There's a very long convuluted line of thinking amongst Feminists that essentially boils down to; Women are represented poorly in Video Games which causes them a lack of interest in the medium, and means they are less likely to be taken seriously within the industry. This also ties into the idea that gender roles for younger children push women away from the math and science fields required to achieve higher education in fields required to make high budget video games. So in that line of thinking, it's a giant self-feeding cycle. There are disparities in various industries, but the Tech Industry as a whole has come under fire because they have the most money flowing around and "don't promote women in the work place", despite the fact that EA's head of HR has pointed out they go out of their way to hire women (which is essentially gender discrimination) and various companies have gone out of their way to poach women with technical expertise from various other technical fields.
I agree that these games are not infringing on the rights of women. I also find it interesting that Gamergate has successfully flipped peoples entire view on Video Games in the opposite direction. Pre-GG thinking was that Video Games were Art and the artist had the right to do whatever they want, also that the idea of Video Games influencing the players behavior was ridiculous and factually inaccurate. Now though, we're told Video Games are part of Culture and therefore need to be more politically correct and have disproportionate representations of Women and the LGBT community, and that violence in video games is a real danger, especially violence against women. Im sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Either Video Games are art, and society dictating what they can and cannot express is censorship, or they are just toys and society can control the entire medium.
There's also the interesting effect on Games Journalism I've seen since this nonsense started. They started GamerGate as a way to combat Zoe Quinn via harassment (fact), and then they switched to it being about ethics in journalism, and now it's about fuck-all who knows. But since GG came around I've seen the opposite of their intention--a marked decrease in the quality of reporting from Gaming Sites. A prime example is the site Polygon. I was a big fan of that site (especially their features which were amazingly informative and in depth) and browsed it regularly. Since GG they have done a ton of articles on random games trying to tie them into this nonsense "controversy" and sunk so low as claiming the creator of the controversial game Hatred is a Neo-Nazi, and citing a god damn Tumblr blog named "Fuck NO Video Games".
This whole situation is ridiculous. It's a bunch of people using a vocal minority as an indication of the Video Game Communities unwillingness to accept social change in the medium, while that vocal minority is clearly spearheaded by a bunch of sociopaths claiming it's about "ethics in game journalism" while viciously harassing every woman in the industry. Just stop, everyone. This is getting embarassing.
I agree, but the most damning part of all of this is that it's done in the name of feminism, which is stupid when this is an issue that stems out further than that. It should be done for the mutual respect of all human beings, but strictly pulling apart games for how women and lgbt community members are represented is a one sided argument. You can't talk about one without talking about the entire game and the problem I have is with all this cherry-picking.
I'm not saying GG doesn't have an argument that isn't worth thinking about, I'm just pissed off with how it was approached. Take one game at a time, thoroughly review it and make a write up and do one at a time. When you merge everything into one, you're saying that all games are being evaluated the same way for the same problem, which doesn't work because of the differences in games, content, and context.
I am saying that GG needed to be more thorough for individual games instead of quickly taking bad scenes from a ton of games that are out of context. Otherwise it looks like a rant from a women who doesn't know what she's talking about. Not to mention she does a piss poor job of hiding her bias which instantly makes me question the validity of the assessment in the first place. That is all.
It's like me as a developer going up to a Chef while he's working and telling him how to do his job. Not only will he or she laugh/yell/swear at me, he or she will call me stupid and kick me out. I feel GG has that same feeling too. She's talking about something she's not experienced with and the over-usage of cherry picking is a clear sign as almost everything is ripped out of context. She is however, experienced at pick out things that make he feel uncomfortable as a women but she has a really hard time providing the full context in which that event occurred.
My issue is the lack of detail in the analysis, not the subject. People who try to talk about something they're not experienced with really do deserve a critical response.
She needs to pick one game, go through all of it, then do a write up. That's the only way people will listen and that's with a detailed report, not an out-of-context mess like GG.
