Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

[Brushfire]

Mcrib...

[zircon]

Angelcityoutlaw: You have no idea how nonprofits work.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Angelcityoutlaw: You have no idea how nonprofits work.

 

The debate here is about whether or not these people and their companies have made huge money (whether it's being pocketed or not is irrelevant) as a result of publicizing their harassment. Just because they have a surplus being re-invested into their cause doesn't mean they haven't or don't have the means to make substantial "profit" themselves as Cash seems to believe.

 

It's clear that they have.

[Cash]

Literally all of the information in that video is simply discussing objective facts - things that have actually happened. You have all the access to the same info he does and that info is coming right from Feminist Frequency and Zoe Quinn.

 

In the actual feminist frequency 2014 report, they refer to the money received via donation as "revenue" which literally means income as a business and here is a quote right above those charts

 

"We only made necessary purchases for production/research needs and we were paid bare minimum salaries, volunteering much of our time to the organization." 

 

"We were paid bare minimum salaries" 

 

"Paid bare minimum salaries"

 

"Paid...Salaries" 

 

Whatever "minimum" is, is not defined and nor is said what "administrative" costs entail, but Anita openly is admitting here that she and maybe some of her underlings do pay their bills with this. There is also nothing stopping her from giving everyone a pay raise - you giving her your money at this point gives her every right to use it as she sees fit. Her company made over 400,000 last year and only had 64,000 in expenditures.  

 

If a company pulling in nearly half a million in a year with expenses less than 100,000 and paying some "staff" with it doesn't count as "profit" to you, then you are simply delusional. OCR provides transparency in exactly how the money is used and I'm pretty sure aren't worth over half a million. They also aren't saying "Yeah, we pay Larry a "bare minimum salary" which even if they did, we'd all know it was in McRibs.

 

Zoe Quinn has also made a shitload via the gamergate thing as also evidence in that video so she's in the same boat as Anita.

 

The facts aren't my issue with the video, it's the conclusions that were drawn. The shit about being a "professional victim" in order to make money is the disgusting part. 

 

Non-profits don't exist for the purpose of profit. That's what makes a company a non-profit, any excess revenue has to be put back into the company to support its projects or to save for future expenses. Technically speaking, yes, extra revenue is profit, but not in the same way as a for-profit company. The are some restrictions on how a non-profit can use that extra revenue/profit. One of those restrictions is not being allowed to give that extra money to company owners. Anita is not lining her pockets with money. That 2014 reports supports this. And as you quoted, they paid bare minimum salaries, so I don't think Anita is getting rich off this.

 

If you look at the proposed budget for 2015, it aligns with the revenue made in 2014. As you can see, they plan on using the money that they made to continue the company's work. That extra revenue came in the last quarter of 2014, the first three quarters made less money than the total expeditures. Meaning that the company, up until October, was spending about the same amount as it was taking in. It also wasn't "nearly half a million", the company took in less then 380k when you factor in the expenses. That, by the way, is 20k less than 2015's proposed budget of 400k.

 

In the next paragraph down from the one you quoted: "This unexpected increase in revenue will allow us to dedicate these new resources in 2015 to expanding Feminist Frequency’s writing and support staff as well as our programming." This extra revenue was unexpected, there wasn't some sinister plot behind the scenes. That increase in donations coincides with the extensive harrassment she was recieving. Like I said in my last post, the harrassment caused the extra attention and outpouring of support in the form of donations. It was not due to her being a "professional victim", which is such a disgusting term.

 

No, I don't consider paying staff to be profit, because it's not. Profit is by definition revenue after expenses, salaries are an expense.  You and others in this thread are acting like for-profit and non-profit companies are the same thing, they're not. You're trying to find dirt and controversy where there is none. This whole argument that you and others in the thread are making is just grasping at straws. Just more of the same gamergate shit, side stepping the arguments made by these women, and attacking her as a person. Trying and failing to discredit her, and in the end giving here more supporters.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Let me break this down:

 

 - You say/said they aren't doing this to make money. Maybe...maybe not.

 

 - Anita explained how she used to deal with trolls, which I think we can agree was the sensible thing to do.

 

- Literally the moment after these people publish how they are being treated, a massive increase in donations via kick starter or Patreon occured.

 

- She now shares how she's being victimized all the time.

 

- Anita and Zoe Quinn are making a living via Feminist Frequency and Gamergate. Even if not directly via their funding, this is what Anita does every day now as far as I'm aware and Meteo just shared how Quinn's got that movie deal or whatever.

 

Look, I don't actually care where the money is going because I didn't donate any. What I'm saying is that being a victim can be a successful business model and bring in huge dough whether it's for non-profit or not. Do you really believe that if Anita had kept dealing with trolls the way she used to that she would've got as much money as she has? I doubt it.

[Liontamer]

Angelcityoutlaw: You have no idea how nonprofits work.

As someone who works at a non-profit, I will co-sign to this. Loads of people make salaries/livings working at non-profits, and if people are being paid more than subsistence-level salaries at Feminist Frequency, that in and of itself shouldn't bother anyone.

Since I'm being invoked, I'll also add there are better, less stressful ways to gain notoriety. And even if you granted that all of the women being attacked are even somewhat exaggerating, the genuine threats they receive easily represents the worst of the gaming community. At the end of the day, they're mainly being attacked for wanting more equitable representation of women in the games industry and more well-rounded storytelling for female characters in games, neither of which deserve criticism.

On the flipside, it's sadder that a horrible person like Milo Yiannopoulos had his profile raised by Gamergate. I'd rather see people complain about how it's put money into his pocket.

 

Let me break this down:

 

 - You say/said they aren't doing this to make money. Maybe...maybe not.

 

 - Anita explained how she used to deal with trolls, which I think we can agree was the sensible thing to do.

 

- Literally the moment after these people publish how they are being treated, a massive increase in donations via kick starter or Patreon occured.

 

- She now shares how she's being victimized all the time.

 

- Anita and Zoe Quinn are making a living via Feminist Frequency and Gamergate. Even if not directly via their funding, this is what Anita does every day now as far as I'm aware and Meteo just shared how Quinn's got that movie deal or whatever.

 

Look, I don't actually care where the money is going because I didn't donate any. What I'm saying is that being a victim can be a successful business model and bring in huge dough whether it's for non-profit or not. Do you really believe that if Anita had kept dealing with trolls the way she used to that she would've got as much money as she has? I doubt it.

That would be like criticizing Planned Parenthood for mentioning they're under attack. It's actually pretty important they mention that. Their problems aren't over.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Since I'm being invoked, I'll also add there are better, less stressful ways to gain notoriety.

 

If you've got a better to way raise 100k and notoriety in less than a month that is somehow simpler than sharing how people are total assholes to you on the internet, then I'm all ears.

 

 

 

the genuine threats they receive easily represents the worst of the gaming community

 

Pretty much

 

 

 

That would be like criticizing Planned Parenthood for mentioning they're under attack. It's actually pretty important they mention that. Their problems aren't over.   

 

I think the difference is that Planned Parenthood raised lots of money beforehand.

[zircon]

People online get harassed every day. They don't all magically get a following and lots of money. Anita & Zoe have created (and continue to create) media that lots of people find valuable and important. Whether you agree with that content or not is beside the point. They were creators before they came into the spotlight for harassment and they continue to create after.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

People online get harassed every day. They don't all magically get a following and lots of money. Anita & Zoe have created (and continue to create) media that lots of people find valuable and important. Whether you agree with that content or not is beside the point. They were creators before they came into the spotlight for harassment and they continue to create after.

 

¯\(°_o)/¯

[djpretzel]

I had a longer response but I'm gonna try again...

 

At the end of the day, they're mainly being attacked for wanting more equitable representation of women in the games industry and more well-rounded storytelling for female characters in games, neither of which deserve criticism.

 

I don't believe this is an accurate description of Anita's views; her videos actually focus less on storytelling and more on presentation, and she's very plainly demonizing some things being unacceptable to her, instead of criticizing the lack of variety (i.e. well-roundedness). I honestly & truthfully believe that had her videos advocated for "more well-rounded storytelling for female characters in games," that she would not have received 1/100th the hatred and attacks. There would still have been some, mind you, but we know from experience that even posting free VGM arrangements will piss SOME people off, and there's an undeniable vein of misogyny both online (in general) and in the gaming community specifically. Nevertheless, I feel that it was quite specifically the demonizing, negative tone, questionable knowledge of her subject matter, inconsistencies, sex-negative attitude towards objectification, and re-hash of failed second-wave feminist arguments that fueled the flames.

 

A thoughtful analysis on the lack of variety, a critical exploration of the potential impacts (not certitudes, as she expresses them) of certain behaviors/depictions, and a thesis that truly emphasized improvement of the medium... coupled with a stronger grasp of her subject matter... very difficult to see how that would have had the same effect.

 

Her views, as she has expressed them, very plainly deserve a great deal of criticism.

 

People online get harassed every day. They don't all magically get a following and lots of money. Anita & Zoe have created (and continue to create) media that lots of people find valuable and important. Whether you agree with that content or not is beside the point. They were creators before they came into the spotlight for harassment and they continue to create after.

 

Well, there's some seemingly-deserved criticism about lack of creation & following through on the KS on Anita's part, is there not? Especially given the degree to which it was over-funded? Surely this specific criticism can be acknowledged objectively & independent of anything else...

 

As for magically getting a following based on harassment... no, it helps when you are:

1. A member of a group that is oppressed/marginalized in some fashion
2. Doing work that arguably involves exposing/fighting this oppression/marginalization
3. Are able to successfully publicize this harassment in a context relevant to your work

That's NOT a list of criticisms/faults, but it explains why not everyone being harassed is getting a following, even if they are creators. If the work they are doing is perceived as somehow relevant to combating the harassment they are experiencing, publicizing attacks can dovetail very nicely into efficient fundraising. It's hard to fault anyone too much for this, as it appears to simply be the new reality - hatred can be monetized, for better or worse. My objection is that this might tend to create situations that make it very tempting to characterize ANY criticism of you or your work as being an attack, or representative of those who have attacked you, to discredit the criticism outright AND to provide further evidence of the challenges you face... which require continued donations.

 

It's not a great situation for meaningful discourse when you continually give your worst, most ridiculous opponents a megaphone so as to make your OWN case, then lump ANY criticism from other outlets into that same group...

 

It isn't admirable.

[lazygecko]

I certainly have my qualms about aspects of the arguments, although as a whole I still agree with her points, however the well has been so thoroughly poisoned I thought her right to express herself became a way more pressing concern rather than any attempt at sincere critique and constructive discussion which would inevitably get lost in the noise of pure vitriol, since people get so overly emotional about it (which is like, highly ironic considering the topic at hand). The people harrassing her don't want any real discussion, they just want her out of the picture. And I think this is also a symptom of something larger going on with the modern internet landscape which is why I'm trying to piece together all these isolated incidents into a wider perspective.

 

There's a lot of talk about the problem with "safe spaces" today and not having to be exposed to opinions that might make you uncomfortable. People usually equate this with US colleges/universities and as something leftist, but I see this kind of behavior manifesting across all sorts of internet communities for any kind of topic, and the phenomenom seems ideologically fairly agnostic. Perhaps the rapid proliferation of the internet and the possibility to pick and choose information more at our own leisure is conditioning society further into this kind of mindset, and the rise of "echo chambers". So to put this in the context of gamergate, I feel as though this is the millennial gaming and geek culture freaking out over the inevitable growth of the industry into a true mainstream force of pop culture attracting new demographics, and view this as some sort of intrusion on "their" safe space (that being video games, but also stuff like comic books, and to an extent, even the internet itself). And of course it was theirs to begin with, because the almighty gods of marketing in the 90's proclaimed it to be so.

[Brandon Strader]

Holy shit there's still people who believe this wasn't all for profit and that there were victims. And people straight-face lying then right after saying "stop spouting crap".

Is this real life?

I guess we'll find out in the new Hollywood movie starring Scarlet Johansen.

Just to add a non-profit is usually a charitable organization receiving donations in order to... For example... Give clothes to kids, teach them to read, etc etc. it's not something you can just say that you are. Especially if your business already exists, it may be difficult or impossible to get legal 501c3 status and the licenses. Probably would include an audit of all financial details. And that's if any of these "businesses" got past the first phase, which is to have a positive effect on society. Just saying you're non-profit doesn't make you non-profit. People tend to forget that. It's a legal status, not a self-imposed title. I would be surprised beyond belief if Quinn or femfreq had non-profit status.

Furthermore, without that legal non-profit status, there is 0% reason to believe pockets aren't being lined with cash, especially since at least Zoe was/is using a personal PayPal account instead of a business dedicated one.

But that's all really rather irrelevant because they're making a Hollywood movie.

[djpretzel]

Holy shit there's still people who believe this wasn't all for profit and that there were victims. And people straight-face lying then right after saying "stop spouting crap".

 

It's hard to know whether it became about profit (in some meaningful and compromising sense of the word) at some point AFTER it exploded, but I find it very difficult to believe that it was about profit from the get-go... no evidence to support that, in Zoe's case it was her boyfriend that kicked the whole sad & sorry sequence of events into motion, and in Anita's case I find it hard to fathom that she was sitting there planning on death threats being a key part of her fundraising strategy. That's a bit much to swallow... whether, after the money started flowing in, there were some realizations about what was effective and what was not is a different story... but even that doesn't HAVE to be compromising, or of paramount significance... it can just be pragmatism. Is Capitalism on trial?

 

I feel as though this is the millennial gaming and geek culture freaking out over the inevitable growth of the industry into a true mainstream force of pop culture attracting new demographics, and view this as some sort of intrusion on "their" safe space (that being video games, but also stuff like comic books, and to an extent, even the internet itself). And of course it was theirs to begin with, because the almighty gods of marketing in the 90's proclaimed it to be so.

 

I think the "safe space" concept is probably appropriate, and I think something like this was probably inevitable.

 

As for the "gods of marketing" proclaiming video games (or anything else) to thoroughly belong to a given demographic, I don't really think it works that way. It's a pleasant fiction to think that there are cadres of misled businessmen pulling the strings of an unwitting public and telling us who we are & how to be, but I think things grow up & evolve a little more organically than that.

[Cash]

Holy shit there's still people who believe this wasn't all for profit and that there were victims. And people straight-face lying then right after saying "stop spouting crap".

Is this real life?

 

Yes, they were victims, no, this wasn't about profit.

 

According to you and others' false narrative, gaming doesn't have a problem with harrassment of women and protrayal of women. It's all overblown by scheming, manipulative, money-grubbing liars, who are "professional victims".

 

I doubt anything I say or link would change you mind from believing it. And you obviously believe I'm the one who believes a false narrative. There's no point in me continuing, and I've already said what I wanted to say anyway. Nor do I have the time to keep posting.

 

Feminist Frequency is legally a 501©3 non-profit charity, unless you think the website is also lying?

[lazygecko]

As for the "gods of marketing" proclaiming video games (or anything else) to thoroughly belong to a given demographic, I don't really think it works that way. It's a pleasant fiction to think that there are cadres of misled businessmen pulling the strings of an unwitting public and telling us who we are & how to be, but I think things grow up & evolve a little more organically than that.

 

I didn't really mean it as some insidious deliberate plot to shape the culture. These things just tend to happen on their own in a sort of positive feedback loop (although it is sometimes considered beneficial in long term marketing tactics to narrow down an audience by deliberately excluding other potential groups). But if you look at the history of games and how the "rules" of marketing have changed and solidified over time, the 90's was a very notable turning point. I sometimes read scan archives of old game magazines, and it's really interesting looking at some of the ads and how homogenized they were getting. Even Nintendo got caught in the zeitgeist and marketed games for all ages like Yoshi's Island in the same contrived edgy style as you would do for older teens.

 

Sega kind of got the ball rolling in the late 80's/early 90's by aiming for teenage boys as Nintendo was viewed as having the childrens market on lockdown, but it was Sony later who really started pushing the image of gaming as a lifestyle as they were asserting themselves on the market, and I think their marketing campaigns had a big influence on the industry as a whole. There was a series of PS1 TV adverts in the late 90's, and one of them had CG characters from games like Tomb Raider and Crash Bandicoot urging a guy to spend more time with his Playstation and not get "whipped" by his girlfriend. That's a pretty overt message about who gaming was for, and more importantly who gaming was not for.

I'd also like to highlight the computer game market which was growing parallel to consoles in the 80's and early 90's (which is often dismissed as this "other" thing in gaming history as a whole, like being conveniently ignored when the US industry crash of 83 is brought up). It was pretty different in how diverse it was. You had companies like Sierra whose business model was more akin to that of a book publisher, releasing games in a variety of genres (genre being stuff like comedy, fantasy, crime etc as opposed to shoot em up or racing) aimed at a variety of demographics, women included. But as the 90's went on you could see this aspect becoming marginalized for a variety of reasons while the more modern industry paradigm was forming, and eventually the computer market caved in and became almost indistinguishable from consoles in the sense that it was being aimed nearly exclusively at adolescent males.

 

So in the wake of this we have what we'd define as "hardcore" gaming culture. By that I mean someone who plays the latest games, keeps up with the news and reads gaming magazines or websites, and engages socially with gaming-related communities, and more importantly views it as a sort of lifestyle which defines their image. The bulk of this demographic being those who had their formative years in the 90's, or at this point also the 00's which largely overlaps.

This culture for a long time has struck me as being very exclusionary in nature. And I'm not just talking about gender here, but rather about what is and isn't considered a "real" game or whom is a "real" gamer. A real game by this definition would be whatever passed through the traditional market channels, getting magazine adverts and retail releases. Independantly released digital games used to have to endure this kind of stigma. If Minecraft had been made in 2004 and someone said it was their game of the year, they'd probably have been laughed out of the room. Thankfully this attitude has started to change, although I still see that kind of sentiment reeling here and there in how certain people think AAA games are the only ones that "count". But nowadays we also have both the fledgling mobile market and also independant titles that are challenging established fundamental formulas, like Gone Home. These are much more aggressively dismissed as "non-games" and actively sneered at (and it sort of goes both ways as those who exclusively play mobile games likely don't regard them as "video games" per se). Zoe Quinn was the creator of one of these alleged non-games through Depression Quest, and its recognition in the press (which are pretty much viewed as The Great Validators by the layman gamer) gave her a good deal of abuse even before the whole gamergate thing had started.

 

So to tie this lengthy post together, what's happening right now is that "real" gamers are lashing out because their view of what gaming is supposed to mean culturally, which is largely derived from the period they grew up in during the 90's and 00's, is being challenged as the industry is growing to become more diverse and inclusive.

[Meteo Xavier]

Pretty wild stuff, this topic. I'm still in awe not only on how the subject really brings people out of the woodwork, but also inspires them to ignore whatever facts don't fit their partisan views on said subject to maintain loyalty for their side.

 

Due to its similarities to how people approach religion, I hypothesize that something about this subject hits that same part of the brain or human experience where the subject of spirituality is stored and wish to study that hypothesis more as people continue to fight the stupidest cold war ever devised.

[Brandon Strader]

I would be surprised beyond belief if Quinn or femfreq had non-profit status.

 

 

Feminist Frequency is legally a 501©3 non-profit charity, unless you think the website is also lying?

 

Consider me surprised beyond belief. It IS questionable, and I doubt there's a public record I could check to confirm the status... but that's one HELL of a loophole: "...and largely serves as an educational resource to encourage critical media literacy and provide resources for media makers to improve their works of fiction." ...since when.. I wonder what charitable work the company does, or maybe the requirements to get 501c3 are a lot more loose than I thought. 

 

And... no, I'm not really interested in arguing about stuff that has been known for the last couple years in regards to "who doxxed who" and "who profited from what". Not because I'm against anyone changing my opinion, but because I prefer to deal with non-debatable facts. I made an assumption about the 501c3 status of FemFreq and I got corrected about that. But things such as Brianna Wu doxxing herself on 8chan, and alleged self-victimization on twitter was more public knowledge and easily documentable by anyone. Posting the link to the news about the book deal and the Hollywood movie was just backing up a post I made in this thread over a year ago.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Pretty wild stuff, this topic. I'm still in awe not only on how the subject really brings people out of the woodwork, but also inspires them to ignore whatever facts don't fit their partisan views on said subject to maintain loyalty for their side.

 

Every argument is like this - especially where social justice is involved to any degree.  

[djpretzel]

So to tie this lengthy post together, what's happening right now is that "real" gamers are lashing out because their view of what gaming is supposed to mean culturally, which is largely derived from the period they grew up in during the 90's and 00's, is being challenged as the industry is growing to become more diverse and inclusive.

 

Well said; I just don't view it as zero-sum, nor do I view "hardcore" gaming as something that necessarily needs to evaporate to let the medium truly flourish. It can't be the standard-bearer for the art form, sure, but I don't think it really has been, for some time...

 

I like the enthusiast car metaphor, because I see a lot of parallels. I'll temporarily invoke some biology/evolutionary psychology and put it out there that males are inherently more aggressive/competitive and enjoy tinkering away for hours on end if it means an inch or two gain in whatever pissing contest is going on. I view this as a double-edged sword; it contributes to disproportionate amounts of male insecurity, posturing, & resource waste, but it also motivates autodidacts & fanatics to push boundaries. You see this in enthusiast car culture just as you see this in enthusiast PC build/overclocking culture just as you see it in hardcore gaming culture, which is related to the latter. Most of us drive cars, and MANY of us are interested in different models & partake in associating our own identity with the brand of automobile we choose to drive - no field of advertising is perhaps quite as saturated with identity politics as automobile sales. Enthusiast car culture exists alongside mainstream car culture; the former is largely male, the latter is uniformly diverse, by necessity. Is this problematic? Can there be niches within cultures/mediums that simply tend to break down along gender lines, or any other demographic lines? I think the answer is a resounding yes.... the only problem is when the enthusiast culture mistakes itself for the mainstream culture, I suppose

 

But see here, if you look at how Anita was expressing herself, it WAS zero-sum... her statements were very clearly NOT of a "gaming needs to branch out & diversify" breed (as Larry rewrote them to be) but rather of a "this type of game is wrong and bad and needs to go away" ilk... thus the reaction. It's one thing to tell an enthusiast culture to make room, that the medium is a big enough umbrella for all types of folks. That's a message I can stand behind. It's quite another thing to tell enthusiast culture that it needs to crawl in a hole and die; this is more or less what Anita and Leigh went with, and it's just NOT necessary, or even desirable.

[Brandon Strader]

I'm a man, but I always play games as a female character, because most of the times it is an option. (Examples Destiny, Dragon Quest Heroes, Warframe, Fallout 4{yup I went there}, Assassins Creed Syndicate, etc)... To me this proves that the apocalyptic anti-female scenario in gaming is a bit exaggerated, but then I see articles like this: http://www.starwipe.com/article/cara-delevingne-kicks-ass-call-duty-trailer-its-ab-1073

[djpretzel]

I'm a man, but I always play games as a female character, because most of the times it is an option. (Examples Destiny, Dragon Quest Heroes, Warframe, Fallout 4{yup I went there}, Assassins Creed Syndicate, etc)... To me this proves that the apocalyptic anti-female scenario in gaming is a bit exaggerated, but then I see articles like this: http://www.starwipe.com/article/cara-delevingne-kicks-ass-call-duty-trailer-its-ab-1073

 

I believe there have been some studies that suggest (not conclusively, but being conclusive about something like this is VERY difficult) that heterosexual male gamers often play as female characters simply because they'd rather spend more time staring at a female body than a male one.

 

Personally? Guilty as charged. No shame.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

I believe there have been some studies that suggest (not conclusively, but being conclusive about something like this is VERY difficult) that heterosexual male gamers often play as female characters simply because they'd rather spend more time staring at a female body than a male one.

 

Personally? Guilty as charged. No shame.

 

I recall there being a study that said you could most often tell if a female avatar in a video game was played by a guy if the character jumps and walks backwards often.

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/05/13/world_of_warcraft_gender_switching_why_men_choose_female_avatars.html

 

I'm a man, but I always play games as a female character, because most of the times it is an option. (Examples Destiny, Dragon Quest Heroes, Warframe, Fallout 4{yup I went there}, Assassins Creed Syndicate, etc)... To me this proves that the apocalyptic anti-female scenario in gaming is a bit exaggerated, but then I see articles like this: http://www.starwipe.com/article/cara-delevingne-kicks-ass-call-duty-trailer-its-ab-1073

 

Not sure if satire...

[Brandon Strader]

I couldn't tell if that article was satire or serious, but maybe I just don't "get it".

As for why I play female characters, i just find them more interesting, especially if you're going to be building a story-based, possibly emotional attachment to the protagonist for 20 hours..... Or ok, 1600 hours. We've been playing as the male lead since forever. Woman actors are great, sometimes better, and it changes the game in an interesting way. You don't rely on the crutch of "pretend I'm the guy and I don't want to die", instead you enjoy the character's own identity and possibly get more immersed in their story or origins. Dragon Quest Heroes does a really good job by having 2 lead characters, and I find the female lead Aurora to be a lot more engaging than the male lead. She wants to fight while the dude wants to hold back and think of a strategy first. Tsk. I mean, it's a great change of personality from what we'd usually get from jrpgs.

And yes, I find women better to look at than men, but that's just my opinion.

Maybe that all makes me sexist? That I'd prefer to hear the script from a woman's voice. I dunno.

Maybe it all just goes back to when I beat Barbie on the NES as a kid while other people were playing Castlevania

[swansdown]

.

Edited September 8, 2023 by swansdown

[AngelCityOutlaw]

I couldn't tell if that article was satire or serious, but maybe I just don't "get it".

As for why I play female characters, i just find them more interesting, especially if you're going to be building a story-based, possibly emotional attachment to the protagonist for 20 hours..... Or ok, 1600 hours. We've been playing as the male lead since forever. Woman actors are great, sometimes better, and it changes the game in an interesting way. You don't rely on the crutch of "pretend I'm the guy and I don't want to die", instead you enjoy the character's own identity and possibly get more immersed in their story or origins. Dragon Quest Heroes does a really good job by having 2 lead characters, and I find the female lead Aurora to be a lot more engaging than the male lead. She wants to fight while the dude wants to hold back and think of a strategy first. Tsk. I mean, it's a great change of personality from what we'd usually get from jrpgs.

And yes, I find women better to look at than men, but that's just my opinion.

Maybe that all makes me sexist? That I'd prefer to hear the script from a woman's voice. I dunno.

 

Yes, finding women attractive and playing as them makes you sexist. You're worse than Hitler. Well....according to the Tumblr crowd anyway.

 

I play as women in fighting games usually because they actually make the women far more interesting and different. In fighters, most of the male characters are generic, "totally not steroids bro" clones. Ryu, Ken, Jin, Akuma, Brian Fury...they're all the same really. Sure there are some male-female clones like Sakura or Christie Monteiro

 

But Chun-Li, Karin, Nina Williams, Xiayou (looks like Chun, but is totally different), Juri, Cammy  etc. all have unique, signature designs and playstyles. In their respective games, most of the male cast tend to have little variation or anything that really stands out about them I find. 

 

I guess I usually pick characters that I think are "cool" or "stylish" and in many games I'd say the women are just cooler. Nova is the most badass StarCraft character and I think Aqua is the coolest Kingdom Hearts protagonist...even if her voice actress sounds bored as hell all the time.