The enshitification of video games with microtransactions and other corporate garbage: I sleep
Women wearing slightly more clothes in video games: REAL SHIT?
Women wearing slightly more clothes in video games: REAL SHIT?
We always use the term "rent-free" here on Hexbear, but to this day I will not understand just how much Anita Sarkeesian, of all people on this earth, lives rent-free in Gamer heads.
I'd almost say good for her if it wasn't such a pathetic scenario
They never stopped, and at this point it's doubtful they ever will; they congregate, among other places, on /r/KotakuInAction. It's a sad sad place.
You know, I thought that KiA had been banned, for some reason. Very disappointed to learn that that's not the case 
The truth is far funnier. The original creator of KiA realized the monster he created and deleted it. Spez however decided that KiA was "valuable discussion" and undeleted it and assigned new mods.
All the semi-cool people I know that were part of gamergate back in the day eventually had a "fuck this, the left was right" moment (me included.). What's left are the CHUDs enjoying their throne as "internet cool kids" despite the fact they would be nothing without the otherwise progressive "anti-SJWs" who probably just thought revenge is a poor reason to be prejudiced.
I admit some responsibility as well for being duped like that and falling for a classic case of COINTELPRO.
Yeah my friend who tried to get me on the Gamergate train for ethics reasons is a well meaning Bernie-liberal trans girl. Like, even the shit she was saying about Zoe was both inaccurate and not even a serious problem if it was true. And she NEVER realized that. But what she did realize was that Gamergate had "become" (it was always, but I'll take what I can get) a harassment movement and she got out of it.
But what she did realize was that Gamergate had "become" (it was always, but I'll take what I can get) a harassment movement and she got out of it.
I am ashamed to say I was a lurker at 4ch!n when "5 Guys" started and the old site's "we are not your private army" mantra was thrown away because Eron Gjoni wanted a private army to harass and torment his ex (Zoe Quinn).
It was always a harassment campaign. Even the lies about it were deliberate all along.
Yeah I was very disappointed in her that she didn't realize that. And while its been awhile since we've spoken, pretty sure she never did. Like many she'd probably still say to this day that the cause was corrupted. Even though the thing that got her on board was Eron's letter. She just somehow thought Eron's letter was a righteous callout of unethical activities.
Yeah, this is accurate. There was always left-wing critiques of games journalism going on (or industry journalism in general), but when the whole GG thing started, those arguments were only ever used in bad faith to excuse absolutely atrocious behavior, and not ever go after the people actually committing the real journalistic fraud i.e. regular-ass games journalism.
I saw my friend who got into surface level GG stuff become a GNC Marxist-Leninist so this tracks.
Aside, I swear it’s like talking to an ancient unfrozen caveman when one of the GG holdouts uses “SJW”. It feels like such a relic term
Most sane people realize that most modern AAA games suck because of companies that insist on microtransactions, dlcs, season passes, always online service, all that garbage that ruins something that should be fun and interesting. And adding women, poc or whatever they say it's "woke" doesn't do any harm to a video game. Also, there have been games with that content long before the 2010's, gamers are just dumb af.
Lol this will always be funny because she's doing exactly what "Gamers" wanted, which is treating video games like an actual art form (it is imo) and critiquing it like any other art. And then they lose their minds because they have exactly 2 braincells
Exactly. Gamers conflate having something be an "art form" with "you're not allowed to make fun of my hobbies".
I remember this one time in a literature review class, we were critiquing this one work (I can't remember what it was, sadly), and this one guy was clearly new to higher-level English and Lit classes. So he puts his hand up after about 20 minutes of discussion and goes, "I don't get it. Are we, like, making fun of the book? I don't understand."
It was just funny to me that someone who had never experienced literature discussion before genuinely thought the professor was mocking the book for a laugh, and that's it. I don't blame the guy at all, he wasn't a chud and was actually eager to learn. It just goes to show that there are so many people out there that fundamentally do not understand art or discussion. Especially, capital-G Gamers will throw a massive fit whenever someone attempts to publically move gaming past "consume product".
I failed college English 101 bc I failed to understand that I wasn't supposed to write some sort of deductive proof based on the work. My TA was also bad at telling me this; I think bc they failed to understand how my approach wasn't the typical one.
she's doing exactly what "Gamers" wanted
What gamers wanted was for a conga line of NYT Op-Ed writers to treat E3 like the Met Gala and shamelessly fawn over their own fan-list of creepy online weirdos like they're Manhattan royalty.
They didn't want games treated like art. They wanted their niche hobby to be drooled over like a collection of Fabergé eggs.
And then they lose their minds because they have exactly 2 braincells
I grew up on a lot of gaming pundits, back in the 90s/00s, who bemoaned the wretched state of the industry and attributed that to many of the shortfalls and self-sabotage that ruined the industry. Critics like Lum the Mad (Scott Jennings) and Mr. Destructoid (Yanier Gonzalez) and the Penny Arcade folks were all in or adjacent to the industry and were mostly speaking out as enthusiastic-but-jaded fans.
But there's not a ton of money in honest game criticism or shameless QA horror stories. So they either faded away or sold out.
Sarkassian was in this tradition for a minute, and garnered a pretty active following as a consequence. But because she was an EW GIRL and because her criticism was feminist rather than merely technical, she became a victim of her own success.
These people aren't stupid. They're very canny with their delivers. They just recognize that going ham on the industry itself isn't where the money is at. You can both get a large audience AND avoid pissing off the advertising money by playing inside baseball and screeching at THE GIRL ad nauseum. And as The Algorithm rewards homogeneity and length, you end up with these increasingly absurd "Look What ANNA SARKASSIAN did THIS TIME!" four hour long rants. This shit will end up sounding stupid because there's nothing left to be said that isn't pure fabrication or long-winded rehashing of the original afront.
But they do get people exposure, which gets them money, which allows them to climb the ladder into more prestigious positions.
Which is all any of these losers really want.
How did she destroy video games, she made a couple semi-decent videos making very basic critiques.
They think she's single-handedly responsible for making game devs put women in video games, as if they hadn't been doing that on their own since fukken Metroid.
If CHUDs were right (and they're never right), then they really only have themselves to blame because they dogpiled on someone thinking it will be an easy culture war win after getting overconfident with dunks on tumblr. All they did was give Sarkeesian a bunch of free press and some game developing studios actually listened. Because get this, artists tend to be the "weirdos" CHUDs hate on so much.
CHUDs hate free speech, and REALLY hate artistic freedom.
CHUDs hate free speech, and REALLY hate artistic freedom.
These people don't even like video games, they play the usual FPS/Sports garbage that gets release every year. And think that gives them right to go into other games fanbase and have a meltdown because the new game have something "woke".
The craziest thing is her critique wasn't even "get rid of sexy bimbo dressed female characters" but "ever noticed how it's only the female character dressed in sexualized way".
She never demanded what they claim she did. She just highlighted some objective truths about where game design had ended up. Most of them didn't even notice that the solution a lot of game developers went with was add a himbo'd out male character for every bimbo'd out female character because that lets you maximize the audience you can appeal to.
It reminds me of how around the same time a lot of game industry executives couldn't understand why their female employees were commenting about the booth girls or female pole dancers at company events. Most of the time they were completely unnecessary for whatever the event theme was. Also doesn't take a genius to realize that if the theme of an event calls for some dancers, maybe hire both male and female dancers so everyone gets some eye candy?
Also doesn't take a genius to realize that if the theme of an event calls for some dancers, maybe hire both male and female dancers so everyone gets some eye candy
also no work event calls for strippers I don't want my boss in any way interacting with my sexuality and no one should be expected to have to experience something sexual they don't want to as a condition of their employment or to get ahead in the company
in fact and hear me out here on every occassion you were going to hire strippers hire clowns. Clowns are a style of humour designed for adults originally based around transgression of rules and mockery of established ways of doing things therefore would do great in an office setting
they pretty much created her by being big mad about her before she made any of the videos too.
The year is 2030, I'm in my emperor DeSantis re-education camp and one of the shows I am mandated to watch is called "Avatar but based".
It's just the fire nation play all over again but this time Ozai has bigger muscles and Aang will always have a scraggly pube-like beard.
You know, I will say, one of the only "[obviously evil bad guy] was right" for a popular media I've never actually seen is "Ozai was right". Its weird because you'd think fash would be kind of into him. But he's not the most charismatic villain and has minimal screen time so maybe thats why. Also maybe it exists and I just haven't seen it.
If there's one thing that confuses me, is that CHUDs haven't identified with Ozai, Frieza, or Palpatine IIRC. They would probably be more interested in identifying with Azula, but she's a woman so can't identify with that. Kylo Ren I noticed they identified with a little bit, but not enough to catch on.
But if there's one character I am surprised CHUDs haven't claimed as /theirguy/ yet, is James Bond. He's part of the British CIA with a license to kill and he's a chaotic neutral defender of the west that fucks like a rabbit. He's identical to how CHUDs see themselves.
The only fictional character I see chuds claim is like an amalgam of Ryan Gosling's characters from Drive and Blade Runner. Which really makes no sense, because one of those is a criminal getaway driver who ends up helping a Latino gangster's wife and kid. And the other is a bounty hunting android who, through various circumstances, betrays his corporation and police force because he begins to identify with the very underclass of androids he previously hunted down. Chuds are pure aesthetics. They just want to be some hot lonely guy with a cool jacket.
Ozai and Freiza yeah, though Freiza might be a bit too queer-coded for them? But for Palps they do identify with the Empire in a general sense so thats a thing. Azula yeah I think its because she's a girl, and also like, I dont know a single queer leftist ATLA fan who doesn't kind of love Azula. Kylo is funny because he's meant to be a bit of a parody of CHUD manchildren, so them owning that is funny. And as for Bond, I mean, they are mad at he mere possibility of Daniel Craig being replaced by a black guy or a woman so they do have some attachment to him.
Eh, they weren't that good. The critiques were very basic, but they were also very shallow and based in inaccurate claims - she could have done a great breakdown of the sexism in the princess peach games and how they contrast to the mario games, talked how long it took to get a single princess peach game and how few there still are in comparison, but instead she said there aren't any at all. Capital G gamers would have been infuriated anyway, but her inaccuracies gave them ammo to dismiss the entire critique with.
Arguably though, her videos did kinda destroy the chud idea of videogames as reactionary power fantasies, and saw a lot of introspection* from the industry and a move away from many of the themes she raised. The absolute explosion of rage they incited brought the discussion to the forefront of video game culture and forced developers to make conscious decisions about including or excluding them. AAA games pretty much completely ignore the idea of the docile damsel in distress now, even when they're, like, Hogwarts legacy or some complete shite.
*Realising being sexist was going to stop making them as much money
Who is this and what was the video?
Looks like it's Anita Sarkeesian, wasn't able to find the video though
Yep, it's her. Looks like this is the video (haven't watched it). It's from 10 damn years ago.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Could it be the capitalist race to the bottom in the name of infinitely increasing shareholder value that is destroying every single entertainment industry?
No it must be women. Yes surely that's it.
amazing one woman with a youtube channel just changed an entire industry somehow
4chan reactionaries think the world works on literal magic. If someone has enough meme energy or whatever, reality morphs to fit their desires. It's why they think they elected Trump instead of machinations of capital and the electoral college.
It's a myopic mindset that can only exist because they're socially isolated maladroit weirdos (but not like us, we're cool about it)
4chan reactionaries think the world works on literal magic.
The most deeply invested ones really do believe in what they call "meme magic" and the "praise Kek" thing is only le ironic until they're around their fellow The Secret But For Nazis adherents.
It's actually longer, since the kickstarter for Tropes vs Women in Games was mid 2012 and that was where the backlash started.
Yes, terminally online hogs have been doing a ten year long victory dance about their culture war victory.
Gamergate was the civil rights movement for white people.
there are literally only two feminists on earth today and they are anita sarkeesian and that one angry girl with the red hair from all those chud memes
Y'all listen to the Deprogram ep about Patreon's upcoming enshitification? Looks like they're looking for a way to milk the whales and don't think the stretch goals are the answer. Get ready for an online Patreon store!
Always rub in their pathetic faces that for all their crying about games sucking and hitting the point of no return, they'll continue to buy and consume $current_year slop like every other g*mers.
Modern Online Game Pundit be like: "Gaming has been ruined! Women! Minorities! Bechtel Test! Woke Marxism! I can't even kill anyone anymore!"
2023's Game of the Year (BG3) Most Popular Streamers: "Y'all, strap in we're doing the No Kill, No Gold Speed Run with Best Girl Karlach and before you ask - yes - we fuck the bear!" Patreon explodes as crowds cheer in background
This guy screaming at the camera, only to go right back into playing Starfield, really put into visuals how cucked the right wing gamer chuds are.
Women wearing slightly more clothes in video games:
Some thoughts.
in reality, that wasn't done to appease feminists as a political force, but as a consumer base. reactionaries always confuse the commodification of leftist ideas with leftist hegemony. They think capitalists trying to make money from non-reactionary consumers is the same as the left controlling society itself.
The kinds of things Sarkeesian criticized were barely changed, and to the extent that they were, the fanbase reacted twice as rabidly. For every triangle of cleavage that was covered up on a character in the official release, horny modders (sometimes secretly developers working with assets they took home from work) made 3 different fully nude models.
the gamers who believe so deeply in capitalism and "voting with your dollar" will openly complain about the "wokification" of games they pirated, and then wonder why the capitalists are catering to the demographics that are still buying it instead.
And do they not realize that artists generally have a bit more freedom in their craft than most other businesses?
Why do you think porky didn't give that much of a shit when the Haye's code was repealed despite benefiting from the idea of conformity = good? Because they generally let their artists have leeway.
Hell, where are THEIR art successes? The Haye's Code being abolished was a net positive for art. Charlie Hebdo would destroy Stonetoss and Wyatt Mann combined, Stan Kelly is objectively funnier than the guy he's trying to parody. No really, I want to see from them how a game is properly done, might as well learn from the standing authority themselves.
Furthermore, I remember around the beginning of the gamergate stuff, a common refrain from chuds was that if SJWs want games with more normal portrayals of women, SJWs should make their own games
Well we're currently in kind of a golden era of indie games. There have never been as many independent creators than now, and that seems to have simultaneously led to a slight increase in diversity among video game devs at big studios. Since more people are making games now.
It's a simple numbers thing too since games are far more complex now. Atari 2600 games were frequently made by a single programmer. The first Doom game had a dev team of something like 8 people. Red Dead Redemption 2 had a team of 1,600. At a certain point there will simply be more women, more gay people, more than just cis white dude bros working on your game if the complexity requires more people. And that's invariably going to lead to more diverse perspectives represented in the final product. Chuds want to ignore that and want cis white heteronormativity to be so powerful it overrides the very people designing the games.
Gatekeep? You're the morons who called us losers in high school and then all came pouring in for Call of Duty.
Go back to NASCAR and sportsball, normies. Quit gentrifying my hobbies.
I contend that there's a hellish hybrid of old jock and nerd demographics that fused together around the time the original XBOX and Halo came out, abandoning the sportsmanship and pretenses of traditional conduct of jocks and the old ideals of inclusiveness and tolerance-to-a-fault of nerds.
We are now facing "bros." 
Thank fuck for furries though, they are radically inclusive and make that the forefront of the fandom which is perfect for preventing the hobby from being gentrified.
The normalized and near-universal hatred of furries from , weebs, and other "socially acceptable" basic internet people in some ways tempered the demographic against most chud intrusions.
Most.
There's some fucked up corners of it (nazi furs are a thing) but they're mostly kept at bay, so I hear (kicked out of conventions).
all the nerds and jocks bonded long ago, over fantasy football, arguing on the internet, and videos game
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Trump was supposed to make anime real and put Anita behind bars and he never did, no wonder why he lost.
A lot of the grifting that Star Citizen gets away with involves reactionary G!merGaters that believe the grift is a bastion of wholesome traditional G!mer values. They circlejerk about that belief a lot on their own official forum. Like, they got really excited that a feeeemale in the Squadron MemeNumber demo was beaten up and held captive by pirates "without wokeness" and weird shit like that. 
They really need to improve their writing on these woe-is-us doomposts.
Anyways, apparently a single Anita Sarkeesian was powerful enough to destroy video games forever. If only, lmao
I forgot the actual quote, but I remember basically reading from What's The Matter with Kansas (Thomas Frank is a good gateway voice for the libs in your lives) that half the strategy that Rupert Murdoch uses is to keep letting the right constantly think they're losing, even when they're winning. In short, never give them a moment's rest to have something to complain about, no matter how small.
EDIT: Not 100% the quote, but I found this
"Anyway, Frank coins a term he calls the plen-T-plaint. Unlike complaints, the plen-T-plaint is a gripe that has no fundamental basis, although it certainly has a target. There are all kinds of plen-T-plaints, usually seen in terms of political correctness. A child sues his school district because he was assigned homework for the summer. A woman cries sexual harassment because she is complimented on the color of her sweater. An artist dunks a picture of Jesus in a jar of urine and wants public funding for doing so. As you can no doubt see, these gripes have one thing in common: They’re all examples of liberal outrages. The point of the plen-T-plaint is not to engender discussion, but to get voters riled up and, hopefully, voting Republican.
Are there bona-fide examples of liberal silliness? Unquestionably. However, this silliness is presented not as ludicrous and ignorable, but as a pernicious example of the corrupting influence of liberal philosophy on American society. Liberals have very little influence over the national government, which is solidly controlled by Republicans, and yet to listen to Bill O’Reilly you’d think the US was under the iron Birkenstock of the Berkeley crowd. It’s dishonest and distracting, but it’s a great way to reap a harvest of votes for Republican candidates, isn’t it?
Let’s be honest about these outrages. They mean little, harm almost no one, and affect nothing. However, conservative outrages, which do more harm, receive no attention from the Anne Coulter set. Want to write anti-gay discrimination into the nation’s founding document? Sure! Want to ban the teaching of a scientific theory accepted by every reputable scientist everywhere in the world? No problem! Want to give taxpayer dollars to religious organizations to fund jobs from which many of the taxpayers will be banned? Sign me up! Personally, I find these little crusades much more disturbing than the occasional frivolous lawsuit or a baseless accusation of sexual harassment.
I tend to have a pretty solid faith in humanity, but the plen-T-plaint, and the way it has resonated in modern times, has given that faith a nice solid shake. "
Unrelated but "enshitification" is my latest least favorite word, it's just commodification repackaged to be less frightening to liberals which is inherently anti-intellectual.
I think doctorow laid out the idea pretty well, but soon it's gonna mean "my treats have gotten worse"
No, it isn't? Iunno mate directly tying frustrations people have to a particular pattern seems politically useful. Sorry it isn't in a hundred year old book lol.
Just in general I get the feeling this "lib" as a slur thing gets used to try to make ourselves feel superior to others and pretend a tiny vanguard of posters is going to do anything with like zero connection to the outside world. The enshitification concept has been really useful for explaining why the frustrations people I know are connected to my politics. If I find myself upset that people are concluding capitalism makes things worse I will.know it is time to log off.
Not because its less scary, because its easier to viscerally understand. Making the same point in a way that makes sense to people who haven't read theory isn't a bad thing. Most people when they see a word they don't know don't look it up, they just shut down and move on. Anyone can understand what enshittificaiton means. (Also I disagree that its synonymous with commodification anyway?)
And sure, I'm on hexbear not twitter, but I still don't see the problem.
being 
