Sexism has become a very tricky issue in the gaming world. Not just as an issue itself, but also as a debate of whether gamers are ignoring it entirely. Many gamers do pawn it off quickly, but perhaps not entirely by their own fault, considering the way that the debate is so often poorly framed. With proper frame and a focused debate, the issue could be accepted and discussed fluidly - as long as gamers remain open and mature to the people who DO have balanced things to say.
Let's start by getting this out of the way; yes, sexism exists in the gaming world. Like any modern debate, the issue is quickly forced into a question of existence, and never about extent, and that rhetoric is quickly adopted by the loudest and most stupid. For example: "Yes, racism does and always will exist, but do we really need to impose special laws on certain states because of race issues in the 50s? Is the modern state truly dealing with the issue to such a degree that they still need such measures?"...that's how intelligent debate is framed, not..."Does racism exist in that state?" In the same way, we need to avoid discussing "existence" of sexism in gaming and start openly and directly debating what is really in question: "How bad is sexism in gaming?" (or, "Is sexism in gaming any worse than the general public itself?" as is sometimes argued)
Moving past that rhetoric nightmare, how do we debate the issue? How do we fix the issues with the debate of the issues?
For the side arguing on sexism being a major, specifically game industry/community issue:
1) Don't use forum posts and 12y/o's on XBL as "proof" of sexism of the overall industry and community. Neither forum posters or 12y/o's on COD are goalposts of the general gaming public.
2) Stay on point. Just the other day, I read an article that said "Stop denying talented developers opportunities because they have ovaries" ( http://n4g.com/news/1310609... ) ...as if to suggest that women were being denied work. If you start making up problems and going off topic, the real problems that you discuss won't be taken seriously.
For gamers arguing that sexism is more of a minimal issue in the industry/community, or else not specific to the game industry:
1) Can the f***ing sandwich jokes for a second. I know that you aren't necessarily a sexist for making a sexist joke the same way I don't get up during standups that involve racial jokes and shout "DUUUUURR RACIIIIIIST!" But fish-out-of-water sites like Yahoo that make up entire articles about N4G comment sections (because apparently there's nothing more important to report on - http://news.yahoo.com/gamer... ) do not understand that. It still looks bad.
2) Make sure that you ARE listening to the good arguments. There are plenty of people discussing the issues without overblowing them. Civil debate with such persons can only improve the situation and detract from extremists of both sides.
Right now, debate on the subject simply isn't very civil. Both sides feel ostracized by the other. It's time that we discuss the issue's extent in a balanced way.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Excellent blog. I think one of the main obstacles is that there's a ton of emotion clogging any real issues of sexism, either in the game industry or in videogames themselves. So what happens is people on both sides get easily upset. It doesn't help when certain sites (like Kotaku) jump on every. Single. Possible. story that MIGHT have a sexism-spin to it.
Personally, that's why I tend to tune out people complaining about "sexism". Gaming journalists have done such a p***-poor job of representing the issue. I'll take it one step further: some journalists have hijacked real issues of sexism and blown them out of proportions to push an agenda and drive hits to their site. When I see stuff like that, it makes it difficult to take any "serious" discussion seriously.
The games industry is one of the few that has never seemed to have a problem with placing males and females on the same level(even though men are superior). For as long as i've been a gamer, i've always seen strong characters to represent both sexes, and that's fine because this is fantasy.
The sexism crap we have to hear from Sarkeesian and similar scum has less to do with the roles of women in games and more to do with what women are wearing and how they're using their bodies. It's almost as if they won't be happy unless all female characters are fat and unhealthy, but the reality is that such characters aren't very appealing which goes for both sexes, hence the reason male characters are also healthy and able bodied.
Femnazis don't like attractive women benefiting from their appearance in general, because femnazis can't do the same. They've also managed to convince self loathing beta males to do their bidding, and these beta males do so because they can't get attractive women, and this is about the only way they think will get them laid.
Unfortunately, these types have now brought their agenda into the realm of games.
Sexism is not a problem in the world of fantasy, and it's unlikely that it ever will be. The only problems are the ones that exist inside the heads of jealous, irrational and vindictive women, as well as the cowardly invertebrates that masquerade as men.
The problem with this debate is the concept of what is sexist and what isn't sexist in terms of gaming. A common example is the overly sexualized woman, though many will point out how there are several attractive male characters too and several (like ellie in Borderlands) unattractive women in games too. This is true of just about every other topic, which is why this sexist debate goes nowhere. In a lot of ways I am reminded of my feelings while playing The Saboteur.
The game was about an Irish drunk that raced cars and fought Nazi's. How apparent was this image? Well here's the first line from the Wikipedia (not the most factual source, but just go with it) entry "The game's protagonist, Sean Devlin (based on William Grover-Williams), is a hard drinking Irish racecar mechanic,[1] ". Now I expected someone to yammer on about how the game is relying on negative Irish stereotypes, but people pretty much let the game be. The interesting thing is that you can easily go for that point or you can simply view him as an Irish guy that drinks (stereotype or not, there are Irish drunks like any other group) and that is pretty much where the sexism talk needs to go. Every fit lady isn't a jab at fat girls, just like every weak girl isn't a secret message that girls are worthless next to men... they're simply characters that have certain attributes, which may or may not be positive.
"yes, sexism exists in the gaming world. Like any modern debate, the issue is quickly forced into a question of existence, and never about extent, and that rhetoric is quickly adopted by the loudest and most stupid."
Couldn't have said it better myself. It seems very strange to me how anytime sexism is brought up in any sort of context relevant to video games there's always this knee-jerk reaction from people who insist that there is absolutely no sexism of any kind in the medium and those who talk about it are either automatically unintelligent or are the types of crazy fanatic feminists who believe in gender superiority as oppose to equality.
Thank you for saying, "Hey, we can TALK about this and that's not a bad thing." Great blog.
Yeah about that even on neogaf you don't really have much debating on sexism, you have plenty of people just waiting for someone to say something remotely considered sexist/racist ect.
So they can plant an axe into the poor bastards skull, for even daring to not view the ism issues with as much importance as they do.
Show me the gamers, that refuse to play a female character, that believes all female characters should either look like jessica rabit or be a helpless princess to rescue. Maybe 1% of the gaming population if that, your(not the author) is creating a convenient boogyman to point to as a example of a sexist gamer as though all gamers are just as bad).
Looking at the countless other media apparently it's a perfectly acceptable to exploit a characters sexual appeal or physique to make a product/character more appealing. And yet apparently only is it viewed as a negative in gaming as though we are held to a much higher standard than other media forms.
If gamers are sexist than so is probably 80-90 of the general public, but then again it's the internet so god know what definition of sexism is being used by said debate starter.
Alot of people aren't going to read through 5 pages of social crusaders attacking anyone that doesn't agree with them that example a is a perfect example of a insert ism/ist. To get to the very tiny handful of posters actually trying to have a relevant discussion.
Most posters want a punching bag to boost their ego on not dialogue.