Gender in game mechanics

Wait, what?!

 

Stay on topic pls

Gender specific game mechanics is a horrible idea, because it's going to propagate and enforce gender roles.

--clarification edit to avoid possible SWATTING

You know those guys who go to gaming cafes, sit there for 3 days straight and die? Yea, those are my people. And I don't mean koreans, I mean gamers who see gaming as more of an alternate reality more interesting than our own. If I make a wonderful VR experience for free at a low hardware cost, what will become of my people? Either death or even more severe anti-social behaviors :3

 

men are made to kill
women are made to make babies
lol

sword and chalice

 

While its far more complex then this, even the acknowledgement that women get pregnant and have babies would go a long way to improving our gender portrayal in games.

The whole 'women don't exist from the neck down' gets old after a while.

 

Wrong, women can kill and create. Men can only kill. Read:

 

thats why i put "lol"

men can create,
...im making video games... lol

 

More like from they only exist from the neck to the waist. Only having a head would imply they actually have some character to them.

 

I thought you just used "lol" as punctuation. … lol.

 

The problem with that viewpoint is that it is almost always a copout, a way to just refuse to listen to other people or shut them down when they have a different life experience than you. It's also almost always used extremely arbitrarily; people will bust out "but we're all the same" when they want to block someone else's needs, but they almost always revert to "but i'm a special snowflake" when they need something for themselves. I've also never seen anyone actually stick to the "all the same" rule for more than five seconds... for example:

 

Yeah maybe you should just chill or something, you're kind of aggressive I think. I'm not interested.

 

Fine, but let me leave you with an example: let's say you get injured, and you end up in a wheelchair, and you really, really need to get to city hall to vote. But city hall is at the top of a bunch of brutal stairs with no ramps. You ask for a ramp since you need to get up there and vote, but the guy in charge says "Hey maaan, I don't see handicapped people and regular people, I don't see gay people and straight people, I just see people, and people can all equally use the stairs. Stop labeling yourself as handicapped and just walk up there like people."

(Edit: Also, saying you literally don't believe that gay and trans people exist is pretty inherently aggressive, so I don't think I'm being out of line by calling you on it. Even if you did follow it up with "but I'm refusing to acknowledge them because of equality or something", it's still an incredibly overwhelmingly S***ty thing to say.)

 

I can't speak for the hippo, but for me that's a really drastic warping of what individual rights is all about. An individual needs to get up the stairs. That individual should be helped. Him or her being handicapped isn't the focus. Their need to climb the stairs is. Personally, I wouldn't force private businesses to build a ramp. But I also wouldn't patronize businesses who needlessly ignored the needs of handicapped people. They have their choice, I have mine.

 

*being extra careful about which posts she "likes" in this thread from this point forward...

 

Then what is the difference between you labeling a person as "individual who needs to be helped up the stairs because they have an injury and are in a wheelchair" vs you labeling them as "handicapped" or "person in a wheelchair"?

 

Plot twist: at the end of the thread, I reveal that I am actually Hitler, and anyone who liked my previous posts gets sent to jail.

 

I promise not to get offended if any future clarifications on my part cause you to unlike my original post. ;-)

I don't have a problem calling them handicapped. The difference is what I stated in the second half of my post. The business that for whatever reason doesn't want to build a ramp shouldn't be forced to. They have a right to manage their property as they see fit. The rights of a group, in this case wheelchair bound people, doesn't override the rights of that individual. Keep in mind, that doesn't mean I have to agree with them. It doesn't mean I wouldn't think ill of them (depending on their reasoning). It doesn't mean I wouldn't boycott the business. It just means that the two entities, the wheelchair bound person and the business owner, have equal rights. If the business owner shared my views on the rights of individuals then he or she would make sure that every individual had access to their building, or at least as many as is reasonable. If they don't share my views, I'm not going to force my views upon them.

 

Them cans you mentioned... got any more?

 

Yeah, that doesn't seem to be at all what the thread is about or what hippo was saying. I agree private businesses that don't accept public funds shouldn't need ramps, and they don't. But saying "private businesses shouldn't have to build ramps" is not remotely the same thing as saying "I don't think gay or trans people even exist".

 

Hey, it was your analogy, not mine.

 

The analogy was meant to show that the idea of refusing to acknowledge other people's particular needs and writing them off as "labels" will backfire as soon as you become one of those people whose needs are being written off as just a label.

 

At the risk of getting the thread locked, let me explain: Of course all people are individuals, and of course everyone is different, and of course you can not adequately sum up the entirety of a person's life history with one word like "straight" or "gay". But no one is saying that you can, and shutting down the issues of a group of people by telling them that labels aren't real is just a strawman. Hippo says he wants to erase the label "gay" because he doesn't want to see any more gay pride marches or activism, and we should all just get along. On the surface, "we should all get along" sounds nice and "hey no more gay rights activism, just peace and quiet and everyone being equal all the time" sounds ok, but the only way to actually get to a place of equality is for those who are being treated badly to speak up and fight for their rights. When you tell a group of people that their problems all just stem from them labeling themselves, it implies that if gay people just stopped calling themselves gay and instead called themselves "individuals with a sexual preference for their own gender, which is also not a thing because gender is a label too", then suddenly homophobes everywhere would be ok with it, and this is not true. It implies that gay people are at least half at fault for the way they've been treated simply because they're using a an adjective to describe themselves instead of a full sentence. Until very recently, gay people could not get married, regardless of whether or not well-meaning label-deniers believed it or not, and so activism was necessary. If they had just sat around pretending that the divide between gay and straight people didn't exist, they would not have accomplished anything. And when people are trying to come together to fight for their rights, what is the point of telling them that you don't like that they are grouping together under a label and you want them to just stop and get along? It comes off as selfish, just wanting to maintain the status quo, and that you are annoyed by people who have different desires or lifestyles demanding changes. Especially when you are a member of the majority that is oppressing the minority.

 

I don't want to go around in circles on an off topic tangent on a questionable thread. So I'll try just once more to explain it. We don't have to assign a person to a group in order to address their needs. The problem with "group rights" vs "individual rights" is that group rights tend to ignore the rights of anyone not in that group. A fictional wheelchair rights activist might insist that everyone be forced to build ramps. An individual rights activist wouldn't. When you group people, you end up creating division. Maybe a business has a legitimate reason why they can't build a ramp. Trying to force them to is going to create an enemy where there wasn't one. It burdens one group in order to lift the burden of another. That doesn't happen if you never put people into groups in the first place.

 

So what I'm getting is we need a FPS with a wheelchair bound hero?

Sounds like fun to me.

 

I think we both posted at the same time but my previous post probably explains what I'm trying to say a little better. My point is exactly that yes, it DOES happen even if "you" ("I?") don't put people into groups in the first place. Because other people are always putting people into groups, and those groups are not obliged to just sit there and take the abuse. Imagine a few decades ago, trying to argue that "slaves" and "freemen" were not two separate groups and that we are all just people, so slaves should stop labeling themselves and causing fights. Even if you yourself refused to see the difference between a slave and a free person, it doesn't mean that the slaves would be obligated to sit down and shut up so that you wouldn't have to listen to their complaining. Especially if in that situation, you were not a slave. Do you see what I mean?

 

I believe that was the inspiration for tank controls in resident evil.

 

The slave's rights are being violated whether we call them a slave or not. Saying that all people have the same rights is the exact opposite of saying that slaves have no rights because they are people, or whatever point you are trying to get at.
Let me give a better analogy. In the 60s marriage equality meant interracial couples. Saying "consenting adults should be able to marry whomever they please" really meant "consenting adults should be allowed to marry whomever I don't have a problem with." It left out same sex couples. Just as today that phrase leaves out polyamorous couples. Going back to what I said earlier. People aren't tolerant of what they disagree with. They are only "tolerant" of what they don't have a problem with. Because we broke the marriage equality problem down into groups it could very well take another 50 years before polyamorous couples are finally allowed to marry. To an individual rights activist, marriage equality isn't about interracial, or same-sex, or polyamorous. It is about everybody. Everybody has that right. Of course if that right is being denied to someone, then something should be done about it. Nothing about not grouping people changes that. Remove the groups, and same sex marriage would have happened in the 60s. In fact, a minority of the people made the exact argument I just made. Every consenting adult has the right to define their own marriage.

 

When you say "remove the groups", who exactly are you talking to? Are you blaming black people in the 60's for labeling themselves as black, and saying it is their fault that gay people are oppressed by straight white people? Like if they had just labeled themselves "individuals", that would have magically got rid of homophobia?

Edit: More importantly, since we can't actually travel back in time, and we have to live with the world we're in; are you saying that gay marriage would have happened more easily if there were no gay rights activists? That it's their fault that it took so long, and that they would have gotten marriage equality faster if they had remained quiet and let "individual rights experts" or something handle everything? Especially when these alleged individual rights people have such a lousy track record throughout the history of the world...

 

I'll be bowing out of the thread on account of not wanting my good intentions being twisted out of true. I'd like people to accept everyone else and just be chill, I'm not interested in warping or playing word games, or other child-like antics. I leave you with blizzard's excellent interpretation of a female warrior:

 

No. I'm not saying any of that. And since I don't feel like you are even trying to understand what I am saying, I too am bowing out of the thread. I have no fancy female warrior gif for you.

 

I think everyone is actually making good points.

I love that hippo said he sees people simply as people. For example, he doesn't discriminate against gay marriage for example. I also personally believe that every single person should be accepted for who they are (with the exception of if they cause harm to someone else).

But Makeshiftwings is saying that many people do discriminate. Therefore activism is necessary to fight against those people who discriminate.

 

Cool.

SURPRISE I AM ACTUALLY HITLER.

Also, I don't know why hippo posted that gif of a skinny asian dude. I am seeing it right, right? I don't see body type, race, or gender.

 

This is my problem. Its basically a male model with pink hair and a suggestion of breasts. At least some hint of feminity would be nice.

We won't ever scratch the issue of gender in games as long as we treat females as males that come in pink.

 

LOOL the pink hair is funny

 

Not all game characters have to be warriors. Humans do have other useful qualities.

 

I hope this is sarcasm. But just in case you've never actually seen a video game before, most of the women are skinny gigantic-breasted half-naked uber-sexualized feminine stereotypes in bikinis. Zarya is an extreme outlier (and a breath of fresh air IMHO); there are very few women that look like that in games.

 

It wasn't sarcasm. The other end of the scale with the hyper-sexed female isn't particularly decent either. Neither strike me as particularly close to any actual girls I've met.

 

More body types would be nice, it's just hard to see how Zarya not having big enough boobs is "the problem" when there's like a grand total of maybe three characters that look like that in video games and a gajillion that look more like Barbie.

 

Yeah, like prostitu... where did the pin for this grenade go...

Personally I was having trouble with the boobplate. The point of power armor is not to provide support. That's what mage armor is for, so that the puppies maintain their youthful perkiness well into her 900's.

 

But thanks to Unity3D, even I, a man, can create! And with good practices, men don't need to GameObject.Destroy(), because we will be using object pooling

I've met those people in real life. Be glad you haven't, the ones in my middle school didn't mature in quite the right way when they discovered their 'advantages' over the other girls.

 

Not saying this character needs bigger breasts by any means. My problem is simply that if you change the hair colour to black and flatten the chest slightly you have a male model. Seriously, did you notice the arms? Its a female character placed into a stereotypical male role.

I'm not sure what I'm asking for, but this is not it.

 

Here

 

@BoredMormon you might be interested in Anite Sarkeesian's "man with boobs" troupe. It isn't quite what you're describing, but it's related and could be amusing to you.

 

I don't care.

I really don't.

I don't care what you believe in.
I don't care where are you from.
I don't care what you look like or what language are you speaking.
I don't care who or what you love.
I don't care what gender are you.
I don't care how rich or poor are you.

The only think I care about, is who you are as a person. What you did, what are you doing and what you will do. Nothing else holds any meaning for me.

Thank you,
Dariusz "Darkhog" G. Jagielski

 

My only issue with Blizzard's Zarya is they're trying to fight the sexualised feminine stereotype with... another, big, fat stereotype. It turns out she's Russian - which, imo, is still very cliché. It's like they took what people dislike; overtly sexualised female characters, and inverted it - creating this strong, more masculine "Zarya" - but then slapped a cliche on the end anyway. Why are Russian characters almost always these badass hard types?

--by "big, fat stereotype" I am not implying that this woman is fat

 

@darkhog that's a nice summary of the sane part of my ramblings We should all be Quakers and not give a fluff.

It's awfully racist of everyone to assume she's Russian without even checking to see if she consumes lots of vodka. Shame on us all.

 

Lol that was funny

 

According to some eastern religions object pooling has been going on for a good while. I believe the term is karma.

(Gender, gay rights, disability rights and now religion. I think I'm starting to run out of worms)

 

Come on though, do people actually believe this, or is it just a bunch of pseudo-poetic nonsense? How can you not care what language someone is speaking when you're trying to talk to them and they don't speak your language? How can you not care what someone believes in if what they believe in is that they're going to punch you in the face? Why does your signature have an anti-copyright-troll site if you don't care whether or not someone believes that copyright trolling is bad? How can you not care what people love when you're selling an entertainment product that pretty much depends on people loving it? And does anyone really believe that you have absolutely zero interest in someone's gender, looks, beliefs, and loves when deciding who you are going to befriend / date / marry? Because I'm pretty sure you're bluffing.

And that's ok. It's not "bad" to have dating preferences, to care about other people's beliefs, and to seek out people who speak your language when you need to talk. It's actually completely normal. It's worse to pretend that you don't do those things in order to set yourself as some kind of unassailable bastion of equality to obfuscate conversations.

 

One of my religious studies teachers was fond of using the term 'holy envy'. He said it was not just enough to tolerate people of other faiths, but we had to actively look for things that they are doing better then us, and try and emulate them. In his opinion tolerance implied "I'm going to restrain myself and not attack you because you are different". Where as 'envy' implied "Wow, you are different, what can I gain from the way you do things".

I think the same general principle applies across a lot of the topics that have come up in this thread.

 

I'm hoping one day to be the Community Jester, thank you

My objects have and will be reincarnated! And yes, we have removed most of the worms from this can. I'm surprised to see this thread still in tact.

@makeshiftwings I think he's actually suggesting that if other people feel and do things that do not and cannot affect you, then there's no need to concern yourself with them. It's a USA thing we're dealing with right now, where some people are so overly concerned with other people's business and their own values that they go to extreme lengths to interfere.

Those are some amusing intent translations. It's shocking that it's natural for people to feel malice towards others who are different. To bring this somewhere close to on topic... imagine a quicktime event game that fights off impulses to randomly attack people who aren't exact clones of yourself in dress and thought