Let's Talk Video Games

Don’t Forget To Smell The Polygons

Yet another friendly reminder, courtesy of pk dub: forget that pause button and instead full-on stop dead in your tracks in whatever game, to simply enjoy the moment.

10 indies I’m really looking forward to playing:

Coming Out Simulator 2014 - a half-true game about half-truths

Coming Out Simulator is exactly what it says it is. It’s a free-to-play conversation simulator based on/inspired by the personal story of coming out of its creator, Nicky Case.

There’s no easy answer in Coming Out Simulator, no optimal ending to be achieved if you collect the requisite amount of points. Case based the game off a pivotal moment in his own life as a teenager. And just like in real life, the moment of “coming out” in this game is traumatic no matter which way the player chooses to approach it.

Ultimately, it’s liberating as well. But that’s not what the brunt of the experience playing Coming Out Simulator is actually like. […] There’s power in exploring a fantasy like the one in Mass Effect 3, but there’s also power in being reminded that “coming out” the way one does in that game is a fantasy, and a pretty far-fetched one for many people who faced far more difficult challenges when they actually came out.

In today’s community choice gamers are given the option to vote for two categories: hardcore platformers with pixel graphics and story rich games with female protagonists. Only two of those games in the later category actually have female protagonists.

Why don’t Mass Effect and Dragon Age count? Surely you can customize your character and be female if you wish! That freedom in customization is nice, but those stories aren’t written for a female protagonist. At their best, these games are gender neutral. At their worst, the stories are gendered male with female pronouns cut and pasted in.

I cannot speak to Mass Effect, I’ve never played that particular game, but I have played Dragon Age. Regardless of the gender you choose to play, the story isn’t affected. Certainly some of the dialog changes, but your gender holds no influence over the plot. If your character is female you can marry Alistair and become queen of Ferelden. Likewise you can marry Anora to become king. But in the grand scheme of things the Warden’s gender doesn’t matter.

I don’t want to get into what’s considered canon, because that’s beside the point. My main beef is that you can’t claim a game has a female protagonist when it isn’t written for one. It’s false advertising and a cheap marketing ploy. I’m not advocating the idea that there is a single “correct” female experience that writers must reflect in their stories. It doesn’t mean you write a “strong female character”, throw in some fanservice for the ladies, or add little sexual violence for good measure.

In this episode we explore the Women as Background Decoration trope which is the subset of largely insignificant non-playable female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds. These sexually objectified female bodies are designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players. Sometimes they’re created to be glorified furniture but they are frequently programmed as minimally interactive sex objects to be used and abused.

HOW THE RISE OF ANIMAL SIMULATORS IS MAKING THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD FUN

THE SUPREMELY CONFIDENT SONGS OF TRANSISTOR

If I choose to point out sexism in gaming, my observations will not be seen as self-serving, and will therefore be perceived as more credible and worthy of respect than those of my female counterparts, even if they are saying the exact same thing.

Because it was created by a straight white male, this checklist will likely be taken more seriously than if it had been written by virtually any female gamer.

A lot of people who have been involved with social justice and/or Tumblr for a while will already be on board with the idea that it’s really important to share the voices of those affected by oppression and demand that they be heard, rather than spreading the voices of privilege, who then (consciously or unconsciously) try and dominate the conversation, because they are used to being heard.

Women (both trans and cis, and genderqueer and anyone who identifies as a woman in some form) have said all this and more before. And I was inclined to move on by without reblogging as a result. But I think those last two points are so important. They are the points that mark this out as someone who is engaging in the effort to deconstruct his privilege with sincere effort.

Because they concede that they are saying something that has been said by other people before. They tell you that if you’re listening to him instead, you should have been listening to the women first.

VIDEOGAMES ENTER THE POST-WASD ERA