I dunno. I find the interviewer's complaint to be nearly as comical as the attire.

So I see a splash screen or a game box with some ridiculously physically sexualized woman character; I mean, obviously overdone. Same with the males, frankly. And then we get into the game itself and find that the character, within the game, is very small and it's simply another unit on screen with some unique effects within the game.

Been playing games a long time and I don't ever recall the inner dialogue that goes, "Oooo, gonna have my hot sexy mage smite those goblins. Yeah!" <pew pew crunch!> "Oh, she did that so sexily! Hey, another enemy group over there. I better get my hot sexy mage headed that way so she can deal with them in a hot sexy manner with her hot sexy spells." No, you select the unit, give it a target, and start bashing heads. When you win - hopefully you win - you might see a cutscene with some dialogue and a bit of leg and cleavage. And beefcake. 10-20 seconds. Then you go back to bashing heads with those small characters for another hour or so.

If male superheroes were drawn like female superheroes:

... why is Hulk trying out for GOATSE?

Saw this before, don't really understand it. Do they think male superheroes aren't used as sex symbols? E.G., saw the Thor movies in theaters, he had his shirt off for a while and there was a bunch of high-pitched ooohs and ahhhhs. Or Clooney as Batman, now Affleck...

and isn't the Black widow already a female?

Hulk looks like needs to find a toilet before it's too late.

Yeah, people tend to not get that, just because men are displayed differently, it doesn't make them any less of a sex symbol. Is it fair then, that it would be acceptable for women to get their "kicks" and men would not be allowed to get theirs? Muscle flexing and bare-chested shots is as much pandering towards women as a cleavage shot is towards men, that's the truth of it.

Also, does RPS not realise that a massive amount of girls play DOTA and other similar games and I've yet to hear ONE complaint about that? In fact, it's quite the opposite - I've have quite a few out-spoken female friends who will quickly defend their gender when the need rises yet they see no beef in sexy characters and even enjoy playing them.

In fact, I often link a RPS article to said friends if it involves sexism and they always find it laughable to see all the white knighting and how ridiculously pointless it all is. As has been said before in this topic, the problem lies with society, not game developers and they pretty much universally agree with this: there's NO point in going after a twig when the roots of the tree are the problem and they also say that games at least tend to make women look relatively healthy-looking compared to the fashion industry which is a far more destructive role model. Now, I'd believe them far more than the twits over at RPS (especially Walker who really couldn't find his own ass in the dark).

This is gold.
"I don't want black people in my perfect world, it's enough that I run into them in reality!"

Why are people so sensitive? RPS doesn't come off as outraged and aggressive as some of the people in this thread. If you don't like RPS, then don't visit the site. No need to go on a Crusade here.

I think it's funny how outraged that gamers get about ANY discussion of sex and gender in video games, to the point where they feel the need to create a flash game called Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian, which kind of proves the whole misogyny thing true, y'know? If gamers can't discuss these sort of things without getting all emotional, it makes me wonder why. You don't see this same outrage when people analyse music, film, literature...

It is the responsibility of gaming media to discuss gaming. Discussing social aspects of gaming is still discussing gaming.

To silence discussion and criticism: do you know that is? It's called censorship.

I personally have no problem with people discussing any aspect of gaming. I remember a quote by Tim Cain about two of favourite games, "There is more of me in Fallout and Arcanum than in any other game I made".

Games are a reflection of the designers, the people who play them, and of the wider society too. People express themselves by making games and by playing games. So I think gaming is much more than just mere entertainment, and that's part of what makes gaming so great.

I love it when people discuss this sort of stuff in gaming, because I love gaming. And I think it's sad so many gamers don't want these discussions.

Hold on, I've figured this one out already: when women are attractive in fiction, it's for the benefit of lecherous men. When men are attractive in fiction, it's for the benefit of men who want to identify with them, "feel empowered"; you know - "power fantasy". These two phenomena, obviously, do not work the other way around.

What do you mean "why"? They just don't. Why would you think otherwise?

I'm pretty sure it's because they are too busy enjoying the game instead of looking for things to get outraged about.

There's only one explanation - these poor girls got brainwashed into thinking that this is OK! The patriarchy got to them before the forces of good could...
Alternatively - you could argue that SOME girls are NOT playing MOBA games. The reason? I think it's fairly obvious - inhumane depiction of female champions.

Yes, but not in the way you're thinking. You are the one being sexist, because you can't see past her being a woman in this scenario.
Then again - this is why when you want to beat someone up in tolerant countries, you'd be wise to find a white heterosexual guy... preferably - an atheist. Otherwise you'd never be able to convince people that your act of violence wasn't motivated by some sort of minority-hating...

By the way, this is my male power fantasy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDzIS26aDK8

I don't like huge chested waxed He-men for some reason. I think I need to start thinking about some catchy transparent slogan for my next "misandry in media" protest.

By the way, I figured out that lately if you design a female character in media with any negative traits, like for example, being stupid, it's automatically sexist. Because women can't be stupid. Because today you can't make a commercial when a silly women gets schooled by a man, ad men incapable of thinking anything creative, just switched roles.

In one of the links someone posted, RPS was whining about a commercial when women got electrocuted because they couldn't plug in guitar hero or sometihng. And that's somehow sexist. But I've seen like gazillion commercials when a man got punched, electrocuted, slapped, tackled and that's not only considered NOT sexist, but also it's considered funny.

Violence against men is considered funny (especially kick in the balls) and acceptable. I remember some white knight in radio whining that it's scary that in newest COD or Battlefield there are female soldier models and you can kill women in multiplayer. What was even more funny, there were 3 women with him on the radio, and every single one of them told him it's obviously ok to kill a woman in video game and they don't see anything wrong with that.

White knight had to return home with no score after that broadcast. :-(

http://memestorage.com/_nw/18/37868967.jpg

Actually, that's basically what those people want. They want to censor any games they feel represent female characters in a "sexist" way. Not official censorship, but they do want to use the media to put pressure on designers to self-censor their games in such a way that they conform to their feminist/leftist ideology, which is pretty much the same thing as censorship.

You really think those people want to "discuss" issues? They have already made up their minds and they won't be changed. Their is no ~discussion~, it's just a bunch of ideological extremists trying to bully, threaten, harass, humiliate and pressure designers into changing the design of their games.

They're a bunch of crazies and the only winning move is just to ignore them.