Tropes vs Women discussion of the arguments

[Hyena Dandy]

I don't know if 'These are my problems with people who don't like her' is necessarily a point raised in her videos so I'm afraid we might be drifting a bit off topic since this wasn't necessarily something actually raised in the thread, and seems as much a point she raises in her videos as where she gets her footage is.

That said, she argues largely from example. She is trying to make an informative series presenting her viewpoint, and for the most part, the way she does it is "This is what is true about the industry, and these are examples." If your examples don't fully apply, and you ignore context around them without even addressing it, you're failing to do your job as someone seeking to inform. The examples are a backbone of your point, and when you frequently get examples and context around them wrong. It makes you an unreliable source.

Your argument shouldn't stand on "Well even if I was wrong about that look at all the ways in which I'm right." You can say that yes, there are plenty of other examples in the industries, but if you want to inform people, or educate them, the best way to do that is not to ignore the context around what you have.

There's also a line between "I don't think sexism exists in the industries" and "I don't like videos Anita Sarkeesian makes because I think her arguments are flawed." I don't care for her videos, I think they're poorly researched and ignore the context around things to become totally unpersuasive and when I have seen them.

If on here I were to make a statement and provide an example to it, as I often do because I like providing examples, I would expect to be corrected by someone who doesn't go into it disagreeing with me if my example is false. Indeed I'd hope even people who DID go into it agreeing with my point would say "That's not a good example." It's perfectly reasonable I think to have a problem with someone's work because their arguments are not great. I don't much care for Sarkeesian. Not because I think sexism doesn't exist in the industries, but because I think she fails to make good arguments about it.

[Kheldarson]

Your argument shouldn't stand on "Well even if I was wrong about that look at all the ways in which I'm right." You can say that yes, there are plenty of other examples in the industries, but if you want to inform people, or educate them, the best way to do that is not to ignore the context around what you have.

This is exactly what drove me nuts watching her first Damsel video. Yes, the 8-bit games had DiD. They kinda had to: there wasn't a lot of space for story. So you use quick, identifiable tropes to fill in story. She didn't really address that.

I'm less concerned about the 8 and 16 bit era games as I am the current trends because there's no excuse for relying exclusively on tropes when we have all sorts of space for story now.

[Ginger Tea]

Do you seriously believe it was about ethics in game journalism? Whats going on here? ><

I posted what I see GG as and what I want to see improve in the actual GG thread. It might not be everything I believe in looking forwards to change, but I don't recall bringing up GG in THIS thread.

I don't see FemFreq as some form of boogie man as I do agree with some parts, but disagreeing with others doesn't mean I have an axe to grind with Anita.

But that's for a post on the actual GG WTF thread.



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The circle of posts more or less stem from personal interpretation of Character design etc, one would see Character Design to only mean the 2 or 3D model where as others would include naming the character, any back story they may have, personality and traits.

EG I don't see Chelle as a character as she has no character, but she's a character in the realms of playable character, so to avoid confusion between the two I was using avatar or blank slate. Else it devolves into "Bruce have you seen Bruce?"

Everything we find out about her, we do so in game, other games you have some form of idea who we will be playing as (or assisting if you will) either by cut scenes or some form of exposition.

I might find the protagonists from Farcry 3 and 4 to be just as blank as Chelle, I couldn't say to do so I would have to play the game, I've only watched the short game which relies on you staying behind at the dinner table instead of escaping Pagan Mins clutches and LP's of it are not on my to do list.
He might interact with NPC's or it might be a case of NPC's just talk at him.

Both the Ripley's have a character (personality) of their own.



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If someone says "Design me X characters for a MOBA or Beat em up" some are designed first and fleshed out second, others have some form of design brief "I want one to be XY and Z."

"Here are 20 sketches send them to the modellers to finish" hands another copy to someone else "You name them and give them a back story."
VS
Here are 20 design briefs (including bio's and character sketch's) make the models.

Both are valid within the games industry.




The MOBA or Beat em up might only ship with a dozen fighters but the remainder are not just scrapped, they can be staggered in as DLC, some Day one DLC is made as the art department has not been repurposed to another game or laid off and have "time to kill" whilst the coders go into crunch.

So they may have made 20 blank slates or had a design brief to work from and had to remake 3 of them, those three could join the DLC roster they make as someone new.

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This might not have much bearing on the list, but it's just showing how one persons character design differs from another.

[Ginger Tea]

In one of my earlier posts I referenced but lost the url to a Swedish website Video game Character makeover, I only know Cammy and Poison from the list, IMO the make over for both is way better, I was never a fan of the swimsuit-esque outfit. I never saw SF past II turbo on the SNES, so if she stayed in the rosta without google I can't say if the outfit stayed too.

My one issue with Elena is that her trousers look like hammer pants and those never looked like you could get a good high kick out of them, still way better than the one on the left.

Aside from adding modesty to them they on the whole have had breast reductions, is that a bad thing? Well Dead or Alive dev's are adamant that things aren't going to change.

I cant remember if Mai is meant to be young and the left image says she's older, but I do know one game character and probably god kows how many Anime, have 14-16 year olds looking like they could get served in a bar.

According to SNK universe' early canon, Mai Shiranui was born on January 1, 1974 (later the year was omitted[14]).

So when she first appeared she would have been 19, but as game characters don't on the whole age I can see them just saying "X is Y years old." and keeping them forever that age.

Had she been <18 then the Right image is defiantly the best route to go, 18+ for the beach maybe?

[Hyena Dandy]

As much as I would love to do so, I really can't figure out your arguments anymore so I'm going to have to stop responding to them, I do sincerely apologize. I don't doubt that you're arguing in good faith, I'm just confused about what you're trying to say and I'm very sorry for that.

[gremcint]

That said, she argues largely from example. She is trying to make an informative series presenting her viewpoint, and for the most part, the way she does it is "This is what is true about the industry, and these are examples." If your examples don't fully apply, and you ignore context around them without even addressing it, you're failing to do your job as someone seeking to inform. The examples are a backbone of your point, and when you frequently get examples and context around them wrong. It makes you an unreliable source.

ok that is a fair point. In the double dragon case I think the example still works. Now you say she ignores the context and poorly researches the videos, are a there a couple points in particular where the context of the game would make a difference?



Ginger tea, please just stop. Can we get back on topic please?

[Kheldarson]

ok that is a fair point. In the double dragon case I think the example still works. Now you say she ignores the context and poorly researches the videos, are a there a couple points in particular where the context of the game would make a difference?

Legend of Zelda is a good one. Big complaint there was that it's Zelda's game, so why is she the DiD?

Well...the context of the first game (if you read the manual) is that Impa has been searching for someone to save the Princess. It's hinted that it's been years of searching. So she tells Link what is, to him, a legend and declares him the chosen one. The legend is the kick start, the inciting moment, something she ignored. She also ignored a larger series context which is that the hero is nameless. Are you going to seriously name your legends after the nameless?

[Gravekeeper]

In fairness to Zelda it started to turn the trope around by Ocarina of Time and continued bucking it through Windwaker and Twilight Princess. Mario on the other had is still pretty firmly lodged in it and what they did to Samus with Other M is still unforgivable. Still, at least Nintendo has taken steps to flesh out its damsels in recent years and its more guilty of Girl = Pink than any of the sexual tropes.

As for Double Dragon it had one more bad trope to it: Upon reaching the end the two brothers fight each other over Marion. >.>

But looking at games from the 80s and 90s is more examining the history and origin of the tropes. The big problems are in the modern games industry both in terms of what it produces and how male dominated it is. Even though women have been on the rise in the industry's work force they're still only something like 22-23% and still rarely cracking into any direction/design positions ( where they would have influence over a title ) as opposed to asset production positions.

On the upside, Blizzard at least responded to Anita's criticisms and revealed a new female character with an atypical body type and personality. On the downside, its a walking stereotype too. But I guess they tried anyway. =p

[gremcint]

seeing as how the discussion has died down anyways we might as well go ahead and open this up a bit more rather than create a separate thread for the kickstarter topic.

1. She makes the kickstarter with the intent on creating 5 videos in her series, one each for Damsel in Distress, Fighting ****toy, sexy sidekick, sexy villainess, women as background decoration. each estimated to be about 10-12 minutes long

Now she hasn't covered all of these topics but she has made at least 5 videos in the series and all of them longer than planned and recently released a recent related video. So she has actually delivered on the amount of promised content already.

2. The money, she asked for 6k, she expected the project to take 10k and would get the rest from grants. Well she made he 6k pretty quickly and then the shitstorm started. so here's the thing a lot of people like to talk about "she took 160k for this?" well my response is "potato salad."
Some guy made a kickstarter to make potato salad and raised almost 60k. She asked for 6k and got more. Now that extra money has been going towards the cause. She's become the internet's punching bag and has had to step up security greatly and that aint cheap.

3. the frequency. to be frank it is taking a while for the videos to come out but here's a couple points:
A. kickstarters almost never deliver on time
B. her life got flipped upside down by the maelstrom as someone else put it
C. while she isn't making the videos she's still working on the cause doing all kinds of public speaking and even getting on Colbert.
D. Stress affects speed of work and the amount of harassment she gets woulds stress anyone out.
E. kickstarters almost never deliver on time.

[Hyena Dandy]

[quote]
1. She makes the kickstarter with the intent on creating 5 videos in her series, one each for Damsel in Distress, Fighting ****toy, sexy sidekick, sexy villainess, women as background decoration. each estimated to be about 10-12 minutes long

Now she hasn't covered all of these topics but she has made at least 5 videos in the series and all of them longer than planned and recently released a recent related video. So she has actually delivered on the amount of promised content already.[/quote[

Except she didn't promise "Five videos, maybe on this or something else." She promised those specific things. She asked for money to do a specific thing. Which she has not doen.

2. The money, she asked for 6k, she expected the project to take 10k and would get the rest from grants. Well she made he 6k pretty quickly and then the shitstorm started. so here's the thing a lot of people like to talk about "she took 160k for this?" well my response is "potato salad."
Some guy made a kickstarter to make potato salad and raised almost 60k. She asked for 6k and got more. Now that extra money has been going towards the cause. She's become the internet's punching bag and has had to step up security greatly and that aint cheap.

It's an apples to oranges comparison. Because the reason people donated to the potato salad was "It would be funny if we made a potato salad Kickstarter." The reason for her kickstarter, at least when I donated, and as I understood it, was that Anita Sarkeesian would be making a series of videos over the next year or so. That's not what I got. If I donated to the Potato Salad, I would have gotten EXACTLY what I thought. You can say it wasn't a GOOD thing to donate to, but that's actually what makes Kickstarter awesome. That it's totally up to the people who donate whether it's a worthy cause, and people clearly thought "There's a potato salad kickstarter" was worth donating to, probably as a joke.

Unless a huge number of those donations were because someone thought that donating to her would be amusing, and they just wanted to up the little number count on the donations because of how funny that was (which is, as far as I can tell, why people did the potato salad one) then they haven't gotten that. Certainly I haven't gotten what I donated for.

A. kickstarters almost never deliver on time

Most kickstarters are teams making a product that, quite often, they do not have all the necessary experience in. Kickstarters often fund ideas from people who either work in a field, but not in every part of the field (for example, a videogame developer who's never been doing the marketing or production,) but I really can't imagine what the delay is.

She had made videos before, and even if she hadn't, once you do a couple you at least understand HOW to. From what I understand, the game footage is either bought, or donated (I don't remember exactly, I didn't check her attributions, but I assume she paid someone to let her use their gameplay, or just asked for it,) but either way that means that playing the games to get footage is probably not the problem.

So, what's the problem? What is it that IS taking so long? I had given my money to a friend to donate, again, so I have no idea how she's been keeping her backers updated. But I certainly haven't heard what it is that makes five videos take three years.

Some communication would be nice. When she said there'd be a slight delay because she got more money than anticipated and so would make a bigger series, I was pretty happy to hear that. But this has been a much bigger delay than I think anyone has expected.

Since my donation was through someone who I am no longer on speaking terms with, I suppose I can ask here. What has she said about the size of the delays? Because they're ridiculous.

B. her life got flipped upside down by the maelstrom as someone else put it

If her life is too flipped around to even try to do what she promised, she should just send the money back. But the fact that she's making public speeches, going on television shows, maintaining her blog and commentaries, makes it seem that however bad things are, they aren't keeping her from doing work. "She's too stressed out" is
something I could understand and sympathize with, but she's certainly seeming like not too stressed/busy to do OTHER things.

C. while she isn't making the videos she's still working on the cause doing all kinds of public speaking and even getting on Colbert.

I didn't donate to 'the cause.' I didn't donate to 'Feminism,' or 'Sexism in Videogames.' I didn't donate to 'Anita Sarkeesian Doing Stuff,' or even I didn't even donate to "Anita Sarkeesian Talks About Videogames." I donated because there were some interesting ideas I wanted to see elaborated on in a series of short, easily digestible videos. That was the entirety of 'The Cause' I donated to.

D. Stress affects speed of work and the amount of harassment she gets woulds stress anyone out.

You already pointed that out. And I already addressed it. I may be wrong, but I can't imagine she's so stressed out that she can't make videos, but not so stressed out that she can't go to public events and television shows. If specifically these videos are what's troubling her - Which I can totally understand, sometimes one topic is the cause of anxiety rather than stuff in general - I really hope she can pass along the project to someone else to finish it for her. I, at least, donated because I wanted to see these videos she wanted to make. And I'm still waiting on them.

E. kickstarters almost never deliver on time.

It's funny 'cause you said it already.

It's not that I don't like feminism. Feminism is pretty cool, but when I want to support feminist organizations, I choose specific ones of my own accord. It's not that I don't like the idea of her talking about videogames. I may disagree, but, hey, it's an art form. And artistic criticism will exist. That's pretty much why I donated, because I figured even if I ended up disagreeing, these would be some interesting topics to hear about in some short, 15 minute primer videos to listen to while I played games or wrote or RP'd or whatever.

Besides, the fact that "OTher kickstarters are slow" isn't a defense. It's a problem. "Other people ALSO do this badly!" doesn't mean she didn't do it badly.

[lordlundar]

She had made videos before, and even if she hadn't, once you do a couple you at least understand HOW to. From what I understand, the game footage is either bought, or donated (I don't remember exactly, I didn't check her attributions, but I assume she paid someone to let her use their gameplay, or just asked for it,) but either way that means that playing the games to get footage is probably not the problem.

Well in at least one situation a couple of lets players who had no "balls in play" on this one way or the other confirmed that some of the clips she used were taken without permission or crediting the work.

Here's a link to it.

[Hyena Dandy]

Well that just seems rude. I know I'd be very annoyed at her if that was me.

[Andara Bledin]

1) The Topics - If she's still making videos then she hasn't failed to deliver on her promised output, merely the time-table for the output in question.

2) The Money - After she hit $6k, anything else is gravy for her, and her alone, and should have zero bearing on the campaign unless she included stretch goals. If there were no stretch goals, than any expectation that she'd do more with more money is unreasonable entitlement.

3) She's slow - So fucking what? If you really want to be a bitch about it, demand a refund for product not delivered and if you don't get one, then file a complaint with the FCC. In my opinion, as long as she's continuing to work towards completing the stated purpose of the campaign, then whining about it taking too long is just being pissy for the sake of being pissy. Also, part of the problem might be that she's actually taking time to play the games in question, which is not a quick and simple thing to do.

Anyone who expected all of those videos within a year, including Sarkesian, was being utterly unrealistic. Some of the games that use the tropes in question can take weeks to months to finish depending on the skill level and schedule of the player.

Much of the footage she uses isn't her own and hasn't been sourced by her and often isn't even representative of 'typical' gameplay, which is one of the bigger and most reasonable complaints thrown her way. If she is no longer using other people's gameplay clips, then her videos will take longer to make than they used to.

I'm hoping that she really is getting more into what the games are really like as played by her as opposed to random Let's Plays found on YouTube that may or may not have certain ideas about how to play said games, particularly the sandbox games.