Gaming sites turned into agenda pushing social justice sites

The agenda? Very simple, to keep the supposed and fake social justice whining over everything and anything going for personal gain.

To take advantage as much as possible of unsuspecting groups of people and to garner as many easily manipulated followers who fall for well spoken, loud and obnoxious "leaders" and feel the need to cling to a group in order to compensate for something else in life.

Video Games are an easy field to work with and many of these reviews have been manipulated into blindly following social justice groups and aggressively defending them. It's no surprise to me WHY video game reviewers of all people are so easily manipulated into doing this but I will leave that to your imagination as I've gotten modded on GameFAQs before for speaking the truth. Other reviews and video game journalists however are the ones stirring all this up and they pretend to believe in and stand for these issues just for personal political or financial gain.

I have every right to talk about this on a video game forum, after r all I go to video game sites to read or watch videos about video games and not to be poisoned by the insecurities and greediness of others and their forced and clearly and obviously fake political correctness and agenda pushing.

There is nothing wrong with sexism in character design and entertainment.

On the subject of sexualizing character designs, I see nothing wrong with designing a sexy looking female or male character. The human body can be beautiful, appealing and attractive so why not use that in video games. There is NOTHING wrong with sex in itself and every single person I talk to here, outside the magic social justice circle, meaning here in the real world, every single person is baffled by what is happening to their gaming sites.

There is also nothing all that wrong with stereotypes in entertainment, cartoon and caricature.

I strongly advise that all these social justice warriors figure out what is actually lacking in their lives and work towards fixing that instead of trying to compensate for it by being aggressive and by making up issues where there are none.

To those of us not living in the great almighty America and other such rich countries where people have nothing better to do but bicker over social issues in SUPER MARIO, this is downright ridiculous, insane, childish. To see problems where there are none, to keep coming up with social related issues in video games of all things is beyond unacceptable to me. In the end if those loudmouth obsessive social justice warriors care so much, why not sit down and make their own games instead of pestering others for their work of art in the utmost obnoxious ways imaginable.

Yeah there is. People like you are the reason discussions about some of these social issues needs to take place.

It's funny 'cause by saying this you kinda just show yourself to be just as vapid and terrible as the SJWs you TL;DR'd about.

Pretty much. I made a thread over at System Wars with some interesting reading if anyone is interested.

>gamers cry "video games are art!"
>gamers cry when video games are judged as art

lol **** this community/industry

Is this you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXBYXW5qUiA

I find that with the anti-"sjw" side, it's less a matter of contributing an alternate view to a dialogue so much as screaming that you don't want a dialogue to take place at all.

I'm a GAMER first and foremost. So I tend to stay out of these heated "social justice" debates. I don't really care that much either way.

As long as the game is fun.

What in the **** are you talking about? Seriously, your post has no context to anything. What does sjw insanity and the backlash against it have to do whether games are art or not? All the more confusion because your central point is wrong. Gamers are not crying about either of those things, because most gamers DON'T view games as art.

Watch the video I posted. They all use the same arguments. Probably got them off neogaf.

Already watched it, and yeah its like automatons spewing nonsense.

SJW: This game set in 15th century Bohemia is too white.(this actually happened.)

Gamers: This article is stupid.

Aljosa23: Durrrrr gamers cry when video games are judged as art.

@PannicAtack:

So a game portrays the criminal underground, where sexism is rampant

is said game supposed to sugar coat sexism or censor it according to you?

edit: I just that in the OP I forgot to type an entire sentence, right after I talk about sexism and how I think it's ok if needed I talk about sexualizing characters and why i think that's perfectly acceptable as well.

This is your answer.

Why the **** is there ANOTHER thread on this topic? So pathetic.

Sure is a nice example that has nothing to do with anything you said in the OP. Nice job putting words in my mouth, though.

This.

And yes, the gaming community is definitely the worst. Film/literature/music enthusiasts don't exhibit the kind of rampant manbabyishness and neckbeardery that gamers do.

Well I do think there are games that have different goals (much like with movies books etc) which is something to keep in mind. Some are just mindless entertainment (e.g. like a bad action movie). But when a game is trying to tell a meaningful story or have a message, the criticisms become more valid.

Now that said there are a lot of gamers who take stupid stances regarding video games, but I don't think the SJWs (or whatever you want to call them) are guiltless either. It seems that a lot of people have an idea of what "should" be in a game and often I disagree with the ideas. Not every game (or every story told) 'needs' to have a strong female character (or conversely a strong male character), not every game with relationships needs to feature both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, etc. And I think where the SJWs often go a little too far is in complaining when a game doesn't fit into the mold they want to see (much the same way a lot of the neckbeards complain). It all depends on what the story you want to tell is.

Yep.

Seriously. Can we all go back to playing games and waiting for the 800M series? OP is a sexist retard and this whole "video games and the gaming community is misogynistic" argument is really stupid. Rarely do I ever see anyone in a game harass a girl simply for being a girl. In fact, it's usually the opposite. On most servers, guys have treated the girl there better than anyone else while giving subtle hints that they like her and even giving her free in-game "currency". Is that biased? Somewhat. Does it matter? No. It's a first world problem at most. I do agree that some games are misogynist, depicting women as "sex objects" in bikinis, catering to men in games like Metro: Last Light. But in a lot of games, the woman will simply look attractive and still be an independent woman who is not stereotypical. And there is a male equivalent of that attractive woman, an attractive muscular dude with abs. But if the majority of men or women in a game aren't just there as background or "eye candy" then why does it matter?

I didn't read the thread but your thread title sure is true ... of some sites anyway. I use to read Kotaku quite a bit but eventually grew tired of all the far-left propaganda articles there that have nothing to do with gaming.

Well, I do agree that it's ridiculous when certain feminists act like not having a female protagonist is automatically a negative and I do think some of them don't pay attention to context, but I don't think the gaming community wants to hear any kind of feminist angle regardless of what is being said.

Oh hey, look, a reasonable comment that isn't full of hyperbole, demonization, or a one-sided look at a complex subject.

Let's ignore it!

Not all gamers are misogynistic, but I think that anybody who can't see that there is a noticeable misogynistic culture in the gaming community is not paying attention to what is said on forums/comments sections, etc.

To be fair a lot of that is 12 year olds but yeah I know what you mean

I find it funny that this highly opinionated thread, with almost no backing in trusted sources, doesn't get locked, but this thread of mine did. So I guess I'm allowed to just repost my OP from there here, now that the discussion is allowed on another thread. Just to be clear though, I don't agree with the TC, I think sexism is an issue (obviously) and misogyny should be battled, but the correct way, and in the places it's actually present, not by seeing it everywhere, by projection. This is the old OP:

We all know that gender equality is a goal for which the human society as a whole has a ways to go until it becomes a reality. Some societies have advanced more than others in this aspect, mainly (but not only) western ones. Even in those, though, there are still many barriers for women integration, which naturally have to be dismantled, at least in my opinion, at the level of maintaining equal oportunities and no discrimination. Let merit be the deciding factor for everyone, right?

The gaming industry is one of such places where obstacles are found by a woman willing to participate in it. But do we know how much of an obstacle it is?

But are the current actual causes of that the alledged sexism and patriarchal system we live in? Well, if we take into consideration historical causes, there's no denying it. You only have to rewind through some decades to find causes that still aren't remedied. But how "strong" are these causes in the matter today, taking into consideration the progress that took place and the adaptations that every market went through all this time?

Well, I'm going to repeat some of the sources and info I've brought before in other threads.

- Gaming Audience

Women are already a majority in the adult gaming demographic. The majority of gamers are above 18 y.o. Of the total of gamers, all ages considered, 36% are women above 18 and 35% are men above 18 (the rest is split amongst girls under 18 and boys under 18). But what do women play the most? From that same article:

"So what games have women been playing all these years, now that we know they haven't just been wasting time trying to get their Facebook friends to give them free lives on Candy Crush?

Casual computer games, mostly. The report ranks online and mobile puzzle games, board games, trivia games, and card games as coming in second to the boom in social games, which more than doubled in popularity between 2012 and 2013."

So, who's the main consumer of the so called hardcore and mainstream console and PC gaming? Still men. If you see the study from which that Daily Dot article came from, you'll see on page 12 that casual games on consoles amounts to only 2.3% of sales, while on PC they amount to 28.3% of total games sales. That's corroborated by this Wall Street Journal article, based on more studies, the same ESA being one among them.

"The growing number of female gamers largely comes down to a surge in so-called casual mobile game, a genre of games boosted by the fast adoption of smartphones, executives from game companies say."

From all these graphics, info and the input from gaming companies executives, we have the conclusion that, although women represent 48% of the total gaming audience, that does not translate into an equal proportion in the generation of revenue. Not with their current predominant buying and gameplay habits.

So... consider the question of risk of investiment and niche preferences here.

- Developer's and publisher's scenes. -

This article seems to be a great source, since they gathered their info from many different companies and the group Women in Games International. The article starts by saying that in E3 2014 there was a majority of men characters and protagonists (though there're Alien: Isolation's Amanda Ripley, Lara again on a new TR, The Order's Isabeau and Evolve's Maggie).

The Women in Games International CEO said that's frustrating that there's still a prevalence on male protagonists, that she's been in the industry for 9 years and the situation is still the same. Though she also said that:

"12 to 18 percent of the industry is women and many game developers and publishers have problems finding and retaining female employees. Van Sickle said change is happening, but it’s slow going."

So it's hard to find a female employee on gaming. Though that's slowly changing. Remember: those % are not for just leadership and creative positions, but for all positions.

Ubisoft's CEO said the following:

“The more women we have playing games, the more we will be able to have a balance between women and men in the games,” said Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft.

So they do have an eye open for that market. It's not like they want to alienate that share of the money.

Actually, it seems to me that the conclusion is better translated in the EA's CEO statement:

“My thesis is that it’s a male-dominated business,” said Patrick Soderlund, executive vice president at EA Studios. “I’m not sure that flies, but I think it overall may have something to do with it — that boys tend to design for boys and women for women. I’m just happy that we have a game with a female heroine.”

So, there is a prevalence of men designing games. This affects how they design stories and characters.

But why do women consist such a minimal portion of employees and developers in the industry?

Well, first of all, it's not just in gaming. Women are a majority in other areas, and a minority in others, due to various reasons (watch the movie to see a bit of why that is so). From that video:

That is not all. That explains how many women initially seek for a job in the areas involved more directly with the bulk of positions in the industry.

But there are studies about female why women who actually get a job in the area are more probable to drop their jobs or not seek for promotions.

This 2010 study by Julie Prescott and Jan Bogg concluded that long working hours, constant need to relocate place of work and other factors make the majority of women present in the industry (out of the few that there are to begin with) be single and childless. It's not a good career for women in families where they hold the majority of family responsibilities (if you want to dig more into the family side of things, go back to the beginning of this post and read the article in the spoiler block).

It's interesting that they did find a factor of discrimination. Applying yourself for promotion, which is an important part of actually being able to get the promotion, is viewed as a violation of stereotypical behavior expected from them in the industry. This holds women from advancing, and adds to the reasons of dropping the career.

So, it's a complex question. Mind that in the study above, women represented even less of the total workforce than they do nowadays in a worldwide scale. They were 4% of UKs female gaming workforce (the study is limited to the UK), now they are 12-18% of the global gaming workforce.

Basically then, women are much rarer to find in the industry than men to begin with, and working conditions are an added obstacle. Notice that after all that, comes the discrimination problem. How much can we say that this is the predominant issue here?

- The Issue of Few Female Protagonist Characters

So, we've seen that men are the majority of buyers of high budget games and of every genre, excluding casual games. These are the ones with the disputed leading roles that are under constant scrutiny.

Publishers are aware of that. But maybe they have a wrong impression on the audience....

For example, the studio behind the game Remember Me had a lot ofheadaches to find a publisher that'd accept the project with a female protagonist. They alledgedly didn't want to take the risk, since male leads were synonymous to success. The game flopped sales-wise, but arguably because it didn't receive good reviews (65 for PC on metacritic, 72 - PS3 and 70 - 360) and wasn't marketed well. It remains though, that it faced discrimination on the publishers' part.

Yet, successful games with a female lead as Mirror's Edge (or Portal, or TR) faced little to no refusal of the female lead. Faith (Mirror's Edge female lead character) faced a backlash on Japan, but not for being a woman, but for being a stereotyped asian with whom they couldn't identify with.

This fact, combined with the publishers' attitude with Remember Me, could show that there is a flawed perception on the industry's side on how their audience really behaves, thinks, and what are their actual preferences. In my opinion, it shows that the gaming audience suffers from something like a stereotype as well on their part.

But this is not all. Remember that the bulk of the industry's employee's and people on creative positions in of above 80% male, for reasons already glimpsed at.

The issue of imagination being a creative process largely affected by our own projections and personal ideals is old. In philosophy, for example, it was already discussed in ancient Greece. Xenophanes of Colophon (570-475 BC) said the following about the issue:

But if cattle and horses and lions had hands

or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,

horses like horses and cattle like cattle

also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies

of such a sort as the form they themselves have.

...

Ethiopians say that their gods are snub–nosed [σιμούς] and black

Thracians that they are pale and red-haired.

It is a curious phenomenom that naturally occurs. Remember The Matrix, it was hinted at in the first movie, this is not just a geek reference, since that movie brings some actually good philosophical questions to think about.

This is an explanation, not a justification. Myself, I'd like to see more diverse lead characters on games. This is an attempt on giving a full picture on why this may be happening.

Let me know what you guys think of this.

- Feminism in games, radicalization and censorship -

The valid intention of feminism in games, of diversifying both the audience and the role of leading or important characters has evolved quite a lot.

All the above causes a natural perception of huge injustice in gender equality in the medium. And many people are bound to think according the the false cause fallacy (in the "correlation for causation" manner).

Yet, we are under a grand controversy over the theme these days. Why is that?

Let's analyse a bit of what we're talking about here.

During the Baby Boomer generation, 41% of women declared themselves a feminist. Today, 72% of women says that they are not feminists.

The article linked above deserves to be read.

A negative image has been associated to the movement, and a part of the people interviewed though the word could also mean an insult. 57% of the people changed their opinions after looking at a neutral dictionary definition of feminism. But who is making that negative vision of the movement for them?

Well... I can only focus on gaming. Let me emphasize: this is looking just at what's happening with gaming now.

As we've pointed before, in my opinion, the problem is the radicalization of the movement on the part of a very vocal portion of it, known as the 3rd wave of feminism. This, at least, according to Christina H. Sommers, a scholar who declares herself an equality feminist:

She's the one that came to give a feminist voice amongst the "gamer" side of the current gamergate scandal.

We all know the harassment that is going on from both sides of the issue. Let me say in advance, I'm against both kinds of harassment. Couldn't stress this enough. Yet, the curious thing is that one side is also demeaning basically everyone that trying to voice any kind of opposition to them, even some very civil ones. Thus how the #notyourshield was born.

There are developers who say they are or were afraid of voicing contrary opinions to what's the dominant progressive narrative (I'm not saying that this is the only one existant or possible progressive discourse), because they would suffer repression:

And look at this one also here (very worth a look, though anonymous).

Signs of radicalization comes from many sides.

Well... sorry guys, I'm in a hurry now, can't finish this nor read it again before submiting. Excuse for eventual grammar errors and typos.

I'll end this with a quote I also made on another thread, from Eleanor Roosevelt:

"I have waited a while before saying anything about the Un-American Activities Committee's current investigation of the Hollywood film industry. I would not be very much surprised if some writers or actors or stage hands, or what not, were found to have Communist leanings, but I was surprised to find that, at the start of the inquiry, some of the big producers were so chicken-hearted about speaking up for the freedom of their industry.

One thing is sure—none of the arts flourishes on censorship and repression. And by this time it should be evident that the American public is capable of doing its own censoring."

Let me know what you guys think. I think feminism is needed in society, for equality is still not a reality. Yet, I think that this current trend we're seeing manifest more loudly than the other segments of the movement is not helping... instead, it's hindering the pursuit of that goal.

The only solution is for everyone to sit and talk about the real issues, without resourcing to hyperboles, extrapolations and assumptions. The problem, in regards to gaming, has many causes, and sexism is not the prevalent one. This would be a fallacy of false cause, but a issue to be dealt with still.

The major discriminations that we saw in all that data above comes mostly from publishers and devs, not the audience. Structural and market problems that seem to be slowly improving. Please add with more data you find around and enrich this discussion.

If it makes sense within the context of the story I have zero problems too be honest, Game of thrones has a sh*t tonne of misogyny and sexism but given the context of the world it makes sense. 12 years a slave seriously messed up as far as the treatment of African Americans but it made sense given the slavery context. My problem with the SJW movement it ignores context and when you do that everything is sexist/racist/homophobic etc....so context

After seeing the 70 odd articles in two weeks, I'm pretty sure it's more interested in trying to sell me Destiny.

I was kinda thinking of all those japanese games with girls in skimpy clothing or games in general that sexualize young women. 12 years a slave, game of thrones, and GTA V have a point to the sexism and misogyny. These other games don't.

@GreySeal9:

"anybody who can't see that there is a noticeable misogynistic culture in the gaming community is not paying attention to what is said on forums/comments sections, etc"

Well you can't just sign on, spit whatever condescending insults you want and not expect people to take offense.

this. who gives a shit what someone thinks the "message" the game is sending.

make a fun game or **** off.

Yeah, I can't disagree with you on this considering we're witnessing it happening in this thread(The retarded sexist that is OP). But I do have a question, what do consider to be misogyny? I do agree that saying stuff like "woman can't handle stressful situations while men can" is misogyny as well as degrading women while not degrading men(but this can sometimes depend on the context), do you think that stuff like spraying porn sprays and saying stuff like "i banged ur girlfriend" is misogyny? The gaming community seems more racist than sexist to me from what I've noticed.

I think misogyny is common in other industries, films and even some songs have certainly displayed it; and Anime sure as hell boasts hyper-sexual voluptuous women like its a god damn medal. But Video Games have surely drawn the most attention, I think in part due to our reaction and the fact we keep drawing more and more attention to it on BOTH sides of the argument. I still personally think they have a reason to criticize the Video Games industry for its misogyny, but WE have certainly ramped up the issue much higher than it needed too be.

Yep. I mean, people disagree with issues regarding other art forms, but there's still a back and forth discussion involved. You might disagree with someone's interpretations about a particular painting or movement, but you'd still discuss the issue and then hopefully someone comes to a better understanding of it. So why is it with videogames, so many people want to shut the discussion down because it's "first world problems" or some equally stupid bullshit reason? If you accept that it means enough to be worth defending, then it's also worth criticizing. Even if you disagree with the critics' particular complaints, there shouldn't be this level of animosity for daring to talk negatively about it.

@MrGeezer:

It's not just criticizing. It's gone well beyond that at this point because there honestly are very few blatantly sexist games even getting released these days. I suppose one could say Japanese developers are moving a bit slower to make that change but that is a different culture and they will obviously market their games to their audience rather than just westerners. There is a certain amount of ignorance when it comes to foreign cultures so people criticizing Japanese devs should keep that in mind. Japanese women might feel differently about things for reasons you don't fully understand because you didn't grow up there and you don't know that culture. My wife is Japanese and she just ... flat out doesn't give a shit about the sexualization of anyone. Somehow, its funny and entertaining to her.

In any case i find it hilarious that those criticizing games on the basis of "misogyny" actually claim all the hostility started from the opposite end. I suppose all the wonderful stereotypes to describe male gamers thought themselves up, right? Think for a second about that person, who yes happens to fit all the stereotypes. Why exactly is it somehow moral to insult and shame an overweight, socially awkward, virgin who enjoys video games that cater towards his interests? Chances are, that person is probably like that for a reason and it more than likely stems from childhood and circumstances beyond their control. Society rejected this individual and as a result turned to unpopular nerd-like hobbies. Common sense should dictate this individual is not going to be particularly happy to find out his hobby now has to completely change to accommodate the interests of women who....

1. Have little to no interests in gaming anyway aside from cell phone games, and the few females i do run into on xboxlive or whatever don't care either way.

2. Are irrational and illogical when games depict some of the most heinous crimes known as it is but can somehow cherry pick sexism from every situation as if that is THE most important issue in the known world...

Just when there isn't enough social justice warrior morons already...

Cry me a river

You sound mad.

I haven't seen many BLATANTLY sexist games in the same way that I haven't seen many BLATANTLY racist movies. However, from what I've seen, a lot of the criticism of games isn't even claiming blatant sexism but is instead pointing out the existence of sexist themes and attitudes. If people can criticize the existence of racist themes in movies (for example, the "magical negro" trope or the fact that a black male protagonist is rarely allowed to hook up with a white female protagonist) without sending death threats or harassing the critic's family, then what the hell is wrong with the video game community?

This doesn't seem happen (to this extent, anyway) in any other medium. Whether the person criticizing games or the game industry is right or not, why does it seem like any time someone makes a high-profile criticism of games that the response from a big section of the gaming community ends up being downright ugly? And for the record, if someone levels accusations of sexism at the games industry, then it actually strengthens their argument when the gaming community rises up to call that person a "bitch", a "c-word", and to then send death threats. If anything, that kind of behavior makes it look like, "yeah, looks like the gaming industry really DOES have a problem with sexism and misogyny."

Also, if you haven't noticed, gaming is no longer a thing that's exclusively for nerdy boys. Video games are mainstream as shit, and it's a bit too late for the attitude of "games belong to us, girls need to stay out." The people who treat it that way are being socially awkward of their own doing, and there's not a damn thing wrong with people calling them out on their bullshit.

@MrGeezer:

I'm not really going to address harassment, i'm more addressing the attitude of gamers in general. If that is the main point you're trying to drive home then yes, i'll agree that people shouldn't be harassed for criticizing anything.

"And for the record, if someone levels accusations of sexism at the games industry, then it actually strengthens their argument when the gaming community rises up to call that person a "bitch", a "c-word", and to then send death threats."

Death threats aside, if someone accuses you of anything, how do you respond? Are you going to tell me you'll be particularly interested in responding in a respectful and polite manner? This depends entirely on how these accusations were conveyed. First it was just criticisms which has now changed to accusations.

"Video games are mainstream as shit, and it's a bit too late for the attitude of "games belong to us, girls need to stay out."

No, certain aspects of gaming are mainstream as shit. Such as mobile / facebook games, the Wii and to a lesser extent DDR / Guitar Hero. Those three have become mainstream to all genders. Military shooters have successfully nailed just about every young adult male that probably wouldn't normally play a video game. I'd say its accomplished what the EA sports / 2K series couldn't quite do but came close. The point is, you can take the spending habits of women and still pretty clearly separate them from males based on what games they actually buy and play. I don't even see a lot of sexist themes at all on the most recent western games. Everything has a character customization now. So essentially we have someone criticizing something that they wouldn't buy in the first place and doesn't exist.

I'm not sure comparing racism with sexism is the best idea. Racism is far and away more serious. A lot of sexist issues comes from traditional values which by itself isn't bad. Racism is just hate / intolerance. Video games don't really compare well with movies either. People don't go home and spend hours upon hours on a regular basis watching a movie. If you really stop and think about it, it should become obvious why gamers are so offended. Calling a game misogynistic sweeps everyone who played and enjoyed said game into that category.

Well, generally speaking, I act like an adult. If gamers want to be treated like anything other than bitter spoiled manchildren, then no: calling someone a "c***" isn't a mature response. If gamers feel like they're being attacked, then it's their responsibility to handle it in a mature manner if they want to be taken seriously.

This includes excusing the actions of the people who do that. I trust that you're mature enough to handle that without the personal attacks and the harassment, so why would you go around making excuses for the people who actually do that? Disagree with the criticism of gaming all you want, but those gamers are making the entire gaming COMMUNITY look bad and I'm not gonna make excuses for that.

Not sure how factually true that is regarding the specific types of games that women tend to play, but I'll take your word for it. Regardless, something like a military shooter is not a male product, it is a military shooter. You can spend all day saying that it's okay for them to be sexist because women don't buy them, at which point a woman can come right out and say that she would buy them if she wasn't turned off by the sexism. Furthermore, you're just being willfully ignorant if you think that "sexist themes" amounts to nothing more than the girl gamers not being able to play as a woman. Games are increasingly trying to be a story-telling medium on par with films, and sexist themes often come from the story itself.

Oh, so sexism is okay. You should have just led off with that. And btw, if spending hours upon hours playing a game causes you to be okay with sexism or to act like a caveman the second that a woman says anything bad about your games, then brother...that ain't helping your argument.

I'd never thought of it that way, but you guys are right.

If someone called a Transformers movie sexist, people tend to just shrug and agree. "You're right, it's a dumb action movie aimed at adolescent guys, what did you expect?".

But if someone calls Grand Theft Auto 5 sexist, people lose their shit. "How dare these social justice 'jounalists' push their trans agenda on my holy grail of gaming!" "They should lose their f---ing jobs!" "Keep that crap out of my gaming reviews"

That isn't to say that I haven't made comments against deliberately incensory reviews (like Gamespot's Dead Rising 3 review), but...jesus, some of us act like animals when people are remotely critical of our precious hobby. System Wars is founded on this concept.

Their defensiveness gets worse by a large magnitude when sexual politics get involved. I can't explain why - is it from ignorance? Sexual insecurity? The simple fact that many gaming forumites are teenage guys with a very limited perspective on the world? What is it about gamers in particular that causes some of us abjectly refuse to even have a reasonable discussion about themes and representations in our games?

And to those who say "who cares, I just enjoy games"...well, lots of people care about this issue. Hell, you could say that the entire issue is all about changing gaming culture to be more accepting of other people who want to enjoy games. So telling people to stop talking about the issue is highly counter-productive to everyone involved.

What games are you all playing that has embodied this gaming culture that isn't accepting of other people who want to enjoy games? Like mmorpgs allow you to delve into whatever you really want, roleplay wise on character creation, and go with it. Typically western mmorpgs have also pushed past the higher level the female the less armor she wears for years now.

Gaming culture... is just human nature. Have fun changing that coming at it from the gaming venue.

@Planeforger: Yeah, I agree. I invite you to read my post #26 on this, in this thread. I think it's something like what you mentioned about "The Transformers" criticising and the way we can agree while putting into context the actual causes of the issue, and giving it the seriousness it does have, not more, nor less.

The problem is this whole social justice movement in gaming has really been nothing more than insulting the entire community claiming gamers are all misogynist. I have yet to read any article on the issues of sexism in gaming that had anything CONSTRUCTIVE to say. It seems to always boil down to "gamers suck" and nothing of any substance.

Of course that breeds backlash which in time brought out the absolute worst pieces of shit on both sides. We got the death threats and such from the gaming side and then on the flip-side you have the feminists who don't really care about gaming at all and really just want to complain. You can't talk to them because the second you try and question what they say they go into "finger in the ears repeating la-la-la" mode.

Really the issue might be better resolved if some positive leaders step up on both sides. Quite frankly the gaming community isn't going to listen to the likes of Anita Sarkessian or Zoe Quinn (for good reason IMO) and journalists just screaming at and insulting the very base they are founded on aren't doing any good either. People need to come forward with actual ideas for a dialog to take place. Until this incessant shit talking of the gaming community stops nothing is going to improve. You don't get someone to hear you out by insulting them and talking down to them.

If only people invested this much time in going out an actually socializing with a wall. Or a person. At least a wall won't fight back.

Websites are solely after hits. They want as many hits as they can get. If you believe a site has a hidden agenda then don't go to that website anymore. Thats the best way to hurt them and have them change. My biggest issue is articles being reposted from one site to another. Gamespot and ign are exactly the same, with the exact same articles posted daily. It's making it pointless going to both sites since the unique articles are almost non existent. Two reviews at Gamespot that had a obvious agenda with their articles are no longer working here anymore, which makes me happy. So that gives GS +1 up on IGN .

@Planeforger:

"If someone called a Transformers movie sexist, people tend to just shrug and agree. "You're right, it's a dumb action movie aimed at adolescent guys, what did you expect?".

But if someone calls Grand Theft Auto 5 sexist, people lose their shit. "How dare these social justice 'jounalists' push their trans agenda on my holy grail of gaming!" "They should lose their f---ing jobs!" "Keep that crap out of my gaming reviews"

I thought i already explained this but there is quite a sizable difference between someone slamming a movie you liked compared to a game you spend a considerable amount of time playing. Its particularly bad when coming from a feminist whom spends a good amount of her time insulting / shaming men to begin with, so she's obviously good at doing it and won't particularly care how the message is received seeing as she knows damn well the vast majority of players are male.

What gets me is people act like they have no clue about any of this but things really do work like that in real life. I had a friend not long ago whom apparently enjoyed golf quite a bit and i wasn't aware of that. I despise golf, so when asked my opinion about it in front of her, i didn't think twice about voicing my opinion. I honestly didn't say anything that should entice anger or directly insulting to any golfer as there were other guys around that i knew enjoyed golf. It didn't matter to her however, as far as she was concerned i should have kept my negative opinions about golf to myself. I wont say she up and completely broke all contact with me after that but it was clear things just weren't the same. News flash, people get pissed when you talk shit about their hobby. It's common sense.

Another problem with this.... developers are actually listening to this and all but completely cutting out anything that can be considered remotely sexist, or hell even traditional. I'm not sure if developers think females are going to come out of the wood work and purchase their games because of it or if they just think they automatically own the male audience as it is without needing to care about their interests.

Are the "sexist Transformer movies" ever going to stop? No, obviously not otherwise it would have happened a long time ago. There are plenty of sexist films and non sexist films. Are the "sexist" games going to stop? Looks like it, yes. If the trend continues as it is and even then someone can still dig up something to complain about. Actually, for all the complaints from women about sexism there is really just about as much sexism in life and society against men as well, the difference is no one gives a shit about men but i wont get into all of that here.

Threads like this always make me wonder, why is it that the sjws only ever use forums and journalism to debate this? What is it that forces them to ever only bitch and moan and keeps them from actually stepping into the gaming industry and making their own game?

Are you for real? Look at when Roger Ebert came out multiple times to say video games aren't art, you had legions of neck beards attacking him for his opinion. I didn't even say anything about "sjw insanity and backlash", I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of gamers wanting to legitimize their precious medium in the eyes of others but at the same time not willing to go with the discussion that comes with it. You can't have it both ways was my point. It really wasn't that difficult to understand, plenty of other posters in this thread get what I meant by that.