The Games Industry Is Not Sexist (but only men understand that)

Same old, same old. Every year, complaints of sexism in videogames and the industry in general come up. Year after year, the same whining, as though there’s a problem which refuses to go away. There is a reason for that, of course – women like to moan. Sure, there are some men arguing the case too, but it’s obvious they’re just trying to prise the underwear off feminists. There is no problem with ‘sexism’ in games; and now, I’m going to prove it.

What really stirred the bleeding-heart hornet’s nest recently is the reaction to Anita Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter pitch. A feminist blogger, she wanted to raise funds (which she now has, and then some) for a video series about ‘Tropes vs Women in videogames’. Pretty soon, guys fought back. Her YouTube pitch kept getting reported as terrorism (which it pretty much is!), and her Wikipedia entry got wrecked constantly until editing was locked. The resistance sent a ton of comments and messages to her in pretty much every way imaginable. Some of them included threats to kill and/or rape her. Of course, this was all used as ‘evidence’ that the sexism thing is real. All it proves, however, is that people fight back when they’re attacked. How dare she come after our games!

Don’t get me wrong, I like women. What red-blooded male doesn’t? They’re not doing themselves any favours with crap like this, though. They ought to follow others in the industry. Take female games journalists and web show presenters. There are only a few of them who have ‘made it’, but most of those few are doing things right. Write or say what the boys want you to, how they want you to write or say it; and most importantly, wear summer clothes all year round and for god’s sake keep in shape and pile on the make up. We want eye candy if we have to put up with you on our websites! If you want to make it as a female games journo, it should be obvious by now that if you don’t follow the rules then you don’t stand a chance. The only high profile gaming ladies who don’t flirt with the audience and flash some skin are Keza Macdonald, Leigh Alexander and… well, that’s it! Don’t expect that list to get longer any time soon!

Women have a different, even more important role to play in the industry that only they can fulfil. That’s right – E3 booth babes. It’s just not E3 without booth babes! People hold this up as more ‘evidence’ of sexism, but these women choose to do it and they’re getting paid – end of story. If a woman’s getting paid for what she’s doing, it can’t be morally wrong or in any way sexist. They just add glamour to a games expo, and there’s nothing wrong with looking. No site understands this more than CVG. That’s a man’s videogames site, which is why I love it so much! They even introduced their extensive hi-def booth babe photo gallery by telling the audience to “get your scorecards out” (before feminist pressure forced them to rewrite the intro). It’s just a bit of fun!

Some might say this is essentially just using human beings as decorations – but what’s wrong with that? It’s a really cool idea, and don’t artists win awards for that kind of thing? Besides, most people whining about it won’t ever even see a booth babe unless they choose to click through to the photos. Ever noticed that these babes are almost never used at public expos, just industry ones? I guess that comes back to the fact that almost all games journos are men, and the number of women is so small it’s not worth worrying about what they might think. If you think your game might not be too good, it’s worth putting the extra effort into finding a particularly hot babe or six to associate with it.

The only site as good as CVG is, of course, Kotaku. The poor fellas there were the centre of a liberal shitstorm again recently – and this time, it wasn’t even because of anything they said! In an interview with Tomb Raider executive producer Ron Rosenberg, it was revealed that the devs want the player to feel like they’re “trying to protect” Lara Croft. Sadly, her boobs are now (slightly) smaller, and she covers herself up a little more (but don’t worry, there’s still cleavage in the trailer – a great sign!). They’ve gone even further to make her a stronger character, by weakening her. She’s more interesting now, and easier for men to get involved with, because she gets hurt a lot and needs a man with a joypad in his hands to help and protect her. Best of all there’s a dramatic, movie-like moment where she kills for the first time as self defence against somebody trying to rape her. Of course, the sexism crowd latched onto this and somehow saw it as a problem. Crystal Dynamics studio boss Darrell Gallagher was forced to pretend that it wasn’t attempted rape at all. Fortunately sense is beginning to prevail, as even one of the main writers at respected industry site MCV defends the use of attempted rape at the end of his report in a brief update.

I could give examples of writers standing firm against PC nonsense all day, but that would just make this article one long list of links! It did remind me of the Metal Gear Solid series, though. Those games are crammed full of sexy easter eggs! Give the women guns, sure, but let us see them in their underwear if we know how and where to look! Best of all were Naomi’s jiggletastic remote-control breasts in Metal Gear Solid 4. It’s like GamesRadar said back in 2008; “If women’s breasts were like this in real life, they’d be a whole lot easier to listen to”. Best of all, this “Metal Gear Solid 4′s Rudest Easter Eggs” feature was written by a woman. Good girl!

As for that Hitman trailer, geez… don’t get me started. What is the problem? Why do these people have to grab on to every little thing to moan about? Look at it from a man’s perspective (and I mean the perspective of a proper man) because that’s the target audience – and so that’s the only perspective that matters. Blood, guns, action, sexy women wearing sexy clothes… it’s like they took the tastiest trailer ingredients and put them all together to cook the perfect trailer pie straight from heaven. There’s nothing new or shocking there. Anyway, Agent 47 snuck up behind those women to defend himself.

Finally, the most popular whinge from the ‘sexism’ crowd must be the way women are dressed in games. Stop already! Enough years complaining about that! I think we’ve already established that there’s nothing wrong with having a little something harmless to look at while we’re playing. Without the T&A shots, it’s hard to imagine being able to stick with playing as a woman for an entire game. That’s why there are so many sexy DLC costumes, like the recently released Soul Calibur V ones. Okay, they’re only for female characters – but why the hell would I want to see a young sexy man in sexy clothing? I’m not gay!

So there we have it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play Dead Rising to take some cleavage shots with my camera so I can rank up (and believe me, some of those shots really do make me want to “rank up”!). No, actually, I think I’ll get one of my Call of Duty games so I can get away from all this woman stuff altogether. Love that realism. Real weapons, real soldier language, authentic hardware… thank god they still don’t let women join the army.