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[Morwen Lagann]

Came across this presentation on Gamasutra today while I was working. It's not exactly eye-opening (in the sense that there isn't much covered that's new), but there are some particularly good anecdotes and questions scattered through the presentation that are worth thinking about and discussing, imo.

And yes, there are references to privilege in the presentation, for those who enjoy spamming suggestions to check it every 20 minutes or so.

[Gottii]

I strongly agree that sex and sexuality in games is generally massively unrealistic. Most games that deal with it are very much wish-fufillment and ego-driven exercises, devoid of much actual, healthy ways of approaching the matter.

That said, most games that deal with say, violence, are also generally massively unrealistic.  Most games that deal with it are very much wish-fufillment and ego-driven exercises, devoid of much actual, healthy ways of approaching the matter.

[Ghost Hunter]

The problems associated with this topic aren't 'new', but people talking about them and doing something against it is. I am very happy to follow the ones rocking the boat to get something done about this subject. One of them is @femfreq on twitter and her thoughts on the sexism and unbalanced eco-system of video games I'm quite happy to echo.

[Nmaro Makari]

Thanks for this morwen, I do think this is an area that isn't given enough attention. I'll show this to my university feminist group, they were looking for some good info on the gaming industry.

[Vikarion]

It's always fun to be told that I should feel guilty about something else. Fortunately, I've been playing a lot of World of Tanks lately, and, so far, I haven't found gender to be a major issue in that game. Unless premium ammo has a gender.

On a more serious note, I just want the games I pay for to be fun. I don't care if the main character is male, female, or whether they're LGBT-whatever...as long as it's fun. I'm sympathetic to wanting to not make all games WASP-rallies. But don't make a game about being socially conscious. Make it fun, first. To a certain extent, I imagine that some game developers would like to blame homophobia or sexism for the bad reviews they've had (I'm looking at you here, Bioware), when the reality was that people were really pissed about other things. And I think that really good games can introduce a lot of diversity without as many difficulties, because they are good games, and that quality allows them to better overcome the prejudices of some.

So, in other words, yes, I'm all for deleting the big boobs and introducing more realistic depictions of human diversity. But that doesn't mean that day one DLC and terrible game endings don't suck, and all the presentations from Bioware employees aren't going to convince me that my feelings on Mass Effect 3's ending are the result of sexism.

Let me bring up another point, after some more reflection. It seems to me rather suspicious that Bioware personnel are talking about this. IIRC, in Skyrim, you can be straight, gay, bi, whatever. You can marry pretty much anyone who will have you. And people in the game don't treat you markedly differently based on what gender you are or who you marry, nor are they - if you pay attention - always straight and/or white. And people loved Skyrim. I loved Skyrim. So if there's necessarily all this sexism in gaming, and all these male gamers are sexist pigs, then you need to explain why some very diverse games do so very well. Certainly some people are sexist pigs. But to call the audience for these games largely such seems less than plausible.

I would think that a lot of the hate many of these socially conscious game critics get is not due explicitly to their gender, but to the fact that they are messing with some person's toys, and gamers tend to be pretty protective of their toys.

[Korona]

I strongly agree that sex and sexuality in games is generally massively unrealistic. Most games that deal with it are very much wish-fufillment and ego-driven exercises, devoid of much actual, healthy ways of approaching the matter.

Bro, are you trying to say Scarlet Blade is not a serious video game that deals with real cultural issues at an intellectual level?

[Nmaro Makari]

It's always fun to be told that I should feel guilty about something else. Fortunately, I've been playing a lot of World of Tanks lately, and, so far, I haven't found gender to be a major issue in that game. Unless premium ammo has a gender.

On a more serious note, I just want the games I pay for to be fun. I don't care if the main character is male, female, or whether they're LGBT-whatever...as long as it's fun. I'm sympathetic to wanting to not make all games WASP-rallies. But don't make a game about being socially conscious. Make it fun, first. To a certain extent, I imagine that some game developers would like to blame homophobia or sexism for the bad reviews they've had (I'm looking at you here, Bioware), when the reality was that people were really pissed about other things. And I think that really good games can introduce a lot of diversity without as many difficulties, because they are good games, and that quality allows them to better overcome the prejudices of some.

So, in other words, yes, I'm all for deleting the big boobs and introducing more realistic depictions of human diversity. But that doesn't mean that day one DLC and terrible game endings don't suck, and all the presentations from Bioware employees aren't going to convince me that my feelings on Mass Effect 3's ending are the result of sexism.

I can't help feel you're making a dichotomy which doesn't actually exist, i.e. that you can have a good game design or a socially conscious one. The idea that one takes away from the other is simply untrue.

Also this idea that devs are looking for a blame piniata in homophobia and sexism is something I just cannot get at all. Mostly because to me it makes 0 sense.

[Vikarion]

Also this idea that devs are looking for a blame piniata in homophobia and sexism is something I just cannot get at all. Mostly because to me it makes 0 sense.

Well, after the release of Mass Effect 3, there was a general uproar over 1) the day1 DLC issue, and 2) the feeling that the ending sucked like a wind tunnel. One response within and without Bioware by a few, as I understand it, was to blame those who were unhappy for conducting a smear operation on the game for it's option to engage in a same-sex romance.

Now, as one of those who was rather unhappy with the ending myself, and as one who was actually happy to see such a character included, I found this somewhat irritating, to say the least. So, to have someone up there from Bioware talking about how gamers are such homophobes is...well, it's a bit of a red button. It's especially a bit of a red button since I'm being accused of that as part of a general pool, and I definitely do not fall into their neat little category of "our critics are bigots".

Now, in regards to your other objection, I must object in return. It absolutely is possible to have a game which is crippled by a ham-handed attempt to enforce diversity. For example, one of my favorite games, Silent Hunter 4, would not be as good if it tried to incorporate maximum diversity into the ship's crew (regardless of historical realism), and include missions demonstrating the ravages of British imperialism in the far East which lead to the actions of Japan having some credibility in the eyes of the oppressed peoples of those lands. Would it be more socially conscious to include such things? For a certain definition of that, yes. On the other hand, it would ruin it as a simulation of a World War 2 American submarine.

To put it another way, what I'm trying to say is that the entire talk is a non-issue, to a certain extent. It's not a non-issue because sexism doesn't exist in video games - it certainly does! The talk, as presented, is a non-issue because the speaker is assuming that gamers are sexist and homophobic and so forth on the whole, but every game company that bothers to ignore this assumption - Bethesda often does, as I noted - does not pay the price that he assumes they will.

The problem, then, isn't all game companies, or gaming culture, as much as it is this guy and his damn company. Hey, I'm not the one who came up with the all-female very-sexualized lesbian-sex-doll race of the Asari (Mass Effect), and I can't be the only one who thinks that that was a bit...off. Nor was I overly fond of the choice between strong-but-stupid evil girl (Morrigan) and weak-but-nice good girl (Leilana) in Dragon Age. Why can't strong women be good? I enjoyed those games, to a certain extent, but it was in spite of those things that made me wince. And that was ALL BIOWARE. And he wants to talk about an uncomfortable situation they changed? Seriously, the solution for their problems is not to wait for some woman in their company to get uncomfortable, but to grab their editing pen and sit down with an actually honest attempt to think about some of the characters and situations in their game. Or, fuck, just possessing a modicum of common sense. Personally, one good thing about my anti-bioware rage is that, since I'm not playing their games as much, I've had to rescue a lot fewer damsels. Except for the ones in Eve. 

...no, really, you could almost write a book about all the sexist shit in Dragon Age.

Meanwhile, other companies and other games have been produced with strong female leads, strong minority leads, allowances for same-sex relationships, and so forth, and gamers have eaten them up like candy, across eras. Metroid. The Walking Dead (the computer game, ofc). Skyrim. Half-Life 2 (you and Alyx take turns being action heroes). The point isn't that we don't have enough diversity, it's that being told that the lack of diversity is the fault of the gaming audience is a total load of shit, even if it's "well, we taught you to be that way".

Here's a fun demographic fact: the audience that gaming companies cater to are the younger generations, who, on the whole, are far more welcoming of diversity and tolerance than older generations. Gaming companies are not reacting to audience desires. They are the ones entirely responsible for the lack of diversity in gaming, and companies that have broken that mold have made games that sold like hot-cakes - they just had to be good games. Blaming the audience, from a company like Bioware that has pulled so many stereotypes that it's not even funny, is such a mouthful of epic bullshit that I'd rather go elsewhere to hear even the valid points that guy might have been making.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Yeah. If Bioware think the biggest problem in Mass Effect 3 was the big gay supply officer and not the fact that their lead writer phoned in the ending to a ten year epic journey through one man's determination to take shit from nobody, then there are bigger problems in the industry than homophobia.

[Makkal]

People were upset about the gay dude. There was post upon post. Various petitions. In a lecture on Sex and Sexuality in Video Games, he's going to highlight it.

No, that doesn't mean he thinks that's the 'biggest problem' with Mass Effect 3.

[Shiori]

For example, one of my favorite games, Silent Hunter 4, would not be as good if it tried to incorporate maximum diversity into the ship's crew (regardless of historical realism), and include missions demonstrating the ravages of British imperialism in the far East which lead to the actions of Japan having some credibility in the eyes of the oppressed peoples of those lands. Would it be more socially conscious to include such things? For a certain definition of that, yes. On the other hand, it would ruin it as a simulation of a World War 2 American submarine.

That's a bit of a diversion, really; the feminist (and LGBTQ/minority in general) beef with video games and culture in the large is not that they'd like representations of themselves wedged into any space available, as if they'd need votes for Video Game Character Congress.

The problem is that they're often not represented at all or poorly in situations where it would make sense to do so, and when they are, they tend to be reduced to tropes or plot devices, and often quite damaging ones at that.

The inclusion that they want isn't forced at all costs, or even "empowered" -- in fact, a lot of "empowered" portrayals end up being comedy or wank material anyway -- just honest ones. That's few and far enough between as is.

[Lyn Farel]

People and a lot of gamers especially are often homophobic, sexist, macho people out of insecurity or ignorance. You just have to look at Eve or the internet culture in general.

Fun fact is that a lot of game developers are too since most of them are gamers as well.

That said, it's more endemic to a more general trend that considers that young men target audience has to like that kind of generalizations. Looking at you publishers.

That being said I rather like the view of Rhianna Pratchett on the matter.

_______________

Now, on the presentation itself, the guy is certainly right by saying that what Bioware chose to show and NOT show as romances in their game is an implicit statement on their behalf. I remember being a little annoyed when I first saw romances in Mass Effect for example, when it literally shouted at our faces "alien space lesbian phantasm" with nothing else besides, except the standard straight romance. It felt to me very like the issue described above : nergasm created by nerd devs for the sake of diversity, or forced by ignorant publishers because it's what sells.

And then they got more conservative in ME2 with mostly straight romances, even if some of them still with aliens. Then came ME3, where they suddenly tried to picture a gay, MALE relationship as a counterpart of the female gay one. Funnily enough, reactions were outrage for the former, and "lolawesome" for the latter. Male nerd reactions ? Not sure, as I am not gay so I wouldnt be able to tell if the male gay relationship was genuine or just cheesy, no more that I can tell the same for the female one. However, I do feel that the intent behind them was right.

Apparently they did it in DA too, but I have not played that license to be able to comment.

Also, the argument on "privilege" is sound, period. Privileged people will always complain as soon as one starts to target other audiences in the same kind of game genre. Mostly because they havs always been used to be the only sole target in the past. The usual fallacy is to consider that since it's not a problem for them, then it's not a problem period. It's quite common to read that among any commentaries from gamers, or devs, or publishers. That's conservative ignorance at its finest. "How do we not repel the women/else ?" and not "How do we attract them ?"

I didn't really understand that as an excuse or justification on why bioware got flak on what went wrong with some of their titles. Actually the only thing that got flak in their romances was mostly that male gay romance in ME3 and the opposite reactions to their romance scenes from Fox News people to my knowledge... Bioware certainly got flak for the choices of audiences they made, but that was from some of the privileged straight males and that was mostly non related to other issues more tied to gameplay and design.

[Seriphyn]

I liked Steve from ME3...just sort of says "had a husband back on earth" out of nowhere, and no one blinks an eye. It's sort of how I would picture the future. Or when Kaiden propositioned my male Shepard, turning him down was a case of just citing professionalism rather than going "I ain't no faggot". Like it was normal to assume that people were bi in the future. Macho Shepard didn't take an issue. Really perplexed why people are upset with that.

Secondly, since the US opened up all combat jobs to women, including special forces, game developers have no excuse not to depict female soldiers in all future games depicting modern warfare (except if set prior 2013 ofc). I'm looking at you,  Battlefield and CoD.

I'd like to see CoD 2k14 have a female protagonist actually. Gamers could bitch while the devs play dumb and say "I don't get why people are upset...women can now serve as frontline fighters!"

[Vikarion]

That's a bit of a diversion, really; the feminist (and LGBTQ/minority in general) beef with video games and culture in the large is not that they'd like representations of themselves wedged into any space available, as if they'd need votes for Video Game Character Congress.

The problem is that they're often not represented at all or poorly in situations where it would make sense to do so, and when they are, they tend to be reduced to tropes or plot devices, and often quite damaging ones at that.

You're conflating a "is it possible" response with an "is that what they want one". Moreover, there are those who will criticize games set in historical eras or other circumstances for not conforming to modern concerns.

Anyway, as to your second statement, I agree whole-heartedly. But I'd much rather listen to some video by someone who has a clue than one of the writers of Dragon Age, which I could use as a primer if I were teaching a class about how to avoid prejudice.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Is it really so important who the messenger is, Vikarion? I think what should count is the message.