Posted on 09/22/2014 at 07:18 AM
| Filed Under Blogs
I agree wholeheartedly, Ben. Part of what annoyed me when this whole thing kicked off last year, was that the games media seemed to be largely targeting niche Japanese games (see: Dragon's Crown, Killer is Dead, etc). Ignoring the fact that there's a cultural divide there, why was the scrutiny never directed at popular western games? God of War literally objectifies women by making them just a means of titillating the player and filling up Kratos' life via sex (not that I personally have a problem with this).
Perhaps a bit of a conspiracy theory, but the games media seemed to be turning on Japanese games for years, and the whole misogyny thread was their latest way to attack the already shrinking output of Japan. Western RPGs? Better than the grindfest, creatively bankrupt JRPGs we grew up with. Action games? We'd rather slam one button over and over as Kratos than master the complexity of the attack system in God Hand.
Ignoring all of the stuff that I've come to hate about games journalism after being inside of it for 7 years now, the entire push for essentially censoring things we're uncomfortable with is an effort I won't stand for. I'm ok with people not appreciating the art and criticizing it, but I certainly hope that the games media stops making a concerted effort to make it disappear.
Also worth mentioning, women can find these more sexualized representations of women attractive too. Sometimes I get the impression that the games media forgets that many people find a beautiful woman attractive, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. If it weren't the case, nearly everything out there wouldn't be advertised to us with attractive women.
I'm all about true feminism (textbook definition: the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.), but I won't stand for the warped sense of social justice that they try to pass for feminism at many of these gaming outlets. Maybe instead of constantly trying to think for all the women out there, these predominantly white male journalists should ASK women what they think and try to understand what they really want out of this medium and what THEY perceive to be problematic, rather than assume these things, ultimately robbing women of their voice on the issue.
If nothing else, I hope Gamer Gate is exposing just how nasty many of these prominent industry writers are and how much of an old boys club game journalism is. I've seen and experienced all of it first hand, which is why I've distanced myself from it all for years now. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started writing for Nintendo World Report 7 years ago.
