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Getting Misogyny, Racism and Homophobia Out of Gaming
An anonymous reader writes "A central theme for several talks at this week's Game Developers Conference has been how to deal with the abuse generated by a small segment of gamers. BioWare's Manveer Heir says he wants the industry to stop being scared of challenging the most outspoken and vituperative members of the gaming community. His GDC talk focused on 'misogyny, sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia and other types of social injustice.' He said, 'We should use the ability of our medium to show players the issues first-hand, or give them a unique understanding of the issues and complexities by crafting game mechanics along with narrative components that result in dynamics of play that create meaning for the player in ways that other media isn't capable of.' Meanwhile, Adam Orth, who became the center of an internet hatestorm last year after an offhand comment about always-online DRM, said game developers should make an effort to encourage their playerbase to behave in a more civilized manner."
Gaming is one of the last bastions where political incorrectness survives. I hope it will stay that way and that gaming won't get invaded by the armies of the politically correct spoilsports. And, yes, I am a minority and a target of some of these "-isms" and "-phobias".
I know reading the article is against ther terms of service here or something, but most of the points the speaker seemed to be making were more about equal representation in games, and how we can do better than having most games stars straight white males. The argument that audiences can't connect with characters of other colors, genders, ages, sexual orientations, or gender identity is suspect, given the diversity of the gaming population.
There's a difference between this and "political correctness" or "feminism", or "The LGBT agenda" people are so quick to demonize. An argument that we should have a richer pool of stories to experience is pretty hard to argue with, if you ask me.
i don't really see any feminist activities these days, only people blaming feminism for stuff.
I wonder do male gamers with daughters think differently about games that promote violence against women then single male gamers with no children? As a father of girls I cannot in a clear coconscious buy games that have sexists concepts and promote violence against women.
At some point they go beyond improvement, then to parody, then to active harm of others. Too many groups keep going long after the problem is solved
Very true. It can be argued that the same statement is true of labor unions, for example.
I think if you look deeply today, you'll find two major schools of "feminism" - the "academic" and the "popular." The "academic" branch of feminism - like all academia - is safely removed from the real world and traffics mainly in the Andrea Dworkin "all heterosexual intercourse is rape" and Starhawk-style schools of radical feminism. This is a holdout from pre-'80s feminism and remains the intellectual vanguard of feminism but is a small niche among women. It is, however, what Rush Limbaugh used to call "Feminazis" and Fox News still likes to call "feminism."
Popular feminism today more or less equates to what Wikipedia describes as "post-feminism" - a school of thought that basically argues that women have overcome many of the blatantly discriminatory issues of the past and need to focus on more practical issues like wage discrimination, workplace sexual harassment, etc. rather than the academic "feminist" utopian vision of a matriarchal world where everyone lives by consensus, sharing of feelings and government mandated mani-pedi sessions (except for the "butch partner" lesbians who can opt out).
All joking aside, "feminism" is not only fractured among multiple groups, but the mainstream idea of feminism today that most women subscribe to has nothing to do with the academic, radical-driven "feminism" of the 1970s that scared the bejeezus out of conservatives (and most heterosexual men). Like most things, it has evolved into something more mature and sustainable.
If you're interested in how "feminism" has meant many things over the years, the Wikipedia entry on Feminism is not a bad primer, although its editors skew towards the academic side.
"95% of all Slashdot
I gather at least some of the complaints about the game industry is that the scenario you've outlined doesn't ever happen. Instead, openly gay characters are rare to the point of nonexistent in games. The closest we come is the androgynous characters of Japanese-made games. On rare occasions, one of those androgynous characters turns out to be a gay guy—in the Japanese version. When the game is translated for the US audience, somehow that aspect of the character mysteriously vanishes. Similarly, characters who are physically disabled are very rare, unless you count grotesque cyborgs, who are invariably evil.
Until recently, the only people with dark skin in games were non-human, and essentially all of them were evil. Because everyone knows demons are swarthy, right? That built-in bias is still phenomenally powerful. In the movie Constantine, the archangel Gabriel was written as evil, while being portrayed by a lily-white actress. The intent was to be shocking, and the casting very much reflected the societal assumption that white is good, dark is bad, and the violated expectation was part and parcel of the affect the movie wanted to have. That movie was released in 2005. Thirty years after the American civil rights movement, Hollywood still taps in to that cultural expectation, despite a generation of heavy political correctness in a much more visible medium than games. What chance do games have, in the face of that?
These people and others like them are making the proposition that games should become part of the engine of social engineering that has made such a ham-fisted mess of television and movies, particularly for children. They think that games are for kids, and should therefore be used to condition children the same way they try to use TV. It would be unfortunate if that were to happen. If games are to have any hope of being recognized as art, they have to be culturally relevant, and not be used as a bludgeon against culture.
When a game manages to highlight a social injustice without feeling like a bludgeon, then maybe there will be art.