Saying 'there are women, and if you do not like fuck you' is very important for videogames. -
- Thread starter Adolf Von Merkel
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Sister services, email, and search will continue to be negatively effected by the attacks. I made a thread to talk about it, if you're into networking.
The well-poisoning effects of "muh diversity" should not be underestimated. At this point, there's been so much push to cram black/female/LGBTQWERTY people into every nook and cranny that when I see one of them as a major character, my first reaction is "oh God, not this shit again." I could be completely wrong in that assessment, but I'm right often enough that I haven't revised that reaction. It gets worse when you remember the "muh representation" shibboleth that often goes hand in hand with it- not only does your entire cast need to be black wamman genderspecials, any attempt to give them flaws or weaknesses or negative traits means that you hate whatever demographics they belong to and need to be drummed out of the industry, shitlord. In classic Orwellian fashion, "diversity" has made for a sharp narrowing of minds and dramatic possibilities in service of far-left cant.
Don't let your dreams be dreams
Be the change you want to see
Become a black female video game protagonist
Great question. I've played D&D with women. I've played vidya with women. I've never seen anyone get shat on.
I think it boils down to two main points:
1) The term "sexism" is generally more nebulous than "violence," and therefore it is much easier for people to claim victimhood because of some intangible wrongdoing and/or "thoughtcrime" or whatever this week's buzzword is.
2) To use a cliched phrase, "The road to Hell in paved with good intentions." The ideas of "diversity" and "inclusion" are all well and good, but are more often than not poorly implemented by game writers/creators, because honestly if they're trying to be politically correct, they are essentially stuck with writing virtuous tropes, oftentimes bordering Mary Sue territory. So, whenever they are called out on it, well, obviously since they think their intentions are virtuous and just, the people disagreeing with them must be sexist pigs.
The only time i saw a woman discriminated on a primary male space is when i used to work on a car repair shop, but then again, that place was just a constant shitposting and roasting contest
Cyber Bowling
kiwifarms.net
My two cents, a lot of the games/movies/comics/whatever people have issues with are mediums where the developer makes a big deal about featuring a female/black/trans/whatever else protagonist. As others have pointed out, Samus is a good example of that. Samus wasn't designed to virtue signal, and the games/promotions didn't shove it in your face that Samus is a girl. Metroid works because it was designed as a game, not a statement about gender. The team cared about the product they were making and the world they were building.
When you create a character to virtue signal, the character ends up weak because it only exists to pander. It isn't something the team feels particularly passionate about, because it is just symbolic bragging rights. They aren't putting effort into making a well designed character you engage with. I'm only going off of second hand knowledge because I haven't played them myself, but I've heard the rebooted Tomb Raider series is pretty fun, and that has everything to do with the gameplay mechanics and the fact you play as a female is never really thrown in your face. Come to think of it, a lot of older games series that feature female characters tend to be pretty well received among the gaming community.
If you take a look at non-story/minimal story related games, I think it's clear most gamers don't care one way or the other about the character and focus entirely on the gameplay. There's tons of fighting games where dudes play female characters with no complaints, same with MOBA games featuring female heroes. If the game/character plays well, awesome, that's what matters. In game development, there's a reason story/characters are the last part to be fleshed out and developed.
I'm personally not a fan of the games, but the first recent(ish) successful series I can think of with a black female lead is the Telltale Walking Dead games, and again, that was never a series that shoved in your face the diversity of the cast. The developers set out to make good characters with actual personalities outside of "is a girl" or "is black."
When you create a character to virtue signal, the character ends up weak because it only exists to pander. It isn't something the team feels particularly passionate about, because it is just symbolic bragging rights. They aren't putting effort into making a well designed character you engage with. I'm only going off of second hand knowledge because I haven't played them myself, but I've heard the rebooted Tomb Raider series is pretty fun, and that has everything to do with the gameplay mechanics and the fact you play as a female is never really thrown in your face. Come to think of it, a lot of older games series that feature female characters tend to be pretty well received among the gaming community.
If you take a look at non-story/minimal story related games, I think it's clear most gamers don't care one way or the other about the character and focus entirely on the gameplay. There's tons of fighting games where dudes play female characters with no complaints, same with MOBA games featuring female heroes. If the game/character plays well, awesome, that's what matters. In game development, there's a reason story/characters are the last part to be fleshed out and developed.
I'm personally not a fan of the games, but the first recent(ish) successful series I can think of with a black female lead is the Telltale Walking Dead games, and again, that was never a series that shoved in your face the diversity of the cast. The developers set out to make good characters with actual personalities outside of "is a girl" or "is black."
TWD games never had good writing.
Gamergate was never about women. It's just that the media decided to run with that narrative because the initial cheating ex story exposed a lot of connections between Publishers, Games Journalists, Developers, Games Competitions, Games Award shows. I mean everyone knew there was corruption, but not to the level where indie developers had their whole career already signed and delivered. The whole thing was a smokescreen to invalidate any critique of how the system was running, because that's the way they liked it.
Zoe Quinn was part of Indiecade, Indiecade was under it's parent company Gamasutra. Gamasutra also owned the GDC, the California Games Developers Conference.
Gamasutras Head Editor at the time was Leigh Alexander, she was a former longtime Kotaku writer, who was now also Head Tech Editor for TIME Magazine and VICE all at the same time. Zoe Quinns publicist Maya Kramer was under the employ of Silverstring Media, the same company run by Joshua Mcintosh and Anita Sarkeesian at the time. And all of these people were also members together at the IGDA. The Independent Games Developer Association. And those are just the first glance connections.
Now do you think they are just going to out their entire own little set up they have going to you? Fuck no, they are going to drag you through the mud til no one believes a word you say.
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All you need to do to make a black woman main character is make her interesting, without "she's black and a woman" being the reason. She needs to do something or have some characteristic that would make anyone stand out, regardless of their race or gender.
The Walking Dead's Michonne is a good example. She doesn't make any remarks about girl power or black lives mattering, she just stylishly kills zombies with a katana. It doesn't even feel like "hey, look how badass black women can be, ya fuckin crackers!" because her being black and a woman are not defining assets of her character. Storm from the X-Men universe is another example. It doesn't matter that she's a black woman, she's the lightning bitch and that's what matters.
This is how you make a black female lead work. Not with a "yeah she's black, you got a problem with that racists?" premise, but a "here's a cool character than can do X" premise.
You're obviously not a real woman then because everyone knows women are immediately shoa'd and raped to death five seconds after entering a comic book store or multiplayer lobby.
If anything, it's the opposite. White knights trying to impress m'lady. Though most don't really care. It's a cliche to say this, but women says they want to be treated like "one of the guys" and then complain when they don't get special treatment.
It isn't. Why they do it depends on the SJW in question. People like Anita and Zoe do it for personal gain. Others are in an echo chamber and believe their own lies that gamers are bigots and that there's a huge base of LGBT and "PoC" people just waiting for one game that represents them. Others are bullies and narcissists. And some believe that gaming can (or should) be the next intellectual art form, but it's being held back by Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto, and other "lowbrow" entertainment.
Though being dumb is not limited to SJWs. Back when EA was trying to make Battlefield the next Call of Duty, CoD Ghosts had ads showing there was a dog in the game, Battlefield had ads where a guy punches a dog. Coincidence? Maybe. There was also the infamous "Sega does what Nintendon't" ads. The only time insulting rivals/fans ever really worked that I can remember was Saints Row 2's ads making fun of GTA 4, but that worked because no one liked taking your cousin bowling every 5 minutes.
RadicalCentrist
kiwifarms.net
We see the GamerGate style media tactics again and again in the last few years. BFV had the bizarre trailer with a cricket bat wielding british sniper fighting in the trenches along with a katana wielding soldier. People criticized at and told the company they'd lost their goddamn minds. What was the response? You hate women. It's the go to defense now, instead of owning up or even explaining yourself, you try to deflect criticism by attacking the critics, hoping to put them on the back foot and distract everyone from the fact you have no idea wtf you are doing.
The funny thing is, the media likes to bring up how Gamergate caused Trump. In a way they are right, but not in the way they think. They simply used the same "You hate women and minorities you Nazis" Gamergate narrative attacks on the public during the election, and thought it would be all good.
Yeah I have that same reaction. And I really don't want to because there shouldn't be anything inherently wrong with a black gay female protagonist if it suits the story.
Right. Nothing inherently wrong, but if you guess "#woke SJW tokenism instead of any legitimate attempt to further the plot or characterization," nine times out of ten you'll be right.
As P.J. O'Rourke noted, "black woman nuclear physicist? Yeah, right, she got in because she was a twofer. Give her a job in the secretarial pool." Setting up elaborate social engineering schemes to benefit certain groups of people, then insisting those people be treated the same as everyone else is the classic "pick one, and only one."
That game is 15 years old and a commercial failure.
2ez
How do games cause sexual violence when they don't cause violence?
"Games aren't monkey see, monkey do. They re-enforce pernicious stereotypes."
ie. They don't, but these people needed some excuse to keep receiving crowdfunding money and blow jobs.
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