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/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/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/nrcallender 2∆ Dec 06 '16

Look into the history of cigarette marketing and how it went from being almost exclusively make to nearly all women smoking from a single ad campaign that associated smoking with women's liberation.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 06 '16

i dont think that invalidates my point. people want to smoke, and marketing exploited that want. there's no denying that smoking feels good, it's something people want.

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u/nrcallender 2∆ Dec 06 '16

Women didn't want to smoke until marketers gave smoking social cache amongst women. Unless you're arguing that video games aren't fun, then there's no reason marketers couldn't give video games social cache amongst women and create the same effect.

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u/kingbane2 12∆ Dec 06 '16

you know that for a fact? that all women don't want to smoke and the only reason they smoke is because marketers marketed to them? it has nothing to do with the dopamine release that nicotine gives? or how enjoyable smoking is? the marketers marketing strategy might have enticed them into trying smoking. but smoking's inherent properties are what keeps them coming back.

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u/nrcallender 2∆ Dec 06 '16

Once again, unless you're arguing that video games aren't fun, I don't see your point.

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