(November 15, 2015 at 11:23 pm)Homeless Nutter Wrote:(November 15, 2015 at 11:07 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Nothing. Just like there's no problem with game developers catering to their market as it stands. They follow the money, this is expected - it's called a "successful business model", not sexism, not patriarchy.
No argument there. However neglecting half of the population of the planet, when creating products - especially if it's motivated by the need to placate sexists - that's not necessarily a good business model. And death-threats and harassment are definitely not legitimate ways of influencing the market. Surely - if games, that don't cater exclusively to adolescent males are financial disasters - the industry will come off the idea soon enough. And if it turns out that they can push out few more units, when selling to women and men at the same time - then that will become the "successful business model" and #gamergaters will be asked to suck a d*ck, regardless of how much they cry about it.
You have to understand something here. For reasons that are beyond me, games have been more popular among boys since their inception. I don't know why, but why at this point doesn't matter. I'm going to focus on the game I'm most familiar with, eve online. Now eve is made out of Iceland, a country with a better track record for tolerance then the us. Also the game developer commonly hires women and one the games executive producer is a woman. Add to that the fact that the games marketing material doesn't pander to anything gender specific, but rather empathizes the open world game play. Also the lore and backstory to the game commonly features well written female protagonists. But despite all of that the overwhelming majority of players are male. Why is this? I have only suspicions but I think a bit of it had to do with the fact that it is SciFi, which despite many early SciFi writers trying to treat women as equals has a very male audience. I think another larger part is how many player alliances in eve develop toxic cultures. However these toxic cultures, while they will be openly sexist, they will also be openly toxic to nearly everyone in it except those that make it toxic. However the alliance I recruit for, while we have lots of good natured ribbing, has only had one instance that could be considered sexist, and it was dealt quickly and easily, and we the perp was understanding of his error and we haven't had issues since. Despite all of this we only have 2 women in an alliance of several hundred people. So that makes me think that the reasons why women don't game as much are not as simply as people like Anita sarkeeisian would have us believe
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
