go into a classroom, should be held to a academic standard, depending on the level there targeting.

Well no, she hasn't provided it yet.

When she does produce the content then I'd fully expect it to be properly vetted for inclusion into any curriculum that would affect a students GPA.

Cormac... wrote: »

Ah memories

Happier times. **** sundaes for some, gaming and social issues for others...

wes

gizmo wrote: »

Well no, she hasn't provided it yet.

When she does produce the content then I'd fully expect it to be properly vetted for inclusion into any curriculum that would affect a students GPA.

Fair enough, but the class room material is supplementary, meaning that the video should be of the same standard.

Shiminay

wes wrote: »

Fair enough, but the class room material is supplementary, meaning that the video should be of the same standard.

That assumes it's supplementary. If this were to be made into some sort of classroom useable format, it needs to be completely rewritten from the ground up for the sakes of any poor students who'd be exposed to it.

I think Ms Sarkeesian's videos are rubbish. They are poorly written and presented and they tell me nothing of value or interest or even "new" because I happen to be of an above average intelligence and I have a significant interest in both gender equality issues and gaming. It's too easy to dismiss her work and abilities as a content creator because it's hilariously easy to demolish most of what she says. But that's the content, not the woman. As we say here on Boards, attack the post, not the poster. Unfortunately, too many fkwits are so mortally afraid of women that they are compelled to attack her.

HOWEVER!

Someone had to start this discussion in a more public and meaningful way that would make those that need to be involved in addressing these issues pay attention. Strictly academic work, in general, rarely excites or entices anyone who's not also of an academic background. So I'm glad someone is making this series, even if I think it's mostly tosh. The next stage has already started happening, but slowly because all its going to do is attract all the internet outrage fkwits.

Nollog

o1s1n wrote: »

THINGS

I stopped reading after the first part, I got the point he was making.
A 20 minute read proves her crew to be biased, factually inaccurate, and scheming.

kunst nugget wrote: »

I started to read it but it seems very dry and I'm kind of time short at the moment in the run up to Christmas. I will say one thing though, I think where he's coming from is kind of flawed to start with. In essence, he has saying that this is an academic work so it should have the full rigors of academic research, annotation, accreditation etc. But I think the point of the series was to actually present what would be considered dry academia to a wider audience and educate in the same way that science programmes on TV might. Obviously that doesn't excuse the flaws in research.

The article cites their own language used which clearly states their goal is to be academic and educational, not entertaining.

wes

Shiminay wrote: »

That assumes it's supplementary. If this were to be made into some sort of classroom useable format, it needs to be completely rewritten from the ground up for the sakes of any poor students who'd be exposed to it.

Well looking at what there saying it certainly doesn't seem that way, but we can certainly wait and see in that regard.

kunst nugget

/\/ollog wrote: »

The article cites their own language used which clearly states their goal is to be academic and educational, not entertaining.

Sarkeesian's goal would seem to be entertaining and educational not academic. He seems to be holding her up to a standard she wasn't aiming for.

And so Sarkeesian started Feminist Frequency in 2009. Her mission: to make feminist theory more accessible. “I was frustrated with how academia tended to present feminist theory in disconnected or inaccessible ways,” she says. “I wanted to try and bring a sociological feminist lens to the limited and limiting representations of women in the media and then share that with other young women of my generation. YouTube was the perfect medium.”

Over the next three years, Sarkeesian would look closely at depictions of women in a wide variety of media and highlight where they were represented unfairly, stereotypically or as inferior characters. Her aim wasn’t just to spotlight the sexism she found, but also to explain in clear and simple terms why and how it was wrong.

http://ie.ign.com/articles/2013/05/31/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games-why-it-matters

That hardly sounds like she's looking to produce something grounded in academia. I have no issue with information being presented to me like that. It's why I love the likes of Radiolab or many of the documentaries that I have watched and loved over the years.

That said, the notion of a curriculum to go along the videos muddies the waters in terms of what she's trying to achieve and tbh, it's a terrible idea considering how shaky some of the research is.

I still think that it's a topic worthy of discussion even if this video series fails at it but I don't think I'll ever understand why it rubs so many people up the wrong way.

Grayditch

I've watched Sarkeesian's videos on Tropes Vs Women Damsel 1-3 there. Hard to point out much wrong with them from my point of view and mostly seem quite reasonable, although I wasn't really all that on board with the problems with gender identification part. The only other thing I had seen from her was the Hitman clip, which I thought was ridiculous, but most videos criticising her I've seen have been as cringey as that.

Generic Dreadhead

Grayditch wrote: »

I've watched Sarkeesian's videos on Tropes Vs Women Damsel 1-3 there. Hard to point out much wrong with them from my point of view and mostly seem quite reasonable, although I wasn't really all that on board with the problems with gender identification part. The only other thing I had seen from her was the Hitman clip, which I thought was ridiculous, but most videos criticising her I've seen have been as cringey as that.

While we're harkening back to the days of old, back when this thread was just about Phil Fish being Doxxed:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=91928746&postcount=141

Grayditch

Yep, you're right, forget it. I don't have time to catch up on this thread/debacle, anyway.

Generic Dreadhead

Grayditch wrote: »

Yep, you're right, forget it. I don't have time to catch up on this thread/debacle, anyway.

MOD CAN WE CLOSE THIS THREAD, I'VE WON #GAMERGATE?

jk

DeVore

Shiminay wrote: »

That assumes it's supplementary. If this were to be made into some sort of classroom useable format, it needs to be completely rewritten from the ground up for the sakes of any poor students who'd be exposed to it.

I think Ms Sarkeesian's videos are rubbish. They are poorly written and presented and they tell me nothing of value or interest or even "new" because I happen to be of an above average intelligence and I have a significant interest in both gender equality issues and gaming. It's too easy to dismiss her work and abilities as a content creator because it's hilariously easy to demolish most of what she says. But that's the content, not the woman. As we say here on Boards, attack the post, not the poster. Unfortunately, too many fkwits are so mortally afraid of women that they are compelled to attack her.

HOWEVER!

Someone had to start this discussion in a more public and meaningful way that would make those that need to be involved in addressing these issues pay attention. Strictly academic work, in general, rarely excites or entices anyone who's not also of an academic background. So I'm glad someone is making this series, even if I think it's mostly tosh. The next stage has already started happening, but slowly because all its going to do is attract all the internet outrage fkwits.

I have to say, I agree pretty strongly with this.


There is a logical (and in my opinion inescapable) conclusion we're going to have to face, though...
If we did a Tropes for Men in Video games (and not as a counterpoint to Ms Sarkeesian... but as an actual valid investigation of its own), we'd find a wealth of pretty poor stereotyping, narrow gender roles and a huge amount of violence and pretty horrendous treatment towards men.

Ultimately, we will have to accept that many games... like a lot of mass media... are violent and nasty. GTA is the obvious example but its unfair to single it out. How many people have you beaten to death in GTA? Some were women and many more were men.
Why is the violence to women seen as more abhorrent? Is it a victimisation of the weak by the strong thing? If so I think that's misguided...

The fundamental question is... where do we as a society want to draw the line. Do we want to allow artistic freedom (which almost guarantees violent, "reprehensible" depiction)... and the answer to that shouldn't be an immediate "yes"... most freedoms are balanced against others (free speech vs hate crime). Or do we want to curtail expression within limits of "civility" (which, to be fair, is how Boards works... but then Boards is only part of the whole... its not the law of the land).

Within the answer to that question is a great deal of the answer to Ms Sarkeesian's videos... her quite narrow focus on the role of women can illuminate one particular area in great detail, like a microscope... but it misses the bigger picture.

Genghiz Cohen

Something I've been meaning to ask,

Is the depiction of women in video games, as described by Sarkeesian actually an issue? Why and what effects can it have?

shruikan2553

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Something I've been meaning to ask,

Is the depiction of women in video games, as described by Sarkeesian actually an issue? Why and what effects can it have?

Only watch 2 of her videos but in those she claims it makes men think a certain way. Doesnt explain how that happens but if you dont agree with it it means its working.

Generic Dreadhead

I don't know about you guys but I spend at least 8 hours a weekend eating shrooms and kicking the $h!t€ out of terrapins, usually while the missus is trying to get me to visit her at one of her 8 castles

Potatoeman

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Only watch 2 of her videos but in those she claims it makes men think a certain way. Doesnt explain how that happens but if you dont agree with it it means its working.

It does not explain its perspective very well. It would be like doing a series on videogames viewing men as disposable due to the high male bodycount in games and ignoring the fact that they are frequently the protaganist.

Which is part of its problem. These tropes did not come from videogames they come from literature. Particularly the simple ones like rescue the princes. They are labeled as sexist but it would be more honest to say lazy.