Anita Sarkeesian: I Am Not A Gamer

[orphen20]

I'm glad I never watched Tropes vs Women and this one. Why should I care about it? I play games whatever I want regardless of quality.

 

[Hidden Masta]

I'm glad I never watched Tropes vs Women and this one. Why should I care about it? I play games whatever I want regardless of quality.

And I undermine women whenever I want regardless of their quality.

 

[Demi-Fiend]

This also means she lied to get 6,985 idiots to give her 158,922 dollars. What a bunch of rubes.

 

[FlashNeko]

It just seems selfish of her to squander it when her videos look like they cost less than $50 a piece to make

Actually, The Game Overthinker did the math on this project and all its costs.

His conclusion: "Yeah, that amount sounds about right and her original goal was actually RIDICULOUSLY small for a project like this."

He also has a really good video rant about how stupid a lot of this project's detractors are.

Of course she's not a gamer, people who enjoy games don't do the things she does.

Raise legitimate concerns about the treatment of their gender in the hopes that maybe enough people will start talking about it to demand something better?

Because all "gamers" are apparently mindless, consuming drones with no thought at all about what they're consuming? (I assume that isn't your intention to say that but that's how a statement like that comes off.)

 

[LaZerwolfX]

She still makes really good points regardless of if shes actually a gamer or not.
it also doesn't hurt that she's totally foxy.

 

[angelicnoir]

I don't always agree with Anita and some of her personal tweets. In the same breath, you don't have to be a gamer to notice gender inequality and have legitimate concerns about how the video game industry's misrepresentation of women and men.

It feels like it would fall under the same tone as, "because I don't have children, I cannot voice legitimate concerns when I notice signs of child abuse." Also, anyone who brings up legitimate concerns never deserves some of the disgusting "feedback" she received.

After displaying her legitimate concerns about female tropes in video games, she did create a really good hypothetical gaming concept that doesn't necessarily follow the common tropes of video game women; and hey, it's actually a game I would be down to play.

[hide][ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZKtFfHIGrA"]The Legend of the Last Princess[/ame][/hide]

I can respect that aspect of her work and in the same breath, be disappointed in her lack of self awareness as prominent figure in feminism and gaming. I seriously cringe at the way she present herself as someone who doesn't seem interested in even attempting a medium she's voicing about.

I don't think anyone can make true judgments on her personal motivations, but I think her concerns are legitimate, even if the way she presented herself was not.

 

[Fox-Chan]

Really, this all depends on what your definition of a "real" gamer is. Personally, I prefer to use the broadest definition. A person who simply enjoys playing games. I...really don't know if Anita Sarkeesian fits even that definition. Certainly, she seems to go out of her way to NOT enjoy a game. Even a game that, at the time of her complaint, hadn't even come out yet (The Wonderful 101.)

That being said, I think what bothers me the most about Sarkeesian aside from some oft dubious claims is that she and others of her ilk are not just critiquing the games. They are demanded that developers not portray the characters they create in a certain way. This, at least to me, comes off as an attempt to stifle free speech and creativity. It's not something I would ever want to support even though it may result in games that make me feel uncomfortable.

 

[Terthna]

Anita always struck me as a professional feminist first and foremost. I would not be surprised to hear that she only got into video games relatively recently, and mostly due to how she could apply feminism to it. I mean, the fact that she spent so much of the Kickstarter money on piles of video games for her to play and analyze, says to me that she probably didn't own that many games before she embarked on this project.

I think for her it's less "how can I make video games better for women", and more "how can I improve how women are treated, period". The fact that she chose video games as her topic of discussion seems secondary to her motive.

 

[Arkvoodle]

I am not a fan of her presentation. The videos are long-winded, boring and seem reluctant to back up material with fact.

That being said, the issues Sarkeesian mentions are very real and deserve more attention.

 

[angelicnoir]

Really, this all depends on what your definition of a "real" gamer is. Personally, I prefer to use the broadest definition. A person who simply enjoys playing games. I...really don't know if Anita Sarkeesian fits even that definition. Certainly, she seems to go out of her way to NOT enjoy a game. Even a game that, at the time of her complaint, hadn't even come out yet (The Wonderful 101.)

That being said, I think what bothers me the most about Sarkeesian aside from some oft dubious claims is that she and others of her ilk are not just critiquing the games. They are demanded that developers not portray the characters they create in a certain way. This, at least to me, comes off as an attempt to stifle free speech and creativity. It's not something I would ever want to support even though it may result in games that make me feel uncomfortable.

I don't think there's anything necessarily negative about asking developers to be more self aware about how they write women and create an image for women; it also goes for men. It would be nice to have a more diverse story told for men other than big, mean, and burly.

But I think the point is, it's easier to find complex diverse male characters in narrative (video game or otherwise) rather than female characters; and that is disconcerting.

So, rather than say it stifles creativity and free speech, I would think it would challenge and drive creativity and free speech, like "Give us something we haven't seen before" and/or "Give us diversity and representation of every type of narrative (male, female, transgender, queer, and so on)."

Anita always struck me as a professional feminist first and foremost. I would not be surprised to hear that she only got into video games relatively recently, and mostly due to how she could apply feminism to it. I mean, the fact that she spent so much of the Kickstarter money on piles of video games for her to play and analyze, says to me that she probably didn't own that many games before she embarked on this project.

I think for her it's less "how can I make video games better for women", and more "how can I improve how women are treated, period". The fact that she chose video games as her topic of discussion seems secondary to her motive.

I really feel this is the fairest assessment I've read about Anita thus far. Video games is just the medium she chose to discuss; kinda like a student randomly choosing a topic to apply a broader theory or point of view that need to be addressed.

I don't see anything particularly wrong with the fact she is doing it. The best I can do is really see if her concerns are legitimate and if she presents a fair assessment of the situation.