I spend a lot of time on corners of the internet where a lot of this anger comes from, and while it in no way justifies threats or harassment, I think it is important to understand where each side comes from. Video gamists, by and large, feel that video games are being co-opted by a vocal minority of social justice activists. They feel that these activists are targeting this fledgling medium for the sole purpose of using it as a launchpad for their agenda, at the expense of the medium and I feel a lot of current social justice figureheads give this point legitimacy. For example, people like Anthony Burch, don't do much to ease their fears, and there was the time where Hotline Miami devs were accosted because they had a pseudo-rape scene in their game. Or the insistence that certain behaviors in video games influence gamer behavior. Just off the top of my head. Vidya game enthusiasts feel that creative freedom is being sacrificed in order to satiate 'SJW' ideals. And as long as these types of things are happening, change is going to be met with opposition every step of the way.
Very true Policenaut. And while gamers take a lot of heat for being horrible (threats, etc), I think the same can be said of almost everyone on the internet in general. Being somewhat anonymous makes people say things they would likely never say in person to someone. Certain cases are publicized more than others, because some people feel it's the cost of doing business while others get more sympathy from the media. This skews the perception among many people of what actually happens on the internet. Threats (death threats, rape) and name calling (misogynist, racist) are common ways people try to silence others. It would be awesome if people could evolve to treat others as a person worthy of respect.
And the whole situation with Zoe/Redditt and others should be a glaring reminder to gather your news from multiple sources. So many organizations want to shape your news to see things the way THEY want you to see them. The internet is still at your fingertips and there is still plenty of info for you to discover. If you rely on a limited number of sites for news you are allowing them to color your view of the world. People should educate themselves and work for thier info. Living in a bubble leaves you uninformed.
Keep in mind what I said earlier about only needing to care about criticisms of the game industry/community if they come from someone who understands what games are, how they are made, what they represent, etc. If some nobody off the street who has never gamed in their life calls for more of this or that in games, we can ignore them. They're nobody. But this isn't what is happening, in my opinion. Most of thse "activists," as you call them, are gamers as well. They want to enjoy the games they play just as much as everyone else. And if something in the industry strikes them as wrong, toxic, or problematic, and they talk about it, they deserve to be heard, not rallied against. Let me give you an example. When it came out that Ubisoft would not be including female PCs in either Far Cry 4 or the new Assassin's Creed, a lot of people complained. A lot of people. And literally everywhere I looked, the people who thought this was a bad move on Ubisoft's part were lumped into the "SJW" camp (whatever the hell that even means anymore), no matter how they chose to criticize Ubisoft. And trust me, there a lot of reasons to criticise Ubisoft's decision here. You saw game designers, other studios and publishers, former Ubisoft employees, journalists, gamers, engineers, essentially every source of information possible was saying the same thing: Ubisoft was being super-mega-dumb. And yet, people defended Ubisoft by calling everyone who disagreed with their decision a "femi-nazi," an "SJW", someone who doesn't understand games, should go back to farmville or Candy Crush and leave Assassin's Creed alone. If you don't believe me, look at any news source on the subject. The debates usually devolved into "Women can't play games/fight conflicts/be tough/exist outside of sexual fantasies" for 99% of them. It's pretty disgusting. The point I'm making is that this is just one example of games failing to take into account 50% of their potential audience. I think it's fucking sad as fuck that a game developer gets rid of a female PC once the budget gets tight, of all the other things that could possibly be cut. And anyone who agrees with me is apparently someone out to ruin videogames, according to the other side of the argument. I could list other examples: League of Legends having nearly all of their female PCs drawn as essentially softcore pornography is a particular favorite. Simply put: these are problems in the industry. They're not about preference, they're not about "freedom of speech" or "artistic license" (another grey term tossed around to confuse issues), they're real issues that need dealing with as gaming matures as a form of media. A company is free to make whatever protagonist they want at the end of the day, sure. But if their reasoning for not having a given protagonist is full of crap, they should be called out on it. Sony Santa Monica had a similar issue years ago when GoW finally got multiplayer: they decided to not include women as a possible PC because "women can't look badass in that way." My ass. This is something the common gamer needs to educate themselves about. Understanding the difference between nit-picking and legitimate problems is the best way for us as a community to enact real, positive change in the industry.
Even if it is someone that knows something about games and how they are made it doesn't mean they should be taken seriously. Many "activist" devote their life to being oppressed and find a reason get out of bed by fighting the Man/patriarchy or whatever gets them going. Game quality is secondary/tertiary to many of these people, with their delusions of abuse being the primary driving factor. You brought up LoL and your belief that nearly all their females are softcore porn. When skins for Debonair Vi came out people that wanted female characters more covered up were as happy as they ever get. Of course, they still found something to complain about because Debonair Ezreal had females in the background of his skin splash art!!! There is always something! It's like when Warhammer Age of Reckoning was just being made and the developers were showing some of the initial models and concept art for dwarfs some of the feminists were upset. They didn't see any female dwarfs. They made a big stink and said they were leaving and would never play the game!!!! Never mind the fact the game was light years from actually being made, they had to have it NOW! What I'm trying to say is that all the crying and gnashing of teeth has to be looked at reasonably. A lot of time it's just activists who want everyone to bend to their worldview regardless of what anyone else wants. And the fact is they will NEVER be happy! A persecution complex is so deeply ingrained in them they will find Something somewhere to rail against. These types of people are loud and get a lot of positive publicity in the hopes of intimidating/scaring developers into adopting the "correct" set of standards. People just need to keep a level head and examine things critically. Like you said in your last line: I would go further and say it's not just the common gamer but people that cover the gaming scene too. Sometimes people that complain have a point and should be taken seriously, but when the media and others amplify a lot of this buffoonery the oppression crew just goes into a frenzy. The gaming industry (among others) is improving steadily. What we don't need is the PC crowd trying to make everything one size fits all. With today's resources there is more than enough for everyone to find something they like.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask you to take your own advice. Examine things critically for a moment. There are many kinds of oppression, and many people can be oppressed from a variety of factors. Saying they devote their life to being oppressed just seems ridiculous, since it assumes you can "get over" oppression, which is frankly untrue. Oppression is societal: even if you want it to go away or try to put it out of your mind, the environment you live in won't let that happen. As I said, there's a difference between people complaining for the sake of complaining, and having legitimate issues with how things are run in the games industry. If women want their character models to be as badass and awesome as the men, instead of shit like this or this, that's not complaining just to complain. That's calling out a design people find legitimately offensive. You wouldn't call people overly sensitive because a game includes a black person who is portrayed as stereo-typically stupid and savage, you'd call the game racist. So when a game is sexist, call it sexist, admit it, and hope the developers can do better in the future. From my perspective, 99% of the time people bring stuff like this up, they're in the right.
Some of these people have an oppression "mania" that should really be classified as a mental problem. They should not be listened to, they should be ignored. Like the people crying the song "Rude" is misogynist, they just are driven to feel outraged about everything. I understand some people have been damaged and have had their worldview colored by bad experiences. I volunteered at a Rape Crisis Center and most of the women there had previously been victims. Many of their views on males was understandably driven by those traumatic experiences. Having said that, while I sympathized with them I felt their worldview was wrong and did not adopt it (I do not agree that roughly 50% of the world's population is evil). And I do not have a problem with either of those models. As long as the game has options for people I do not see why seem people are outraged. LoL for example has a ton of models (male/female/other) with varying degrees of clothing. Just because you don't like some of the options doesn't mean you should try banning it so no one else can use it. Often you can just use a different skin. It's like Age of Reckoning. There were people that wanted to turn Witch Elves into modest elves that cover themselves up!!!! No matter about the lore (the lore is the first thing these people jettison!) they were afraid these poor damsels were going to be cold in chilly Naggaroth!!! They were almost puritanical in their obsession with turning Witch Elves into women that refused to show flesh, almost as if Naggaroth was located in the Middle East and not a fictional world. While I believe 99% of the people complaining may actually be upset, I do not think they are anywhere close to right. I think that percentage is far south of 50%. Basically I am a freedom loving person that thinks the more options the better. I am opposed to people who try limiting what others can do/play based on their own personal preferences. Part of the strength of our world (and the internet) is its diversity. I am for expanding choices to as many people as possible, not restricting them. Too much of what goes on today is censorship and hysteria. People need to find the strenght to realize not liking something isn't a reason to ban it from existence. Allowing others to enjoy what they like does not hurt anyone else. The urge to control other people is a common human trait, but it must be fought. Dressing it up in righteousness doesn't make it any less wrong.
Matobar you continue to use MOBAs as examples of prime sexism in the industry but you are the only user on this site that I KNOW plays them regularly. Look Matobar you can't join a employee strike at a theme park while still riding the rides.
To give you all a small update: Ms Quinn has become largely irrelevant to this discussion - which was never about sexism in the video game industry to begin with, but about the corruption and the overly strong personal ties between (indie) game developers and video game journalists. A very neat video about the IGF (Independent Games Festival, one of the major events for Indie games) sprung up yesterday: View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM_Z5YTop7g All these accusations of sexism and misogyny actually are little more than game journalists and developers frantically trying to claw their way out of the pit of corruption they themselves have dug. Because no-one is gonna take a fat, right-wing, basement-dwelling virgin seriously, right? Well, fun thing is that there actually is a wide variety of people from different genders, ethnicity and political backgrounds that have called bullshit on the accusations made by many well-known gaming media sites. Even funnier, those who seek to defend the corruption either ignore those dissenting voices that are in fact not white males in their twenties as predicted, or claim they are betraying their own gender, ethnicity, etc (cf. #NotYourShield on Twitter). To say it again: Yes, there undoubtedly are many instances of sexism and misogyny both in the video game industry and in the player-base, what the gamers want in the current scandal is NOT to shame all women out of the industry (which has nicely been illustrated by gamers donating more than $ 55.000 to the IndieGoGo campaign of TYFC, which so happens to be centered around helping women to design games), but rather to blow out the systematic corruption of a journalism industry that is purely based on cheap clickbait articles and has less journalistic integrity than the People's Newspaper of North Korea.
Do you think they'll actually get charged with Racketeering? A fair amount of the people supporting GamerGate is hoping that happens.
