What has come out of GamerGate more than anything else is that games developers and journalists need to stop listening to the loud voices of “social justice advocates”, and genuinely value diversity instead of, as “social justice advocates” prescribe, change. When criticising gaming culture and prescribing that “something needs to change” in said culture, they like to bring attention to the fact that almost half of gamers are now women. “Where are they all?” one is tempted to ask, to which SJAs reply that women are too afraid to reveal their gender in games for fear of sexism, and too afraid in real life to disclose their hobby because male gamers are, according to them, renowned for being pushy and come on to female gamers. And that if developers of series like Hitman, Soul Calibur and Call of Duty want to keep these female gamers on side they have to change the entire attitude towards women in these games - condescendingly, SJAs tell them they must make them less violent, or not to make women look sexy, or to not make it possible to kill women in these games, so as to “change the culture” and stop women from being put off. But is any of this really happening?
Most frequently cited is The Entertainment Software Association’s figures that women make up 45% of adult gamers. Are half the adult women you know going home to play Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines orMetal Gear Solid? The statistics here become somewhat more illuminating when one considers that everything is counted as a game, whether it’s Farmville, Candy Crush Saga, League of Legends, Guilty Gear or the Banner Saga. The majority of mobile phone gamers (games like Candy Crush Saga) and online social gamers (games like Farmville) are women. Nintendo also says it has a 50% female customer base, which seems likely it has Animal Crossing, 56% of whose players are women, and other games likePokemon which have a huge female fanbase. It’s likely too, that a high proportion players of dance and fitness games are women.
So where does that leave us? Pretty much where movies and TV are at the moment. A lot of women tend to like women-oriented films and a lot of men tend to like men-oriented films, and there has been a lot of backlash from SJAs to get women less objectified and featuring in stronger roles in sci-fi and action films and shows but yet there are no questions about why some movies and TV programmes have a very high proportion of female viewers, or suggestions that they add change Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to get more male viewers.
Most frequently cited is The Entertainment Software Association’s figures that women make up 45% of adult gamers. Are half the adult women you know going home to play Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines orMetal Gear Solid? The statistics here become somewhat more illuminating when one considers that everything is counted as a game, whether it’s Farmville, Candy Crush Saga, League of Legends, Guilty Gear or the Banner Saga. The majority of mobile phone gamers (games like Candy Crush Saga) and online social gamers (games like Farmville) are women. Nintendo also says it has a 50% female customer base, which seems likely it has Animal Crossing, 56% of whose players are women, and other games likePokemon which have a huge female fanbase. It’s likely too, that a high proportion players of dance and fitness games are women.
So where does that leave us? Pretty much where movies and TV are at the moment. A lot of women tend to like women-oriented films and a lot of men tend to like men-oriented films, and there has been a lot of backlash from SJAs to get women less objectified and featuring in stronger roles in sci-fi and action films and shows but yet there are no questions about why some movies and TV programmes have a very high proportion of female viewers, or suggestions that they add change Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to get more male viewers.
There is a really good post about why far more men contribute to Wikipedia than women and why this isn’t necessarily a “problem” which needs “fixing”, it’s that sometimes women and men have different taste in things. There are plenty of women interested in things that are seen to be more male-oriented and plenty of men who are interested in things that are seen to be female-oriented and this is cool, but that broadly speaking, men and women tend to have different interests. There are games like, as I mentioned before,Animal Crossing which attract more women and games which attract more men. What the games industry does not “need” is the watering down of games and TV shows etc to better please people who don’t play or watch them anyway, to attract more of the people they weren’t attracting beforehand. People who like the product will buy and enjoy it anyway, it doesn’t need “feminist pop culture critics” to come along and say it’s sexist. There are women like myself and millions and millions of others who already like games as they are.
I don’t personally like most FPSes (with the exception of Fallout 3 which is fairly light on the FPS aspects, and Bioshock) because I have poor hand eye coordination and find aiming difficult. That’s me personally though and I know many women who love to play and are skilled at FPSes whilst I know men who are in the same position as me, and of course there are a lot of people who don’t like violence in video games full stop. The great thing about the games industry is the wide variety that people can play. Why do “social justice advocates” point the finger at games that they personally don’t like, or that is played by a low number of women gamers compared to male gamers, and demand that it’s these games which need to change? There’s lots of variety in games, as “social justice advocates” like to point out, so why do they have to focus on games they see problems with and demand that developers change to suit their wishes, rather than go ahead and play games that they like?
With regards to the games industry, when women go into it, support them and treat them the same as their male colleagues. This means if there’s something that could be done better while it’s in the development process, tell her to change it or offer constructive criticism like you would a man working in the industry. This also means that if a woman releases a game that is literally by every conceivable measure the worst possible game ever, treat it exactly like you would a shitty game produced by a man - with the contempt it deserves. Not by applauding it because it was made by a woman, as this hurts women in the industry who are actually competent and got to where they are by merit. By trying to make working in the game industry untouchable with the whole #GamerGate debacle and slam any criticism of women’s work as “misogyny” SJAs are painting women as less able than men.
So what should we all do? What we shouldn’t do is attack an entire medium with videos of completely subjective “pop culture critiques” that take games out of context for which we aren’t necessarily the primary demographic anyway. It’s like criticising the movie industry for being “sexist” and only take into account films like Bad Boys II and then call every filmmaker and movie-goer sexist. It’s beyond stupid. Yes there will be sexist aspects in video games but the fact that with Anita Sarkeesian’s videos she had to go above and beyond even just playing a selection of games and “critiquing” them. She had to constantly move the goalposts with regards to what’s sexism, for example her double standards with regards to male and female characters, she had to take things out of context (like the strippers in Hitman who you’re not actually supposed to kill) and then after that add layer after layer of completely subjective “analysis” that the majority of women who enjoy these games disagree vehemently with in order to “prove” that “videogames are sexist”. The lengths she had to go to suggest that video games really, really aren’t, as a medium, as sexist as she, a non-gamer, set out to show.
Videogames are hugely diversifying and thus widening there appeal, as shown by the fact that nearly half of people who play video games are women now. Women have different tastes and habits to men in a lot of things and there’s no reason why this should be any different when it comes to games, and it’s a good thing that the medium is diversifying to the point that women are coming to video gaming in large numbers. “Social justice advocates” should be applauding this, not nitpicking and getting annoyed because a lot of women are choosing to play different games to men. It’s like complaining that the movie industry is shutting women out because more men went to see the Fast and the Furious at the cinema than women. Celebrate diversity and accept that some games are going to appeal to more men than women and vice versa. Trying to make all games appeal to all people is the most certain way to destroy video games.
I don’t personally like most FPSes (with the exception of Fallout 3 which is fairly light on the FPS aspects, and Bioshock) because I have poor hand eye coordination and find aiming difficult. That’s me personally though and I know many women who love to play and are skilled at FPSes whilst I know men who are in the same position as me, and of course there are a lot of people who don’t like violence in video games full stop. The great thing about the games industry is the wide variety that people can play. Why do “social justice advocates” point the finger at games that they personally don’t like, or that is played by a low number of women gamers compared to male gamers, and demand that it’s these games which need to change? There’s lots of variety in games, as “social justice advocates” like to point out, so why do they have to focus on games they see problems with and demand that developers change to suit their wishes, rather than go ahead and play games that they like?
With regards to the games industry, when women go into it, support them and treat them the same as their male colleagues. This means if there’s something that could be done better while it’s in the development process, tell her to change it or offer constructive criticism like you would a man working in the industry. This also means that if a woman releases a game that is literally by every conceivable measure the worst possible game ever, treat it exactly like you would a shitty game produced by a man - with the contempt it deserves. Not by applauding it because it was made by a woman, as this hurts women in the industry who are actually competent and got to where they are by merit. By trying to make working in the game industry untouchable with the whole #GamerGate debacle and slam any criticism of women’s work as “misogyny” SJAs are painting women as less able than men.
So what should we all do? What we shouldn’t do is attack an entire medium with videos of completely subjective “pop culture critiques” that take games out of context for which we aren’t necessarily the primary demographic anyway. It’s like criticising the movie industry for being “sexist” and only take into account films like Bad Boys II and then call every filmmaker and movie-goer sexist. It’s beyond stupid. Yes there will be sexist aspects in video games but the fact that with Anita Sarkeesian’s videos she had to go above and beyond even just playing a selection of games and “critiquing” them. She had to constantly move the goalposts with regards to what’s sexism, for example her double standards with regards to male and female characters, she had to take things out of context (like the strippers in Hitman who you’re not actually supposed to kill) and then after that add layer after layer of completely subjective “analysis” that the majority of women who enjoy these games disagree vehemently with in order to “prove” that “videogames are sexist”. The lengths she had to go to suggest that video games really, really aren’t, as a medium, as sexist as she, a non-gamer, set out to show.
Videogames are hugely diversifying and thus widening there appeal, as shown by the fact that nearly half of people who play video games are women now. Women have different tastes and habits to men in a lot of things and there’s no reason why this should be any different when it comes to games, and it’s a good thing that the medium is diversifying to the point that women are coming to video gaming in large numbers. “Social justice advocates” should be applauding this, not nitpicking and getting annoyed because a lot of women are choosing to play different games to men. It’s like complaining that the movie industry is shutting women out because more men went to see the Fast and the Furious at the cinema than women. Celebrate diversity and accept that some games are going to appeal to more men than women and vice versa. Trying to make all games appeal to all people is the most certain way to destroy video games.
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