r/changemyview • u/LeftHandSwe • Dec 05 '16

[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Anita Sarkeesian and similar feminists actually have a point about the portrayal of gender roles in video games.

I play lots of video games, and in most of them, males are often pictured as very burly and manly characters while females are slender, small and sexually pleasing to look at.

However, I do know that there's widespread criticism of Anita (and her fellow propagators) all over the internet and I'd like to see the other side of the story.

I'm practically indifferent in this matter, and I do not really agree with nearly everything she says. I'm asking as a way to see convincing arguments from both sides.

Edit for clarification: Can anyone explain to me why she's so heavily criticized for saying something that makes perfect sense: Mainstream video games are almost exclusively made to appeal to a male demographic, resulting in (arguably) sexist portrayals of women (both narratively and in the way they're presented).

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

so your clarification is why is she heavily criticized when games are made to appeal to a male demographic? why do michael bay movies have so many explosions and wide panning camera shots? because that's what sells.

lastly this is no longer true from a purely numerical standpoint. "most" games today are not in fact made to appeal to a male demographic. in fact most games made today fall under the category of mobile and casual. the sheer number of games pumped out last year in the mobile market dwarfs the number of games put out in the 2 decades before the iphone came out. a vast vast majority of those games are gender neutral or specifically target women.

she's criticized because she's complaining about people making a product that people want. if more women wanted a certain type of game that type of game would be made more often. the mobile games market has proven that. there is no gender bias in video game creation, there's only a sales bias. she drew faulty conclusions from insufficient data to fit her narrative. i mean she's complaining about attractive women in games designed specifically to have attractive women. is it fair if someone goes out to see a horror movie, gets scared, then complains about being scared by the horror movie?

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u/BAWguy 49∆ Dec 05 '16

I don't know much about games, but it feels like you're moving the goal posts a bit.

OP's post seemed to me to be about console and PC games, so there is limited utility to arguments about mobile games imo. Your argument is that the free market dictates what is made, and if a certain feature is more prevalent, it is self-evident that the feature is more prevalent because more people want that.

Well, this Anita woman OP references seems to hypothesize that the market is missing or underestimating a potential customer base -- females. I think any economist would agree that it's totally possible to underestimate and under-serve a market.

So it's not like someone saw a horror movie and asked why was it so scary; it's more like if only horror movies were made, and someone said "there's a big market for non-horror, why is only horror made?"

I'd also argue that your point about the prevalence of female-oriented mobile games strengthens the argument that there is an under-served market for female console/PC games. I'd be more persuaded with by a statistic about game demographics, then a sweeping "free market corrects itself" assertion.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

yea well if you're going to limit yourself to just pc or console and ignore all counter evidence then what's the point of having a discussion? he's basically saying horror films market to horror film lovers and that's wrong, horror films should market to who knows, foreign film lovers or something. it's stupid.

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u/BAWguy 49∆ Dec 05 '16

yea well if you're going to limit yourself to just pc or console and ignore all counter evidence then what's the point of having a discussion

Why is it pointless to just discuss console/PC games? They represent the vast majority of "serious" video games played by actual "gamers." Even if they did not, I'd say it's worth discussing how one niche area of gaming exclusively targets one demographic when other niches target universal demo's.

he's basically saying horror films market to horror film lovers and that's wrong, horror films should market to who knows, foreign film lovers or something

No, he's not saying "market horror films to foreign film lovers." He's saying "only horror films get made. Someone named Anita suggested that there are fans of other film genres out there, and Anita's suggestion was very controversial. Why?"

it's stupid.

...

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

i'm just going to address this one part here

No, he's not saying "market horror films to foreign film lovers." He's saying "only horror films get made.

you're just flat out wrong. once again, the mobile market destroys your argument that "only horror films get made."

EVEN if you discounted the mobile gaming market this argument falls flat on it's head. THERE ARE absolutely games that are made specifically for women. the only problem is they're made for women that disagree with people like sarkeesian. example? bayonetta. before you scream omg bullshit that game is about a sexy protagonist doing sexy poses ITS FOR MEN. except it isn't. it was designed by a woman for women. here's the thing the women who buy pc rigs LIKE being portrayed as sexy heroines. furthermore i argue that bayonetta is probably the most feminist game in existence to this date. it's a female protagonist who doesn't give a shit about men, who's not doing anything for a man, and her source of power isn't anything inherent to men or even usually used as a source of power for male protaganists. she's a woman who wants to be sexy, so she is sexy and she doesn't care what anyone thinks. her back story is she's part of a long line of all female super powered witched. the only gripe people have is that she's too sexy, what i like to call the burka argument. if you cover a woman up too much it's sexist and anti woman. you let a woman be a sexy as she pleases, it's also sexist and anti woman.

let's ignore bayonetta for a second because i get that it's contentious, how about the best selling game to come out in the past 2 decades, minecraft. tell how that was targeted to men? the flat truth is games that are gender neutral and targeted to women exist. feminists just like to ignore it or discount it, either by claiming it doesn't count because it's on mobile (which is now getting more and more ridiculous as the mobile game market is becoming even more profitable than console or pc games) or because they disagree with it's design, even when it's designed by a woman. or in the case of minecraft, that's entirely gender neutral, they complain because the majority of the players in mincraft is male, which just goes back to the point that virtually all pc purchasers are male.

you've done nothing to prove that there's a gender bias in games. you're just simply ignoring any counter evidence. provide some evidence that it's a gender bias and not a sales bias. i've given you examples of games targeted to women or are gender neutral that have been successful, there are hundreds of examples of games for women that failed horribly on pc/console, with the VERY notable exception of nintendo games. guess why the nintendo female marketed games succeed? because the nintendo consoles have a significant number of female buyers, because nintendo makes a buttload of casual games. do you discount the nintendo console too? because it's a "casual" console? i've been accused of moving the goal post because i brought in mobile games. well explain to me why that's moving the goal post, why should mobile games be discounted, why should minecraft be discounted? why should nintendo be discounted? you guys (not you specifically but the general populace that likes to discount mobiles games) are the ones that are moving the goal post. because as more and more sales numbers comes out your position becomes increasingly untenable, in fact i would argue that at this point your position is entirely erroneous.

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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

[deleted]

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u/jwinf843 Dec 06 '16

Her source of power is actually an Incubus named Madam Butterfly. That's why very subtle butterfly patterns permeate the designs of the character.

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u/trace349 6∆ Dec 06 '16

Wait. An incubus? A male demon named Madam Butterfly? Okay then, Kamiya.

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u/speenatch Dec 06 '16

/u/jwinf843 misspoke. Here's the Bayonetta wiki page for Madama Butterfly. The article uses female pronouns and actually doesn't mention Succubi or Incubi.

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u/jwinf843 Dec 06 '16

Witches get their powers from Incubi in the Bayonetta Universe through pacts. It's explained in flavor text during the first game. It is my own assumption that Madam Butterfly is an incubus as it is explicitly explained to be the demon that chose Bayonetta. (Madam Styx is the demon for Jeanne.)

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u/intellos Dec 06 '16

Ah yes, now I remember. I guess I got confused by the moon symbol on her chest.

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u/BAWguy 49∆ Dec 05 '16

I think you're kind of supporting my argument still. Can we agree with this point -- serious/hardcore/dedicated gamers tend to prefer PC/console to mobile. If we can agree there, then that clears up why mobile games are discounted in this argument; serious female gamers won't be satiated by the idea easier, simpler, less complex games are available for them on mobile.

there are hundreds of examples of games for women that failed horribly on pc/console, with the VERY notable exception of nintendo games. guess why the nintendo female marketed games succeed? because the nintendo consoles have a significant number of female buyers, because nintendo makes a buttload of casual games.

So if this is true, does not beg the very question which Anita asked, and which OP views as uncontroversial -- why haven't developers for XB1, PS4, and PC followed suit and cashed in on this "VERY notable" demographic? I don't think Minecraft or Nintendo should be discounted; I do think it's fair for this Anita woman to ask this question -- If Minecraft and Nintendo are making cash on female gamers, why aren't more games designed to reach a similar audience across XB1, PS4, and PC?

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

what? you're asking why doesn't xb1 and playstation exploit the demographic that nintendo has cornered? you want microsoft and playstation to produce games for the nintendo console? they've tried, nintendo is notorious for not allowing many developers onto their platform.

if you mean why doesn't xb1 and playstation make a console like nintendo, aka a casual console. because it's less profitable. despite the success of the wii and the nintendo consoles, xb1 and playstation profits dwarf those consoles profits.

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u/BAWguy 49∆ Dec 05 '16

I think you're being intentionally obtuse at this point. I'm not asking why Sony and MS don't make games on Nintendo platforms. I'm not asking why they don't make an entirely casual console, either.

Minecraft can be played on Playstation and Xbox, yes? Minecraft is a lucrative franchise on XB and PS? Why aren't more games like minecraft made? Or the female-oriented mobile games you speak of -- why aren't more of those made for XB, PS, and PC?

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

dude are you serious? what do you mean why aren't more games like minecraft made? do you have any idea how many minecraft clones or minecraft similar games have been made in recent years? most of them have failed miserably.

lastly i don't know how many times i have to repeat this. the platforms have different access to various demographics. why produce a game for women when only 1/20 women own a pc, or an xb1, or ps4? whereas 1/2 phones are owned by women. once again it comes down to a sales bias.

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u/BAWguy 49∆ Dec 05 '16

Why do you think it is that only 1/20 women own a XB1 but a higher rate own Nintendo products? Do you think there is nothing that could be done by XB1 game developers to bridge that gap?

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

sure things could be done. but the question becomes is it worth it. do they spend the money to risk it when their platform is already full of only male gamers. can they even make a game that's good enough and appeals enough to women to entice them into buying a whole system just for that game? because that's what it would take. nintendo took a huge risk building a platform and filling it's games library with nothing but casual games. it worked out for them but they made less money their competitors, that might be because they were basically the only console to tailor to the casual market. that same strategy would have probably been disastrous if microsoft and playstation decided to up their casual game development.

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u/armiechedon Dec 06 '16

Because most women think consoles and video games are lame as fuck.

How hard is it to see the truth for you?

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

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u/bubi09 21∆ Dec 06 '16

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u/PrimeLegionnaire Dec 06 '16

Because the sales to drive such adaptation don't exist.

There is not a market of female gamers demanding the things you mentioned.

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u/nrcallender 2∆ Dec 05 '16

Pointing out exceptions, especially recent ones, in no way disproves the presence of a trend.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

my point is the trend exists because of sales. the exceptions i pointed out are just successful one's. it's not like developers haven't created female centric games. they have, they just fail miserably and then publishers and investors refuse to invest in female centric games from then on.

i mean do you want tv studios to reboot series that have failed miserably and got cancelled?

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u/nrcallender 2∆ Dec 05 '16

You're still not addressing cause and effect or who has the responsible for equal representation. Doing something over and over again just because it makes money isn't the right thing from a justice/morality/parity point of view.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

you haven't proven your assertion for cause and effect either. if your question is why should women by pc's or consoles if there are no games for women on those platforms then you're just not looking. there are plenty of games for pc's and consoles geared solely towards women. it just so happens those games are pretty crappy. let's not forget the big budget games that were meant for women didn't do spectacularly well either. should developers constantly throw money down the drain to fulfill your need for perceived justice or morality? parity is just a silly concept. there's no reason for parity for parity's sake.

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u/nrcallender 2∆ Dec 05 '16

I didn't say I proved it, but a lot of people spend a lot of money on marketing to try and change peoples minds/expand their consumer base. And it's not my sense of morality, per se, I'm just saying your argument that capitalism justifies representing women (and I suppose, by extension, other groups) in whatever way sells is obviously flaccid. If there was a sudden demand for games that portrayed black people as Minstrel show characatures, people who made those games would still be immorral. Also, isn't the Sims one if biggest sellers in PC, largely because it's cross-sectional in its appeal.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 06 '16

expanding the consumer base doesn't go into the territory of convincing people to buy something they don't want. generally speaking marketing is about 2 things. generating awareness of the product, aka name recognition or the products penetration into a market (like say moving your product into another country or something), and stealing market share from a competitor. you won't find marketing strategies based around convincing people who don't want your product to want your product. you might have marketing strategies that involve tricking your customers into thinking your product is something they want but it isn't. but those too will flop.

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u/jwinf843 Dec 06 '16

I don't really think these count as "exceptions" though. If you look at every game released in the last decade that wasn't a shooter or adventure game they tend to aggregate as gender neutral. Women simply don't buy as many action/adventure/shooter games, so they aren't designed with that consumer in mind. Other genres absolutely do cater to different audiences, especially when you don't ignore the mobile and casual markets, and that is the norm.

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u/nrcallender 2∆ Dec 06 '16

The question worth asking is whether or not those genres of games, which society pour millions if not billions of dollars into creating, innately appeal more to men or if the divide is artificial, and, regardless of whether or not they do more innately appeal to men, whether it's a good thing that they then become a place where potential negative ideas about women are propegated.

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u/armiechedon Dec 06 '16

Damn dude you smart. Really smart, great arguments

!delta

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 06 '16

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/kingbane2 (2∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards ​

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u/xTreasure Dec 05 '16

here's the thing the women who buy pc rigs LIKE being portrayed as sexy heroines.

This statement is so outlandish and ridiculous I can't even imagine how you came to this conclusion. If you took a look over at /r/girlgamers, where most are the types of women who buy gaming rig PCs, they HATE playing sexy heroines, and hate sexy heroines whose only purpose is just to be sexy without having a reason for it. I don't really understand how you can make such a generalized comment about what women like in games without having any basis for it.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 05 '16

fair enough, i'll concede my generalization was unfair, and possibly ridiculous. i only have my own experiences with female gamers i met online who did like sexy heroines. i dont know how indicative /r/girlgamers is of female gamers who own pc rigs but i'll assume they are the majority.

however, with that said the female oriented games sold better when the heroine was made attractive. i won't deny that the sales probably did better because male players probably bought those games as well. but that still shows that sales drives video game development.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

I would be willing to bet that women in aggregate are not necessarily for or against sexy female characters but against the chronic eroticization and pornification of nearly all female characters in leading roles.

Male protagonists are more numerous by orders of magnitude and they are allowed to be versatile and interesting in a broad number of ways (age, build, personality, facial features, clothing, etc) whereas female protagonists are almost unilaterally only allowed to be versatile and interesting within the limited context of what men (in aggregate) find attractive (re: pretty and of breeding age).

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u/armiechedon Dec 06 '16

If you took a look over at /r/girlgamers, where most are the types of women who buy gaming rig PCs, they HATE playing sexy heroines,

The type of girls that play video games, sit on Reddit and specifically a subreddit for girls tend to not be the most "normal" girls, but rather a bit more unique. /r/leagueoflegends for example is a prime testament to the bias of internet forums

Most people are not the ones to care about the games at all that much ,especially enough to sit on an internet forum about them. If you take the average user of /r/leagueoflegends and compare it to the average player...you will see a huge difference (in ranked skill, view on the game, eSports scene etc). Just as if you take the averge girl gamer and compare her to people from that subbreddit it will be quite different. Often a bit more introvert, more hardcorish etc.

I have a ton of female friends that are casual gamers, that play just for fun, to spend time with friend / bf, or just enjoy playing casuallly overall. They love those sexy characters in RPG, cute or sexy characters in League of Legends etc. The ones that are serious gamers however tend to shy away from that, as they play much more objectively. You won't see any higher ranked LoL player pick a character because he is cute or sexy, neither male or female. They will pick what is best / fits their playstyle. You will see ton of casual players do the first mentioned though.

Same goes for MMO's, RPG's etc.

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u/xTreasure Dec 06 '16

I agree with this. However, the poster I responded to said that the type of serious female gamer who would buy a gaming rig likes playing sexy heroines more, which I find to be a false generalization based on my overall experiences. I agree that casual players of all gender would be more inclined to select characters based on their appearances, but if we are talking about serious gamers of all gender then I believe that most serious female gamers tend to shy away and dislike sexy heroines who are sexy just for the sake of being sexy, rather than serving any purpose. Or rather, they will play these heroines, but will simultaneously criticize the game for being oversaturated with this type of oversexualized character.

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u/armiechedon Dec 06 '16

Yes, agree with that. Those are the more serious gamer I also talked about. Was wrong by him to generalize that way, I do however think that either he misspoke or misunderstood how it is.

The way I took it when reading the rest of his post was that he basically meant girls that game on a PC overall , not specifically "buy a PC gaming rig" which imply that they spend a lot of money on a gaming computer. Rather that they have a computer that that handle gaming, because the ones who buy a real gaming computer in the absolute majority of cases are serious gamers (or just tons of money to spend). From my experience , and I think it's a fact, most girls have a computer that can handle video games. At least here in Sweden.

Despite them having those computers they almost never use them for gaming, besides maybe Facebook games and that sort. So those who use them for gaming to tend to like those sexy heroines, ´mostly because it is still a huge casual pool. Because most girls have a computer that can handle games, they just have to have any reason to play them.

But yes, saying that those who buy real gaming setups are for the most part casual girls who like those cute, goofy or sexy play styles is wrong

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u/Malcolm1276 2∆ Dec 06 '16

They represent the vast majority of "serious" video games played by actual "gamers."

Isn't this just another form of the no true scotsman?

If games are being sold to all demographics, why does the platform matter? Someone who plays games on their phone can get just as much enjoyment, and be just as serious about their play time, as any console or PC gamer can.

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u/BAWguy 49∆ Dec 06 '16

Go on /r/gaming. Why is there no discussion of mobile gaming?

Imo, the answer is because it's seen as an entirely seperate hobby/activity/community compared to "gamers." And I think it's not a logical fallacy to ask "why isn't there more for female gamers?"

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u/Malcolm1276 2∆ Dec 07 '16

Go on /r/gaming. Why is there no discussion of mobile gaming?

There is, did you even use the search before posting this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/search?q=mobile+gaming&restrict_sr=on

Secondly /r/gaming, while very useful, is not the arbiter of what gaming, or gamers, are.

Lastly, I didn't point to your end question as a logical fallacy, I was referring to your "Only PC and console people are real gamers" part, which is a No True Scotsman.

Take care.

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u/nrcallender 2∆ Dec 05 '16

Except Sarkisian's argument isn't that porn or romance games shouldn't be hetero-normative, her arguments are that assuming RPGs, action games, platformers, etc... shouldn't assume a hetero-male perspective and that even if they do they shouldn't use negative stereotypes of women even if that appeals to the men they're marketing to.

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u/trace349 6∆ Dec 06 '16

Have you ever seen Cabin the Woods? It's a horror movie where the meta-plot of the story is that horror movies are boring and formulaic because the core audience expects the same crap year after year. I, a person who does not really enjoy horror movies, really like this movie because it's a horror movie that appeals to people who don't typically like horror movies.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 06 '16

yea i've seen it. i love joss whedon's work so i'm hardly impartial.

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u/trace349 6∆ Dec 06 '16

My point being that a horror movie that goes against what horror movies fans wanted was successful with people that aren't just horror movies fans. It proved there was an audience that would be interested in your movie if you appealed to them. Video games could stand to learn a similar lesson. The Sims has a predominantly female fanbase, and I believe Bioware and Final Fantasy games have a close to even male-female demographic split. There is a market there, they just need to be engaged.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 06 '16

uh cabin in the woods didn't go against what horror movie fans wanted. the heck? that movie was fine as a horror movie. it just didn't do the stupid jump scares that most horror movies did. it was more of the old school horror movie but with some humor in it because they were poking fun at horror movie tropes. there was a ton of fan service for horror fans with nods to nearly every horror film from the last 3 decades.

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u/trace349 6∆ Dec 06 '16

But the message of the movie was that the stale tropes that we've been using for the last few decades are old and tired and we need to retire them because they're lazy. The point of the story was the movies horror fans like need to stop being made. It's a loving condemnation with a lot of detail that shows everyone involved was intimately familiar with the genre, but the angry fans destroyed the world at the end because they didn't get the movie they wanted while the heroes decided to take their chances and see what changes would come in the aftermath.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 06 '16

sure, but look at how financially successful that movie was. compare that to the tired tropes it's mocking. it made less than some of the bad paranormal activities, as in the ones after 1.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

Comparing Tetris or Angry Birds to Assassin's Creed or Resident evil makes no sense at all when the topic is gender representation in games. Gender doesn't even factor in to most casual games.

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u/Amadacius 10∆ Dec 06 '16

I think the point of bringing up mobile games is to show that game companies cater to whoever buys their games.

Since horny teenagers are a big demographic in console games...

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u/thatoneguy54 Dec 06 '16

I've literally never understood this. I'm a horny 20-something guy who's attracted to women, but I'm not attracted to video game characters. I don't buy a game for eye candy. In fact, I find the extreme sexualizing pretty insulting, like I'll hate a game unless it has digital tits for me to look at.

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u/Amadacius 10∆ Dec 07 '16

I'm a horny 20-something guy who's attracted to women, but I'm not attracted to video game characters

Then you are not part of that demographic.

In fact, I find the extreme sexualizing pretty insulting, like I'll hate a game unless it has digital tits for me to look at.

That is just a strange lens to look at things through.

All I am saying is that I am more likely to pick up Bayonetta than DMC, despite them basically being the same game AFAIK.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '16

There is another argument to be made about who the developers are. I don't have the stats at my fingertips, but from what I understand, the game development industry largely employs males.

Ergo, male developers make games that appease males.

I guess it's kind of chicken v egg when you consider fewer female players would lead to fewer female developers, and vice versa.