Native Jovian

Here's a pretty good article on the subject. tldr version: "Nintendo goes bankrupt" is not a reasonable possibility in the foreseeable future, but they need to think long and hard about their strategy moving forward, or else this might become the beginning of a downward spiral. Personally, I think the thing Nintendo suffers most from is their shitty online features. Nintendo consoles don't need to compete with Microsoft and Sony consoles in terms of raw processing power, but the fact that they don't have something like Xbox Live or Playstation Network is criminally short-sighted of them. They need their own comparable online solution -- and if they manage to do it better than Microsoft or Sony (doing things like making it cross-platform so you can use the same account with the same data and the same functionality on your Wii U and your 3DS, for example) then that would be huge -- especially if they made it free, unlike both Xbox's and Playstation's online service at this point. The best part is that that's something they can do with firmware updates, so they don't even have to wait until the next console generation to make it happen.

I'm pretty sure people have been saying this about every Nintendo console since the SNES. Except maybe the Wii, which was such an unexpected runaway success that it surprised everyone, Nintendo included.

Apparently there's a lot more lurkers on these forums than I realized. I've gotten a bunch of trade offers from people with names I don't recognize asking for three and four games apiece. Come on, people. Don't be greedy, leave some for everyone else.

Oh, a giveaway thread? I've got gift copies of a bunch of old Valve games (Half Life 1: Source, Half Life 2, HL2 Deathmatch, HL2 Episode 1 and Episode 2, Counterstrike: Source, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Portal 2) that aren't doing much but cluttering up my inventory. If anyone wants 'em, they're yours for the taking. You can go ahead and grab them if you're interested. (Please don't spam my account with offers for other shit, though.)

You aren't even allowed to publically admit that you're in the beta, bro.

I am, unsurprisingly, http://backloggery.com/nativejovian I'm absolutely terrible about buying far more games than I play. One of my goals this year is to actually beat more games than I buy.

That's awesome! Congrats and well-wishes, DJP.

Fair warning, neither of those really fit the "standard" Final Fantasy experience in terms of hitting all the classic Final Fantasy tropes -- the setting, the classes, etc. They're both still good games (though I personally didn't much care for FFVI, a lot of people say it's their favorite in the franchise). I'd recommend FFIV and FFIX over VI or VII for your first foray into the franchise -- both of them have a much more typical fantasy setting, feature characters that embody the iconic character classes (white mage/black mage, dragoon, ninja, summoner, etc) rather than VI and VII's more free-form characters, etc. Their "this is a Final Fantasy game" vibe is just stronger than VI or VII's. You won't go wrong with VI or VII (though keep in mind what people have said about VII's graphics showing their age), but IV or IX will probably serve you better if you want to "get" Final Fantasy as a whole, rather than just "play a Final Fantasy game".

I think you could make a decent argument that when the sole point of including a gay or trans character design in a game is to laugh at them -- in a "haha, look at that weirdo" sort of way -- it's not a good thing. Maybe using "phobic" language is a bit too strong, but it's certainly not a positive portrayal.

Yeah, pretty much. I think she'd do much better with a more balanced approach -- "they did well with this, but this needs work" instead of "this, therefore sexism". She'd get much less of a defensive knee-jerk reaction if her demeanor was less aggressive and more thoughtful. This is a good way to phrase a concept that I've been struggling to put into words over the course of the thread. Having a manly-man character or a girly-girl character isn't in and of itself bad, it's the idea that all male characters need to be manly men and all female characters need to be girly-girls that's harmful. I'm not sure that Sarkeesian would agree, though -- and I mean that literally; I'm unclear what her stance would be on the issue. She seems to take issue with any depiction that reinforces traditional gender roles, but that may just be an effect of her accentuate-the-negative style. I'm actually going to defend Sarkeesian, here. What she says (starting at around 12:10) is that the result is typically a homophobic or transphobic joke, not that the character design is in and of itself homophobic, which seems to mesh with your "with a giggle, but without malice" take on things.

The problem is that this doesn't actually seem to be the case. The same old arguably-sexist (depending on what examples you're looking at and what you consider sexist) formula continues to sell. If it didn't, then the market would correct for it fairly quickly -- if people didn't buy sexist media, then no one would make it. (No one trying to make money, anyway.) The problem, then, is to discourage people from buying sexist media. Unfortunately, this is difficult, because most people buy games to enjoy playing them, not for their value in combating gender stereotypes. So what we need to do is to make good games that also avoid falling into sexist tropes -- if such games overwhelm other good games on the market, then "playing it safe" by utilizing the sexist tropes that have become the norm is no longer attractive for risk-averse companies, because sexist tropes are no longer the norm. So in that sense, I can certainly see the value of calling attention sexism where it's present and calling it out as a definite negative. The problem with Sarkeesian's approach is that she has impossibly broad definitions of what constitutes sexism -- ie, everything that isn't explicitly and aggressively combating sexist attitudes. I appreciate the "if you're not part of the solution then you're part of the problem" mindset when it comes to cultural change (you need to have people actively opposing societal norms if you're ever going to affect any real change), but applying that attitude to major made-for-profit media is short-sighted; you're not going to change anyone's mind by attacking games they love, like Mario and Zelda or Mass Effect. You're especially not going to change anyone's mind by attacking games that get it 99% right, like Mass Effect or Beyond Good & Evil, by focusing entirely on the 1% where they stumbled. If even legitimately good examples of "how not to be sexist" are held up as failures for not being perfect, without regard to how close they get to it (and the fact that they're a damn sight better than most games on the market), then you're sort of shooting yourself in the foot. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and all that. Basically, what I think would be more helpful is a more balanced approach. Instead of pointing out every tiny flaw you can think of and demonizing the game for it, make a little effort to show both the good and the bad, praising what deserves praise and condemning what deserves condemnation. That way she avoids coming off as a hypermilitant radical feminist who will jump down your throat for anything and everything she disapproves of in any way, shape, or form, and instead appears like a reasonable, rational person who simply wants to call attention to an important social issue.

Yeah, part of the problem is that she's done a poor job of explaining what constitutes problematic depictions of women vs acceptable depictions of women, in her mind. By focusing on the bad examples, rather than the good (and to her credit, she does list a fair number of games as good examples toward the end of her most recent, but she spends virtually no time on them beyond naming them), she says "DON'T DO THIS" without offering a "DO THIS INSTEAD!" as a counterpoint. If I knew why she considered her good examples acceptable, then that would be extremely helpful as an expansion on why she considers her bad examples unacceptable. As it is, I'm left with the sneaking suspicion that her good examples are ones that actively address and subvert gender stereotypes (such as when she mentioned the game that dressed the girl and blue and the boy in pink) -- which is fine, but as I mentioned above, I don't think every game needs to be exploring gender roles and stereotypes in order to avoid being labelled sexist.

So, the first five minutes are spent on defining the term. A Ms. Male Character is a female version of an already established male character, usually created by adding stereotypical feminine attributes like hair accessories, makeup, etc. The next four minutes focus on these features, and talks about accessories (especially hair bows), color scheme being pink, purple, or pastel, makeup (especially lipstick), and heart motifs as common feminine signifiers. She also briefly mentions breasts/cleavage as a feminine signifier, which seems sort of "duh" to me. Unless your female character is preadolescent, then "having breasts" seems less like a stereotype and more like a physical reality. At around the nine minute mark she basically says "not that there's anything wrong with that" but then goes on to say that using these feminizing signifiers to distinguish male vs female character design has the consequence of reinforcing "a strict binary form of gender expression". She defines the gender binary as "an entirely artificial and socially constructed division of male and female into two distinctly separate and opposing classes of human being" that also "erases the continuum of gender presences and identities that fall outside the rigid masculine/feminine false dichotomy", and points out that in such a system, women are "marked" while men remain largely "unmarked". Hoo boy. Zircon pointed out the issues with gender-as-entirely-socially-constructed already, but the idea of men being the "default" isn't necessarily true either. If women are associated with pink and purple, men are associated with blue and red; if women are associated with breasts and wide hips, then men are associated with large biceps and square jawlines; if women are associated with hair bows, then men are associated with neckties. If you take the most basic character designs with no features of any kind (eg, a stick figure) then the default assumption may be that it's male, but that doesn't make it the case that no male "markers" exist. Then she segues into what she calls "personality female syndrome", where a female character's personality is based entirely on shallow female stereotypes -- being bratty, spoiled, vain, and quick to anger. She uses Wendy Koopa as an example. I would say, though, that these aren't so much female stereotypes as they are petty villain stereotypes -- the first thing that came to mind for me was that Montana Max, from Tiny Toons back in the day, is a virtually identical character (bratty, spoiled, vain, and quick to anger) despite being male. Then she goes back to revisit the "marker" discussion to say that some things she's identified as female markers, like pink and purple color schemes, can also be applied to male characters (like Kirby or Bomberman) but essentially dismisses them because "they are the exception to the rule and are typically only found in colorful, childlike, and extremely male dominated worlds", which strikes me as saying "I'm acknowledging them so people can't accuse me of dismissing them, but then dismissing them because they don't support my point". She also briefly acknowledges male markers like neckties and baseball caps, but again only to dismiss them as not being as widely used in general, and not being used to differentiate individual, specific men in otherwise entirely-female worlds. This leads into the "smurfette principle", where a cast of various males will have one (and only one) female member, the implication being that "the girl" is sufficient characterization for a cast of individuals (ie, you can have a cast that sums up to "the smart one, the brave one, the strong one, and the girl" or somesuch). I actually agree that this is a negative and largely due to lazy writing, though "fixing" it is a nebulous concept -- I still dislike the idea of some sort of arbitrary cutoff point for "this is now sexist". One of the examples she uses is Wonder Pink, the only girl of seven Wonder characters in The Wonderful 101. One girl of seven seems bad, but would two of seven be acceptable? How about two of five? One of four? Do girls always and forever have to be half or more of any given group for it to not be sexist? She never addresses any of this. The conversation then goes back to the Ms. Male Character concept in general, and she asserts that being a Ms. Male Character is inherently limiting to those characters, being defined by their relationship to a male. She uses Dixie Kong, as contrasted by Diddy Kong, as an example, talking about her character concept ("Diddy Kong's girlfriend") and her character design (ponytail, earrings, pink color scheme) -- which I personally find amusing, given that Diddy is essentially "Donkey Kong's little buddy" (does that make him inherently limited and subordinate as a character, given that he's defined by his relationship to another character?) and has a character design full of male markers (baseball cap, red color scheme). The phenomenon she's describing (let's call it "derivativeness") is certainly real, but I'm not convinced that it's unique to, or especially bad for, female characters. Luigi is "Mario's brother" and Wario is "evil Mario" just as Peach is "Mario's love interest", but I don't think you could say Peach suffers worse for it than Luigi or Wario. Then she talks about Adam and Eve, which I thought this series was supposed to be about video games but whatever. At 17:20 she finally gets to the meat of her argument for this video: males are the default, so women are viewed as secondary, an adjunct to males, rather than something worthy and worthwhile in and of themselves. I agree that males may be seen as a default, but I'm not sure that I buy the rest of it, especially as she doesn't offer any argument for, or evidence of, it being the case -- she simply asserts it and moves on. Finally, she moves on to pointing out that games with the option of playing male or female characters, such as Mass Effect, typically use the male version in marketing, thus making them the "default". I would argue that this isn't necessarily the case (a quick Google image search for Harvest Moon box art, for example, shows the female version of the player character displayed prominently alongside the male version in virtually every game where such a choice is offered), but other than Zircon's point about "they just sort of need to pick a version and go with it" regarding marketing, I'd also mention that this goes back to "what's wrong with having a male protagonist?" discussion we've had earlier in the thread -- by saying that a male Shepard is the default is somehow a failing of the Mass Effect franchise, she's implying that having a male main character is a negative, or at least inferior to having a female main character, which is still something that bothers me. Honestly, her criticism of things like Mass Effect -- which freely allows the player to choose Shepard's gender and plays out identically in either case (with the exception of some romance options, which is reasonable) and offers no mechanical advantages to either gender (eg, male Shepard doesn't make a better soldier, female Shepard doesn't make a better biotic, etc) -- make me wonder if anything short of actively seeking out and subverting gender stereotypes would satisfy her. While I certainly don't have a problem with games (or any media) that choose to do that, I certainly don't think it should be a requirement -- and she seems willing to call out anything that doesn't go to that length as "part of the problem", at the very least. And the last three minutes are the by-now standard "nothing I just said necessarily applies in the individual case, but it's all totally true in aggregate" which annoys me as much as ever. Sorry for the long, rambling stream-of-consciousness style post, but I was actually writing it as I watched the video (and then going back and editing as she raised points or used examples that answered or exacerbated objections I'd already raised). In the spirit of ending with what we agreed with from her video, I'll reiterate that I do think that maleness can be considered a "default" if given a character with no gender markers whatsoever (though tempered by the fact that that may simply be because I'm male myself and tend to assume things are like myself unless otherwise noted -- I wonder if any studies have been done on that sort of thing), and that the use of "is female" as a personality trait is incredibly lazy writing, especially when combined with the smurfette principle to end up with exactly one female in the cast, whose only defining trait is the fact that she's female, and that it should be called out as such when it occurs. (Incidentally, I also clicked on her " " video because it showed up in the related videos list and it's only two minutes long. It's two minutes of her declaring what is and is not female empowerment without either explaining or justifying her arguments in any way other than stating them and then insulting everyone who disagrees. Apparently having making the women "sword-wielding and ass-kicking" doesn't count if the women in question are also sexy, because then that makes it "pornographic, adolescent-boy fantasies" instead. She actually describes it as "sexy chicks doing dude stuff", which, ironically, sounds like a ridiculously sexist way to look at things!)

Yoshi's Island. That game was fucking incredible in basically every way imaginable. I remember being ridiculously bummed that Yoshi's Story wasn't nearly as good.

Will do! Fair warning, though, I didn't get very far before I dropped my sub. The only class I have levels in is Lancer, and I'm only like level 21ish even in that.

I'm on Cactuar as well, though I let me subscription lapse because I've been doing a shitton of traveling for work lately and haven't been home to play. I'll probably re-up in about a week when I get home. (I'm Juren Jovian, if anyone on Cactuar wants to add me.)

Touche. I find that the best Evangelion-watching experience comes from fast forwarding whenever anything other than giant robots fighting things is on the screen. Then again, I find that's the best way to experience a lot of things.

Why would you watch Evangelion at all?

It's Japan. They like their women cute and their men pretty. It was ever thus.

Because it's fun? You might as well ask why people spend so much time watching sports, or playing music, or reading books. It's a hobby. You do it because you like it. It doesn't have to somehow make you a better, more well-rounded individual in order to justify the time you spend on it. As long as you're not spending so much time on it that other areas of your life suffer (obviously, if you're playing video games instead of, say, going to work, then that's a problem), then there's no harm in it.

I was particularly entertained by the Wilhelm scream at around the 1:20 mark. In other news, I've been watching Gundam Build Fighters recently. It's the newest entry in the Gundam franchise, but rather than the typical dramatic war story, it's about... people using plastic Gundam models ("Gunpla") to have virtual reality mecha battles in modern Japan. If you're a fan of the franchise, then it's got tons of references, in-jokes, and homages that you'll love. If you're not, then it's still a fun, lighthearted series in the "I'm going to be the greatest at [activity the series revolves around] ever!" genre, where the activity in question is building and battling Gunpla. You can watch it subbed for free (and legally, even!) on if you're interested. Definitely worth a shot, even if you're not a Gundam fan.

The first thing I thought of was "WHY ARE YOU SO PROUD OF A QUADRUPLE WEAKNESS TO ELECTRICITY?"... except gyarados is a fucking sea monster dragon, so screw that, it's totally awesome.

Looks like I'm gonna miss out on this year's event. Repeated server updates during prime time meant that I haven't been able to play (well, I mean, I guess I theoretically could've played on a non-OCR server.... but why?), and now I'm heading out for a two-week business trip about a week earlier than expected. Saddest face.

Ooof, that sucks. Well, I'm glad I got to go once, at least. Just tossed them $10 for $3 of fire sale merch, and I wish them all the best for anything they end up doing in the future! Looks like I'll have to think about travelling to Magfest for my live VGM fix in the foreseeable future... Rama, make sure you let us know if you hear about Hex setting something else up after all of this is sorted out!

So, I used the "trade offer" thing from the official TF2 trading subforum to get the last card I needed to finally craft a TF2 badge. Like 30 seconds later, I got a booster pack with three more TF2 cards. My understanding is that they give out booster packs based on how many people are crafting badges for that particular game. So apparently, crafting a badge was enough to give myself a booster pack. Guess I'm just that awesome.