The mechanic that you need to clear an area before proceeding is a common one and doesn't become sexist just because a woman is the one opening up the next section

Having supporting characters open up areas is meant to limit the player and having them giving the character tools is meant to reward the player; both of which again doesn't become sexist just because a woman is doing it

You're not really explaining why, though. You're just saying that it's not sexist. You're not demonstrating how it isn't.

The game congraluting you for completing a section isn't sexist just because a woman does it

You're really good at missing her point.

She later brings up that, as often as female supporting characters tend to verbally coddle the player for doing a good job, the male protagonist rarely if ever returns the favor. That would be too organic and sensible.

You're not really explaining why, though. You're just saying that it's not sexist. You're not demonstrating how it isn't.

It's not inherently sexist and Sarkeesian doesn't do a good job explaining why it is

You're really good at missing her point.

She later brings up that, as often as female supporting characters tend to verbally coddle the player for doing a good job, the male protagonist rarely if ever returns the favor. That would be too organic and sensible.

It's not a valid point
Many games congratulate the player after an achievement regardless of gender like Call of Duty and Gears of War (as she pointed out herself)

And when she says that men who congratulate the player are often on the same level as them, it's simply not true
Ellie from TLOU and Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite are by no means below the player

I haven't played any of those games so I can't really judge them, but I'm sure there's plenty of games that don't have the female side character a sidekick/tool/cheerleader. Games where the MC is part of a party for example, everyone outside your control tends to have their own set of skills and personalities. There's also games where you can change the leader to be any of the available characters.

I'm not defending what the problem is, or saying there's not any of the problem. Just throwing out ideas for what could make a game better when it comes to this character dynamic. Letting the player choose who the leader is gives them more freedom and choice and that's almost never a bad thing.

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 11:52:45 AM

Quote from: Extirpator Beta on May 10, 2017, 10:56:34 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 10:39:26 AM

She later brings up that, as often as female supporting characters tend to verbally coddle the player for doing a good job, the male protagonist rarely if ever returns the favor. That would be too organic and sensible.

BioShock Infinite isn't like that at all, though.

Also that's probably because females are more nurturing people than men. That's a fact. That is organic.

I don't wanna talk about games I haven't played, but I don't disagree that females are more nurturing than men. But I'd consider what I just described to be an acceptable break from reality.

What do you mean by an acceptable break from reality?

Exactly what it sounds like. The fact that Street Fighter games don't generally put female characters at an inherent disadvantage just because they're female is an acceptable break from reality.

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 12:22:06 PM

Quote from: Extirpator Beta on May 10, 2017, 12:16:49 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 11:52:45 AM

Quote from: Extirpator Beta on May 10, 2017, 10:56:34 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 10:39:26 AM

She later brings up that, as often as female supporting characters tend to verbally coddle the player for doing a good job, the male protagonist rarely if ever returns the favor. That would be too organic and sensible.

BioShock Infinite isn't like that at all, though.

Also that's probably because females are more nurturing people than men. That's a fact. That is organic.

I don't wanna talk about games I haven't played, but I don't disagree that females are more nurturing than men. But I'd consider what I just described to be an acceptable break from reality.

What do you mean by an acceptable break from reality?

Exactly what it sounds like. The fact that Street Fighter games don't generally put female characters at an inherent disadvantage just because they're female is an acceptable break from reality.

They're at a disadvantage if they're a more nurturing character?

Where did I say that?

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 02:30:44 PM

Quote from: Extirpator Beta on May 10, 2017, 02:25:37 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 12:22:06 PM

Quote from: Extirpator Beta on May 10, 2017, 12:16:49 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 11:52:45 AM

Quote from: Extirpator Beta on May 10, 2017, 10:56:34 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on May 10, 2017, 10:39:26 AM

She later brings up that, as often as female supporting characters tend to verbally coddle the player for doing a good job, the male protagonist rarely if ever returns the favor. That would be too organic and sensible.

BioShock Infinite isn't like that at all, though.

Also that's probably because females are more nurturing people than men. That's a fact. That is organic.

I don't wanna talk about games I haven't played, but I don't disagree that females are more nurturing than men. But I'd consider what I just described to be an acceptable break from reality.

What do you mean by an acceptable break from reality?

Exactly what it sounds like. The fact that Street Fighter games don't generally put female characters at an inherent disadvantage just because they're female is an acceptable break from reality.

They're at a disadvantage if they're a more nurturing character?

Where did I say that?

So why break from reality when these features found in females are a good thing?

Because they're not necessarily a good thing, especially when every female character has those traits. It's lazy.

I dunno man, I don't really want to play games where the fucking side characters don't do what they're told.

Sounds frustrating as hell.

Games where it's primarily story wouldn't be too bad, the tell tale games are a good example.

You really can't think of other ways to work around it?

Like... not giving characters orders at all?

Quote from: Dietrich Six on May 10, 2017, 08:12:24 PM

I dunno man, I don't really want to play games where the fucking side characters don't do what they're told.

Sounds frustrating as hell.

Games where it's primarily story wouldn't be too bad, the tell tale games are a good example.

You really can't think of other ways to work around it?

Like... not giving characters orders at all?

Oh sure, but when you're talking about the mechanics where orders are necessary it's pretty important that they're followed.

There are plenty of examples where side characters just fuck off and do whatever the hell they want and it's not necessarily a good thing.

She did bring up one of my favorite examples with the last of us dlc. It definitely makes the characters feel more organic and allows for a more engaging story.

I'd say its more of a failure in writing a bad story and plot with pretty shallow mechanics than "eurgh, gotta make women look bad and be annoying somehow in this game".

Preston Garvey is the mother of all annoyances being a literal damsel in distress with his non-existent minutemen at the start. You can progress through the game in other ways, but if you want to unlock more settlement features, it HAS to be through him. You may be "The General" after 5 minutes of saving helpless villagers, but he's the dude you have to talk to to advance the story. He may not physically open any gates, but he is the glorified gatekeeper.

The Fallout community and gamers at large take the piss out of Preston and point all the major flaws of his story plot if you side with the minutemen. It isn't limited to women for any particular reason, it's a shit story.

Quote from: A Cheese Potato on May 10, 2017, 09:27:18 AM

I'm not sure I understand her point about control, in regards to orders issued being obeyed without hesitation or doubt. It's a video game, you need to be able to control it to play it. So I don't think that's a problem, just that they don't do anything outside of what they're told to do.

I haven't played Bioshock Infinite, but it seems like Elizabeth could do more with the time powers, unless there's some explanation about only using it sparingly or in particular spots. I haven't seen much gameplay, but I'm kinda getting the vibe that the time warping stuff only happens sparingly in scripted encounters rather than being a mechanic of the game.

Also I thought people complained about Trico not listening to them in the Last Guardian. I haven't played it, but I saw some gameplay, and he would often just jump in completely the wrong direction people told him to, sounds annoying to me.

I haven't played any of the games she talked about except Half-Life 2, so I can't really comment on those--but I've played Breath of the Wild, and a lot of people have had issues with the horses in that game, because they don't always do what you want them to do.

I actually like that, though, because it's true to life. You don't have complete control over your horse because the horse is a living being of its own. Something like that can only be as annoying insofar as you allow it to be, in my eyes.

If I'm not playing a horse racing simulator, I want my fucking cartoon horse to react as if I'm controlling it directly instead of controlling the man on top attempting to controll the horse.

I only skimmed the post but I'm not really seeing where the sexism comes in. This seems like a general critique of having support characters in a game which then supposedly becomes sexist when it happens to be a woman instead of a man.

I understand why some wouldn't like this mechanic, but just because the supporting character happens to be a woman does not make it sexist when she isn't put in that position because of her being a woman. Replace Elizabeth in Bioshock with a young man who has never left his room, doesn't know how to fight, avoids violence and has never seen the outside world, and the game and his interactions with Booker would've played out the exact same way.

See Turkey's post; this is addressed in her essay.

Again, I haven't played Bioshock Infinite, so I can't fairly comment on it, but your relatively exhaustive(?) list of defenses for Elizabeth's particular case draws a little bit of skepticism from me. It comes across like you're protesting too much. Either way, she is only one example out of the several she cited in her little montage.

Some of this issue results from the role of video games as an unadulterated power fantasy. Even in GoW, where you have sidekicks that apparently contribute (even though they don't), it's still the PC that does everything, and I think devs are hesitant to introduce more competent allies because it reduces the difficulty of the game. When allies are implemented well (see SW: Republic Commando), it falls under Anita's following complaint that they're basically automatons with no agency as characters. So few devs are able to actually bridge the divide between gameplay and story (i.e., cutscenes). I'm struggling to think of a good example of competent, cooperative AI, actually. But when pretty much all of the examples she mentioned devolve into waist-high-cover arenas between cutscenes, it's hard to see a solution.