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Post by Bumpyroad on Oct 22, 2018 17:00:21 GMT -5
I think we have a locked thread in here somewhere regarding Ultionus, don't remember what the fuss was all about though.
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Post by GamerL on Oct 25, 2018 0:17:42 GMT -5
I'm still just not seeing the fundamental reason why it's bad to make a fictional female character who is beautiful and viewed in a sexual light, are people gonna be saying there should never be a handsome or muscular male character? No one would ever treat Edward Cullen in the way some treat female characters.
You don't have to have to like the thing in Senran Kagura but this is the broader cultural context in which this is going down.
I just don't wanna see sex appeal disappear from games entirely, all that would be doing is making it less fun and in fact I'd say this is a broader issue as well, seems like there's an attempt to suck the fun out of everything.
Like everything has to be political now and feature social commentary, a story can't just be a story, nothing can be just for fun anymore.
That's missing the point entirely, there's a time and place for things that tackle serious issues and there's a time and place for pure escapism, but it seems like escapism is dying.
Who the fuck wants to be reminded of the real world all the time? I remember what a wonderful escape video games were in the post-9/11 days, we're losing that, it's not a smart move.
Modern culture is literally overdosing on politics, we're making ourselves sick by not being able to tune this stuff out sometimes, not being able to look at a sexy girl as just a sexy girl without having to see it through the lens of third wave feminism is part of that.
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Post by GamerL on Oct 27, 2018 17:08:37 GMT -5
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Post by Digitalnametag on Oct 27, 2018 17:28:58 GMT -5
Huh. The way that reads it sounds like Sony America is having an influence on what is published in Japan. Why else would developers be asked to submit approval requests in English? Funny how people are looking to Nintendo for uncensored content now. But how long is that likely to last?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2018 17:36:34 GMT -5
I'm still just not seeing the fundamental reason why it's bad to make a fictional female character who is beautiful and viewed in a sexual light, are people gonna be saying there should never be a handsome or muscular male character? No one would ever treat Edward Cullen in the way some treat female characters. You don't have to have to like the thing in Senran Kagura but this is the broader cultural context in which this is going down. I just don't wanna see sex appeal disappear from games entirely, all that would be doing is making it less fun and in fact I'd say this is a broader issue as well, seems like there's an attempt to suck the fun out of everything. Like everything has to be political now and feature social commentary, a story can't just be a story, nothing can be just for fun anymore. That's missing the point entirely, there's a time and place for things that tackle serious issues and there's a time and place for pure escapism, but it seems like escapism is dying. Who the fuck wants to be reminded of the real world all the time? I remember what a wonderful escape video games were in the post-9/11 days, we're losing that, it's not a smart move. Modern culture is literally overdosing on politics, we're making ourselves sick by not being able to tune this stuff out sometimes, not being able to look at a sexy girl as just a sexy girl without having to see it through the lens of third wave feminism is part of that. Do you perhaps see how being a male makes your opinion on feminism moot? These aren't new problems. Society just historically didn't have a way for women to voice their opinions in a way that forced people to hear their voices. It's like Megyn Kelly saying that blackface should be okay for Halloween costumes. She isn't black, so it isn't her place to say whether that's okay or not. When people say it's a problem, we need to listen, instead of complaining about how inconvenient it is for the people who aren't hurt by it. |
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Post by toei on Oct 27, 2018 17:53:59 GMT -5
GamerL Why do you assume Sony is doing this out of adherence to third wave feminism? Be real, they're a soulless corporation like any other. This is a business move, whatever their reasoning is.
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Post by GamerL on Oct 27, 2018 18:21:11 GMT -5
Do you perhaps see how being a male makes your opinion on feminism moot? These aren't new problems. Society just historically didn't have a way for women to voice their opinions in a way that forced people to hear their voices. It's like Megyn Kelly saying that blackface should be okay for Halloween costumes. She isn't black, so it isn't her place to say whether that's okay or not. When people say it's a problem, we need to listen, instead of complaining about how inconvenient it is for the people who aren't hurt by it. Not really, I can have an opinion on anything. You mentioned Megyn Kelly, her opinion is dead wrong of course, but she can still have it. I frankly hate this modern attitude that someone can't have a view or opinion on something, or can't understand something if they're the wrong race or gender, even Barack Obama himself has disagreed with this, saying and I quote "Democracy demands that we're able also to get inside the reality of people who are different than us, so we can understand their point of view. Maybe we can change their minds, but maybe they'll change ours.” People can debate these issues regardless of who they personally are, telling people to shut up is wrong, we'll get literally nowhere if people stop talking. GamerL Why do you assume Sony is doing this out of adherence to third wave feminism? Be real, they're a soulless corporation like any other. This is a business move, whatever their reasoning is. Because there's been a generation of people who have entered HR/PR type roles or other various roles in these corporations with personal agendas hoping to be influencers, movers and shakers over the type of content they'd like to see and like people to have, the name of the game in modern society is two words, social engineering, the definition of which is "the use of centralized planning in an attempt to manage social change and regulate the future development and behavior of a society." Hmmmm, really makes you think. Why would Sony risk alienating customers and losing sales otherwise? I, as a consumer, have my personal tastes and likes and dislikes, if businesses shy away from content I'd like to see I can voice a negative opinion and vote with my dollar. All Sony is doing anyway is shooting themselves in the foot and ensuring more and more Japanese devs will bring their games onto the PC, this is the big irony of this modern day situation is people think they can control content in a technological age in which you can do anything but. My big point in linking to that article is the argument that Sony is just accounting for American culture with the Senran Kagura Burst changes is now dead and this is just the beginning of changes to games, like I said it would be. |
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Post by toei on Oct 27, 2018 19:18:41 GMT -5
Seems like they're targeting visual novels, which aren't much of a factor, sales-wise (especially on consoles). Consoles being more restrictive than PCs is nothing new, and this doesn't mean that eroge will no longer be allowed on PC or whatever. In fact, how would that even be possible, when PC gaming isn't relegated to any particular platform? There'd have to be legislation in that direction, and there's no hint of that currently. Do you think Sony's HR and PR decide what games are allowed or not? Human Resources manages the company's employees, they have nothing to do with this. This is a business decision. Either they're trying to be the new Nintendo (ie family-oriented), or they want away with all that dubious otaku waifu shit. Who really knows? You certainly don't anymore than I do, but sure, third wave feminism, Anita Sarkeesian, etc. etc.
(P.S. - some dude on that site's comments literally blamed this on Sarkeesian. Video games do not exist in a vacuum, even if some gamers have no connection to the outside world. Even if it turns out to be because Sony wants nothing to with sexual impropriety as entertainment (or the appearance of it), this would have happened sooner or later, regardless of whether Sarkeesian had ever said or written a word about video games. You really have to have your head way up your own gamer ass to think she invented feminism or metoo.)
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Post by X-pert74 on Oct 27, 2018 20:01:44 GMT -5
Anita Sarkeesian is George Soros to misogynistic gamers.
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Post by toei on Oct 27, 2018 20:43:23 GMT -5
Anita Sarkeesian is George Soros to misogynistic gamers. Fact. Useless and dumb, yet all-powerful. Hiding behind everything they don't like. They haven't gotten to the point where they claim she pays all the people on the Internet who don't agree with them, but that's probably just because she isn't known to be especially wealthy (AFAIK). |
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Post by GamerL on Oct 27, 2018 20:59:49 GMT -5
Anita Sarkeesian is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about to be honest, she uses her platform of social media and Youtube to try to be an influencer and shape things to how she thinks games should be made, she doesn't "control" anything but like I said, an influencer and people take her seriously, Harvey Smith said they designed aspects of Dishonored 2 with her in mind.
As for people that actually work for publishers/developers, maybe HR/PR isn't the right choice of words, I'm not an expert in how these major corporations work, what I meant was members of development teams or simply people who make business decisions making decisions based on personal political agendas versus purely monetary, this is a thing that is actually happening in modern culture.
Just to be level with everyone, I understand why people have these attitudes these days, but I think people are chasing after a paper tiger, removing sex appeal from everything or going after silly anime titty games is not gonna solve sexism and misogyny, if anything it's gonna have the opposite effect because some people react badly to attempts to control their behavior by force, as we've seen time and time again for years now, you're not gonna force everyone to think the way you want them to think just because you really, really want them to think a certain way, it's just not human nature.
Like banging your head against a brick wall, modern culture has been trying to control people through force, shouting down and intimidation and it's only been making things worse and worse and worse, if you want to change hearts and minds, you have to meet people halfway and that's not gonna work 100% of the time, some people are simply too obstinate, but you're gonna win over more people than you lose when you take this approach, the opposite will only push more people away.
Put it another way, I agree with the goals, but not the methods, modern culture is on the wrong path.
But for me personally, this is not a political thing, it's just a matter of taste, am I making a political statement by playing a game like Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball? Is liking pretty girls in general a political statement now? This is the broader problem is how scarily politicized and polarized modern culture is to where every single you do say or think is a political statement, that is just an absurd direction modern culture has taken, not everything is political, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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Post by toei on Oct 27, 2018 21:12:18 GMT -5
I think the way certain people are reacting to perceived attempts to "control" them is itself largely tied to people who really, really want them to think a certain way, too, to advance their own political agenda. We've seen completely absurd examples, like that Roman game where they swore (against evidence) that there were too many women commanders and threw a tantrum. They're being influenced by their own anti-Sarkeesians.
I have no problem with sex appeal in games, myself. But when it comes to anything involving minors (even if they're just drawings), coercion or any kind of abuse / harassment... I don't see how anyone can be surprised that there's a push back. Do we have any real details about this new policy? That article seemed pretty alarmist, and I don't necessarily trust that site's reporting when they have such a clear bias and agenda. It would be weird if they were cracking down on all sexual content, but only from Japanese developers, while the big sandbox games still have prostitution and strip clubs. Sony going full family-content would be a huge shift.
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Post by lurker on Oct 27, 2018 21:48:40 GMT -5
I think the way certain people are reacting to perceived attempts to "control" them is itself largely tied to people who really, really want them to think a certain way, too, to advance their own political agenda. We've seen completely absurd examples, like that Roman game where they swore (against evidence) that there were too many women commanders and threw a tantrum. They're being influenced by their own anti-Sarkeesians. I have no problem with sex appeal in games, myself. But when it comes to anything involving minors (even if they're just drawings), coercion or any kind of abuse / harassment... I don't see how anyone can be surprised that there's a push back. Do we have any real details about this new policy? That article seemed pretty alarmist, and I don't necessarily trust that site's reporting when they have such a clear bias and agenda. It would be weird if they were cracking down on all sexual content, but only from Japanese developers, while the big sandbox games still have prostitution and strip clubs. Sony going full family-content would be a huge shift. There was also overblown controversy over the upcoming Doom game's trailer, where those kinds of people on youtube blew what was basically cautious optimism out of proportion and context. |
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Post by GamerL on Oct 27, 2018 22:10:57 GMT -5
The opposite end of the spectrum can be ridiculous too, like the Battletech pronouns controversy from earlier this year.
Let's be real though, even if you agree with it who honestly likes the condescending tone websites like Kotaku take? Remember the infamously terrible "gamers are dead" article? Seems like most gaming websites these days hate their own audience.
The tone alone is I think why there's been so much blowback against it and that's what I mean by controlling, the tactic today is to use name calling, guilt tripping and intimidation to try to control people's minds, "agree with me or I'll call you a bigot!" basically, after half a decade of this crap I think it's been proven it's not a tactic that works.
You can't come on too strong with hostility against anyone, nobody likes that crap, nobody likes to be made to feel like a terrible person just for existing, think of all the nasty terms that have been coined for gamers, manbabies, neckbeards, basement dwellers, most recently "incels", man, fuck that attitude, I'm not gonna get in agreement with that, do you expect to call people nasty names and then have them like you and agree with you? What are people fucking smoking these days?
Even the Bible talks about this lol, "you reap what you sow" or the golden rule "treat others the way you want to be treated", treat people like shit, get treated like shit, it's not rocket science.
Please don't misunderstand me, I hate sexism and misogyny and it bums me out how toxic some elements of gamer culture has gotten, but gamers as a whole shouldn't be stereotyped as such and part of the reason there's been so much blowback in that form is for the reasons I stated.
Back in 2010/2011 video games were already, naturally, moving in the direction of more progressive depictions of women, the current Lara Croft was conceived well before anything like Tropes vs Women, Gears of War 3 from 2011 is another good example, Anya went from just being a voice over the radio to fighting on the front lines, along with other female Gears.
But somewhere along the way it got heavily politicized in a way that felt artificial and I think that's one of the big reasons why so many gamers reacted badly to it, all gamers really want is for games to be left alone, not for outsiders to come along and tell us what we can have and how we can have it, that transcends whatever political angle it's coming from, in the prior decade it came from a conservative angle with guys like Jack Thompson, now it comes from a left wing angle, it's all the same stuff at the end of the day, people who want to dictate what games you can and can't play, obviously hardcore gamers just don't like that, I don't like that and I don't see why anyone who loves video games would like it regardless of your personal politics or your personal tastes.
It all comes down to this, do you want to choose what you can play or do you want others to choose for you? You're an adult, aren't you? The answer's pretty clear to me.
That's about all I can say about this issue, feel however you want to feel about it, but I know where I stand.
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 28, 2018 4:19:57 GMT -5
To put another spin on what Gamer Griff is saying, I think the thing that's rubbing me the wrong way is the extreme reactions that gamers tend to have toward content they dislike these days. As Griff noted, even as recently as 2010/2011, if a game were released with content that someone found offensive, the typical reaction was fairly reasonable, I'd say: people would speak out about it, give the game bad reviews, post their opinions, argue with those who disagreed... basically, partake in the tried and true internet dance. And that was pretty effective: if a game had controversial content, people KNEW, and those who cared knew to stay far away.
Nowadays, however, it feels like people are "politicizing" their opinions; not only are they speaking out about the game, they're accusing the game's creators of moral wrongdoing, staging boycotts, and otherwise supporting efforts to keep the game from being released or from making money, or trying to make those who enjoy the game feel like legitimately bad people for enjoying it. Basically, more people seem to be taking the stance of, "I don't like this, and I think people who do like this are objectively wrong, so I'm going to do everything I can to keep those people from enjoying it, for their own good."
...That's of course a very highly exaggerated explanation, but it is more or less how things FEEL these days to people like myself and Gamer Griff. It's hard for me to cite personal examples, since I'm not a big fan of ecchi/lewd games, but there is one thing I AM a fan of that was one of the very first things Anita Sarkeesian herself spoke out against: damsels in distress.
Now, to clarify, I'm also an equal fan of the far less common "damoiseau in distress" -- a man who's been captured and is in need of help. And I would like to see more of those in games, to help balance out the notable gender divide that absolutely, incontrovertibly does exist.
That said, though, I'm a dollar-store romantic at heart, and -- as tropey as it may be -- I love the idea of saving someone who's been captured and rendered helpless. I imagine myself both as the hero, valiantly rushing in to save my true love, and as the victim, bravely being released from my chains by the one I love. Certainly, there are better narrative ways of depicting passion, dedication, and valor, but the fact remains that I just find the prospect of rescuing a loved one in distress (or being the rescuee) to be a genuinely thrilling one, and it always really pulls me into the story and motivates me to keep going.
But after the Sarkeesian video dropped that condemned the damsel in distress trope, I very specifically had people verbally ATTACK me for even suggesting it's OK to have a damsel in distress in a modern-day story at all. The general attitude seemed to be that if your story featured such a character, then the game was garbage and not at all worth playing -- and there was really a strong sense in almost every gaming community I visited (including here, to an extent) that you were not allowed to disagree with this.
It didn't help, too, that Pandora's Tower -- one of our recent releases at XSEED at the time -- was one of the games Sarkeesian specifically called out as a negative example of this trope in action. Suddenly, XSEED was being directly attacked and even (to a limited extent) boycotted for having published such a "regressive" title... which, if you've played Pandora's Tower for any reasonable amount of time, is really unfortunate, since that game is pretty much just superb all around, with a story and characters that are truly engaging, emotionally relatable, and fantastically written.
I can't prove this next point, but I feel as though Sarkeesian's video significantly impacted our sales of that game; and if nothing else, it certainly impacted writeups of it across the internet. Many sites absolutely blasted it just for featuring a damsel in distress trope as part of its story (even if it was presented in a rather original and... "artfully unsettling" manner).
Now, nobody was calling for the game to be removed from shelves or suggesting it should've never been released, so this certainly isn't a perfect example of the point I'm trying to make -- I dislike what Sarkeesian had to say, and feel it was very poorly researched (she misrepresented Pandora's Tower quite severely), and possibly even damaging to the game's bottom line, but if that's the message she wanted to deliver, then so be it. I won't be retweeting or signal-boosting it, and I'll post my disdain toward it whenever I can, but I would never call for her video to be deleted or for Sarkeesian herself to stop making videos.
However, the extreme fan reactions to that video are indicative of what I feel were the first steps toward the modern-day trend of SEVERELY OVERREACTING to reports of regressive elements in video games. It is not at all uncommon these days for a game that reportedly has these elements in it to be not just called out for it, but to have change DEMANDED in order to comply with what the masses consider to be a more progressive outlook.
...Which brings us full circle to Senran Kagura. Those who say "I don't like this, and I think those who do like it are objectively wrong, so I'm OK with this feature being removed" are, IMHO, indirectly contributing to the prevailing culture of boycotting and shaming those with less popular and more "deviant" tastes. They are one step away from becoming those who say "I don't like this, and I think those who do like it are objectively wrong, and I'm in a position to do something about it, so I'm going to remove this element for their own good."
And those are the people whom I consider to be ethical dangers to this entire industry.
-Tom
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