Sweden Considers Adding "Sexism" Ratings To Video Games

An anonymous reader writes A government-funded agency in Sweden is considering creating special labels for video games based on whether or not the games' portrayals of women are sexist. From the article: "Avoiding sexism and gender stereotypes in video games produced in Sweden will become a key goal for the association, which has been given a 272,000 kronor ($36,672) grant by Sweden's government-funded innovation agency, Vinnova. Inspired by the Bechdel test, which looks at whether fictional films or books feature at least two women talking about a topic other than men, Dataspelsbranchen will work with several game developers to analyze how Swedish video games portray female characters and gender issues.

Comments

More detailed ratings are a good thing

[Iamthecheese]

I personally won't care a whit about this one but more detailed ratings can only be a good thing. I envision an ecosystem of metadata ranging from "suitability for playing in a car on a laptop" to "power usage profile" It's not like the world is short on disk space.

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[Fusselwurm]

I'd rather have ratings done by a non-government funded agency.

Wat. How will having a private entity help with non-biased labeling?

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[Noah Haders]

But the problem is when it is coming from a government-funded agency. Is it appropriate for the government to determine what is considered sexist? Is the nature of sexism black and white, where it's easily to tell very easily if something is sexist or not? I'd rather have ratings done by a non-government funded agency.

Yeah, we need to back up on this. The /. headline was horribly misleading. A better way to put it, a private advocacy group won a one-time govt grant to explore this. Govts and universities and NSF give out all sorts of grants for all weird topics. So don't flip out about the guvt angle

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[Penguinisto]

Wat. How will having a private entity help with non-biased labeling?

A private entity cannot enforce anything upon the populace, nor can they promulgate laws based on their ratings.

Government has a very limited range of things that they do as well or better than the public at large (war/defense, money, basic law enforcement, etc) - governmental action beyond that range invariably becomes incompetent, expensive, dangerous, or worse.

Never give government more power than the worst-case scenario you would be willing to live under.

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the test should be gender-neutral.

There are many women-centred films that do not feature at least two men talking about a topic other than women.

They should also be considered sexist.

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that Sweden needs to close down public prisons due to lack of criminals,
and United States have overpopulated private prisons, I wonder which government leads to a more free society...

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[plopez]

"A private entity cannot enforce anything upon the populace, nor can they promulgate laws based on their ratings."
Ever read a credit card agreement, insurance contract, or mortgage agreement?

The dual of what you posted above:
"Business has a very limited range of things that they do as well or better than the public at large ... - business action beyond that range invariably becomes incompetent, expensive, dangerous, or worse.", and

"Never give businessgovernment more power than the worst-case scenario you would be willing to live under."

Live free, of either government or corporation shackles, or die.

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[AmiMoJo]

Europeans tend to believe the opposite. They would rather the government does stuff because it tends to be cheaper and better run than when private companies get involved. They see the state of US healthcare, or what happened to the UK's railways and energy supply after privatization.

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[Penguinisto]

Ever read a credit card agreement, insurance contract, or mortgage agreement?

There's a huge difference between a private contract you willingly enter into, and a government edict that you are forced into and cannot opt out of.

"Business has a very limited range of things that they do as well or better than the public at large ... - business action beyond that range invariably becomes incompetent, expensive, dangerous, or worse.", and

I agree, and my agreement to your point does not invalidate what I wrote. ;)

Re:More detailed ratings are a good thing

[AmiMoJo]

See also NIS (WRT healthcare rationing), overburdening the taxpayer, the insane EU rules governing everything from gasoline to what constitutes an actual croissant, etc.

Healthcare rationing by government run schemes tends to be a lot better than nothing at all when private schemes won't cover expensive treatment. Healthcare costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US.

People are happy to pay taxes when they get a lot in return, like good free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare.

The "insane" EU rules are not insane, they are very helpful. Most of them are not even new, for example the famous "straight bananas" rules which were actually just making existing rules in most European states an EU wide standard and didn't change anything for most people. Having the same rules everywhere means I can fill my car up on a trip to France or Germany without worrying that the petrol might not be up to standard or suitable for my car, or that the nozzle on the pump won't fit my tank.

Horribly sexist !

[Anonymous Coward]

>based on whether or not the games' portrayals of women are sexist.

Just for women ? That's really sexist !

Re:Horribly sexist !

[Penguinisto]

The notion that "portraying men as muscled killing machines" is a kind of sexism has not yet arrived in the mainstream.
Which tells you interesting things about our society.

Yeah - it basically means that male humans aren't generally hung up on that kind of 'OMG impossible body-image expectations for boys to reach!!111!' bullshit.

Re:Horribly sexist !

[ceoyoyo]

Are they? I recently read an article by a prominent feminist writer talking about the media and female body image. She included a throwaway sentence about this being the result of the "patriarchy" suppressing women. I then took a scroll through my Facebook feed, where every fourth item was an advertisement urging me to take some sort of drug to increase my muscle mass.

People are portrayed in degrading ways in modern media, but I'm not sure it's quite as one sided as generally presented. GTA had prostitutes, but it also had psychotic gangsters who were invariably male.

Re:Horribly sexist !

[XxtraLarGe]

Make a game with only female lead roles who are portrayed in a very positive manner and have all the men in the game be bumbling idiots who are constantly causing problems.

So basically, like most American sitcoms.

Whoa whoa whoa

[Tyr07]

Sexist is just for fucking women now? Fuck you. Avoid gender stereotypes? Fine, I'm okay if you want to label it, but what's good for the gander is good for the goose.

Take out sexism and gender stereo types for men too. If there is anyone in beefy 8 packs, with blowing everything up, that's unrealistic for men, so put a rating on it. We need to protect women and men from unrealistic views.

Here is what you're really doing and where my problem lies, it's not that you're trying to protect women from the games, you are trying to label men.

Oh, you buy sexist video games, you must be sexist. Yeah, better stop anyone from liking things you don't desire with social manipulation, sounds about right.
Equality - Men are no better than women, and vice versa, you know how many of my female friends gush over fabio, the lean body with tone and beautiful hair? It's not realistic, most men do not look that way.

But that's fine. However if men do the same thing, whooboy, sexist.

Re:Whoa whoa whoa

[Tyr07]

It depends in what respect, I've played video games my entire life, and I respect women, I believe any women can just as capable as any man, or just as incapable as any man.

What I don't like is that people are stepping into my video games now, continuing to try and tell me what content is appropriate for me to see in the games and change them to suit their agendas. I /like/ my games, I like their creativity, I love Starcraft 2, but I'm just waiting for someone who is jealous of the female protganist in SC2 the swarm, and start altering the creative art that goes into video games with their agendas, ruining my games.

Men are treated as disposable in games, as a previous poster pointed out 90% of the people who die in games are men, but women find that acceptable so it's not a big deal. Equality for fuck sake, get with it.

Re:Whoa whoa whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be disingenuous to suggest that sexism does not primarily impact women negatively.

The problem is that this statement is often used as an excuse to dismiss or deny any negative impacts upon men. Which kinda comes across as: "Sexism only hurts women, and if you say otherwise then you're a dirty misogynist!". That is to say, it stifles discussion which may lead to fair, equal solutions.

The thing about equality is that minorities matter. So, despite the belief that sexism primarily impacts women negatively, the impact on men must also be considered. After all, while when making rules we consider entire populations yet when applying them we are dealing with individuals. To be told that your situation is unimportant because you are only in the minority of victims is against the whole notion of equality.

Re:Whoa whoa whoa

[serviscope_minor]

What I don't like is that people are stepping into my video games now, continuing to try and tell me what content is appropriate for me to see in the games and change them to suit their agendas.

Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. The thig about free speech is the right to offend, and the people saying these things are apparently exercising their right to offend you. No one's forcing you to listen. No one's forcing you to buy from publishers who pay attention. And no one's stepping into your games at all. You already own a copy of your games. And the games that are being made now, they sure as hell aren't yours. These people are free to talk to game developers and the game developers are free to listen.

If you don't like it perhaps you should start a campaign to get games to be however you want them to be.

Men are treated as disposable in games, as a previous poster pointed out 90% of the people who die in games are men.

Campaigns are not mutually exclusive. Think the portrayal of men is sexist? Then start a campaing to end it. But don't attack a campaign to attack people who think the portrayal of women is sexist because (a) that's not the same thing and (b) you'll look silly so no one will listen to your message.

Re:Whoa whoa whoa

[fey000]

It would be disingenuous to suggest that sexism does not primarily impact women negatively.

In war? Men get killed in combat, women stay at home.
In crime? Women get lower sentences, in some cases skipping prison time entirely.
In trouble? Heard about support groups for women? I sure have. A man's support from society when in trouble can be summarized as "walk it off and man up".
In court? Women win custody cases by default.

I'm not suggesting that being a woman is all peaches and cream, but get some perspective please. Life isn't black and white, and the gender debate isn't either.

Re:Whoa whoa whoa

[iluvcapra]

What I don't like is that people are stepping into my video games now, continuing to try and tell me what content is appropriate for me to see in the games and change them to suit their agendas.

This is a consequence of believing that video games are Art. When people claim that video games are creative works, they're saying that people have control over what's in them and that they express things, and that the people who enjoy video games receive this expression. When we talk about video games, granting that they are creative artworks, we can no longer say that they are "merely fun" or just "make money" and don't "have to stand for anything."

People who do media crit "step into" music, TV, films, books and everything else and try to tell people what's "appropriate," because art is all about cultural authority, laying down a marker and saying "this is what we are, this is what we believe in, this is what the artist and the viewer value." I don't think I've heard anyone since the 1960s call for censorship of anything, and if people are allowed to make whatever they want, in whatever medium, anyone else is allowed to say it's crap and state their reasons. That's cultural discourse.

I think most of the "gamer" counterarguments in the whole GamerGate fiasco are sophistic BS, but the one that's particularly egregious is the claim that video games simply are made to "make money," and the only reason trope or gameplay element X is in a video game is because that's what the Market wants, or that's the "only way" it could work. If you say that, that means that video games aren't creative, they have no redeeming value, they just waste time.

I'm really sorry if gamer-types thought video games were supposed to be some kind of "safe space" where they didn't have to worry about politics, or redeeming value, or what other people think. Nobody gets the privilege of operating is such a world, the only people who get "safe spaces" are the ignorant.

Re:Whoa whoa whoa

[neoritter]

Telling you the game contains sexist attitudes is not telling you it's not appropriate.

Yes it is, in today's society sexism is inappropriate. Therefore, saying that game A is incredibly sexist is telling you that it is incredibly inappropriate.

It's about portraying women with degrading properties, when men are not.

You have not been paying attention to games or any other form of creative media. Every anti-hero in any game is a character given degrading properties. You have ignorant buffoon male characters in numerous games. Take the blinders off please. The only reason you don't recognize it when it comes up is because men can be given any quality and it not be considered some statement about men in real life (e.g. oh he's just a lazy alcoholic, not all men are alcoholics). But if it's a woman, then it somehow morphs into a statement about all women, instead of that one, individual character in the story. You can't have it both ways, if characters in games are a reflection of their labels in real life, then it applies to both sexes.

And while we're on the subject of degrading properties, this is irrelevant to the above point but. Most gamers who had played the older Metroid games, were annoyed to pissed that Samus was neutered to be a dependent know nothing in some of the recent Metroid games.

Re:Sexism = Sexy these days

[halivar]

It's not feminism anymore; it's puritanism. Another case: we landed a probe on a comet and all we can talk about is a fucking shirt.

Good, get that Ms. Pacman

[will_die]

Time to get that dot eatting trollop. Running around with none thing else but a pink bow tie, not even strategically placed.
Not to mention the various displays she allowed of herself on the arcade cabinet.

"Swedish Video Game."

[kamapuaa]

Well it's about time...the vast cultural influence of Swedish video games here in the United States has just been too much. My brother got hooked on "Lutefisk Avenger," like he just can't stop playing it. I thought it was a bad sign when he re-designed his kitchen to look more like an IKEA showroom. Then he put mayonnaise in a toothpaste tube! If he starts becoming a computer hacker who fights Nazis I am going to have to take away his Super Nintendo.

Re:Awesome :)

[DavidCBillen]

Can we work systemd into the discussion?

Re: What about the male stereotypes?

[sinij]

Yes, and everything that happens is fault of patriarchy. It must be nice to have a worldview where everything is so clear-case and explainable.

Don't you see that "males are at fault for male stereotypes" is a clear-case of victim blaming?

It's a stupid test

[DCFC]

Imagine that we believe that "two women talking about something other than men" was a good test, we'd therefore lose:

Colonel Samantha Carter, PhD Physicist, intergalactic heroine, smarter than God. Can program, fly fighter jets & alien spaceships, shoot and do things that they don't bother to explain because they are simply beyond us poor males to understand. So that's Stargate gone.

Lt Uhura: Dr Martin Luther King who *some people* see as quite into rights loudly praised her character, but I can't recall her talking to women much, except maybe some of the aliens might have been female, so that's Star Trek gone.

ST in it's various forms look remarkably feminist (usually) women commanded warships in ST long before the US Navy let them, they are engineers, scientists, doctors and of course inexplicable nexus of unknown forces.

Ripley from Alien, Aliens, Alien3, Return of the Alien, The Alien strikes back, Alien Resuscitation. Smart, hard, no bimbo, the Aliens are apparently female, she kills them, conversation with them is rare. The men are a) weak, b) stupid, c) dishonest, d) weak, stupid and dishonest

X-Files : Scully is smart and hardly ever talks to women.

Agents of SHIELD: Loads of women programming, analysing and occasionally shooting at people. The inter-female dialog is rare.

Babylon 5: Strong women, being heads of security, scientists, highly cultured aliens.

Torchwood : Strong female lead, again almost no inter-female dialog.

Under the Dome : The main character is a strong woman, all the weak bad people are men

Terminator 1,2,3, Sarah Connor : Oh look ! what a surprise a strong woman in a world of defective men

I've not yet seen Interstellar, but let me guess, the women in it are smart and honest and whoever is screwing things up is a man ?

I can't be the only person who's noticed that in many SciFi and action films a dumb American male is accompanied by a highly educated woman who actually understands what is going on, whilst he shoots at it.

Horribly sexist !

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to double standards. It's OK for women to be sexist. Nobody is going after entertainment women enjoy like fashion gossip magazines, and trashy novels where men physically and mentally abuse women.

Re:Sexism only cuts one way.

[rebelwarlock]

What's frightening about your comment is that it's hard to tell if you're joking or not.

Having seen what passes for sexism nowadays...

[russotto]

Since any portrayal whatsoever of women, or no portrayal at all, can be deemed "sexist", and that same portrayal or lack of portrayal can be deemed "not sexist", depending entirely on who made the game, it will be a very simple rating -- 100% sexist if made by a man or a woman who is not a third-wave feminist. 0% sexist if made by exclusively by third-wave feminists.

Sweeden

[donscarletti]

As far as I know, the Swedish game industry consists of DiCE (Battlefield series: faceless men with guns + bugs. Mirror's Edge: slightly poorly thought out controls + bugs), Arrowhead (faceless mages + bugs) and Coffee Stain Studios (goats + bugs). It seems like Swedish game developers have a huge struggle against writing code that actually does what it is supposed to, not in its representation of female characters. It has gotten to the point that until you see a Swedish game in the "bargain bin" at your games retailer that it is guaranteed that won't be patched to a playable state yet.

It seems that since King Gustavus Adolphus or whoever the hell it was convinced the vikings to stop going on voyages to rape remote villages and settle down to do "civilized" work that entire country has been writing code the way that IKIA builds furniture, by which I mean that it is good for the first ten iterations and then crashes hard thereafter. I have yet to play a Swedish game that has remained stable for long enough to degrade women before it runs out of memory, reads from/writes to a null pointer, totally screws up the render state or overwrites a vertex buffer with random garbage.

Seriously, look at your supposed "retard cousin" next door Finland, does Trine crash? Does Angry Birds crash? How about Crayon Physics, Super Stardust or Clash of Clans? No, they run beautifully and smoothly. And does anyone give a shit that the Theif in Trine covers her face and not her legs? No, not even Germaine Grier, Simone de Beauvoir or any of your feminist type authors would pick a deeply nuanced female character over one that actually runs for 10 minutes without crashing. I mean, how could you be a female role model while accessing a null pointer.

Seriously Sweden, you have to learn to code before you get all preachy on us all.

Government competence

[sjbe]

A private entity cannot enforce anything upon the populace...

Care to place a wager on that? Private enterprises force things on the public all the time. Sometimes with the blessing of government, sometimes without. Government can override a private enterprise but in the absence of government action private entities can largely do whatever they want. If they are powerful they can even influence government to do their bidding at times. See regulatory capture.

Government has a very limited range of things that they do as well or better than the public at large (war/defense, money, basic law enforcement, etc) - governmental action beyond that range invariably becomes incompetent, expensive, dangerous, or worse.

The range of things government does competently is a fair bit wider than most people give credit for. There is some truth in what you say but government is often the least worst way to do quite a lot of things. Health care, social safety nets, infrastructure, contracts enforcement, basic research funding, and more are often better handled by governments than private enterprise. Furthermore just because some people in the US have an apparently allergy against government doing anything doesn't mean they are correct in their assertion that government is always bad. Lots of countries utilize governments for much more than the US does (notably for health care) with great success. Doesn't mean we have to do it that way but just because we don't do something a certain way doesn't mean it cannot be done. I'm not overly trusting of government myself but I also don't axiomatically assume government to be incompetent.

Never give government more power than the worst-case scenario you would be willing to live under.

That I would agree with. The problem is that we may have an honest disagreement about what constitutes a worst case scenario. Ask a libertarian or a conservative or a democrat and you'll generally get rather different answers.

Re:Sexism = Sexy these days

[Penguinisto]

I actually went and asked a female physicist about it. Her response if she'd been at this lab when younger (older academics develop a very, very thick skin it seems) then yes she would have found it (a lab head with a shirt emblazoned with nearly naked women on it) very off putting probably to the point of not going there.

Anecdotes mean nothing, and here's why: My wife's favorite t-shirt has an almost-nude Bettie Page in full dominatrix gear, and she happily wore it to work when we first met (albeit she's not a physicist or in academia, but she does work in the tech realm.) The difference? She's completely secure in her self-image, and in her femininity - enough that she doesn't give a damn about what some guy wears.

...at making a group feel completely excluded.

What group - militant feministas who are so insecure in their self-image that they have to lash out at the planet? In all honesty, fuck them. I get the whole professional attire business, but I refuse to attenuate my life or attire out of fear that I might somehow offend the perpetually-offended.

If the group you refer to is simply 'women in general'? Sorry, but that group is way too damned diverse to be put into a container, and the dude's shirt wasn't pornographic, so what the hell?

Re: Sexism = Sexy these days

[Mr. Shotgun]

His friend that made the shirt tweeted about it soon after the controversy erupted:https://twitter.com/ellyprizeman/status/532927131098300416
Quite frankly I am pretty sure the guy did what every one else does when they get up in the morning to go to work, grab a shirt and some pants and go. He had more important things on his mind than a shirt like, I dunno, landing a probe on a comet.

Re:feminism

[denzacar]

This is people trying to do something productive about it.

No.
This is people trying to do something they BELIEVE will be favorable to their PERSONAL idea of a solution to their PERSONAL idea and PERCEPTION of a problem they PERCEIVE.

I.e. It is about as productive as me buying a large quantity of mice traps and positioning them at "strategic locations" around my home because I believe that my neighbor is spying on me with the help of trained mice. Which I know cause I've noticed that he does not particularly like cats.

An obsessive-compulsive action performed because "something has to be done" to fix a PERCEIVED aspect of a potential problem.
Which, even should the problem turn out to be real, is still a mere case of "ANY action is better than inaction".
Be it that my neighbor really is spying on me - or that Sweden has a clear and present problem of rampant sexism which requires warning labels on works of fiction, entertainment and art.

After all, "parental advisory" stickers on works of fiction, entertainment and art REALLY were necessary AND they have both reduced the exposure of youth to "inappropriate material" AND have either reduced or completely eliminated whatever it was that was poisoning the minds of the youth.
Which is clearly visible in the higher quality of humans born and raised since 1990.
They are simply better.