2761

After reading several pages of this I agree. There are no words. You have no idea.

Trolls be trolls.

2762

Busc’s dick sucking post still with just that single positive response, though. Do you think I hate straight people? Is that the issue, that I love racism and hate straight people? I can understand why I’d get negative feedback for that, those things seem pretty bad.

2763

I have him on ignore, so I wouldn’t know what he said.

2764

Seriously there wasn’t a sticky or rules or anything, if there’s something in the terms and conditions about how “defending cops who kill unarmed black people is a vital part of maintaining a civil and reasoned discussion about politics, but this is a zero tolerance carelord hugbox about swears or calling anyone sexist” I missed it and I apologize.

2765

That’s not what I asked, though. You do now, and the loving racism is from a Desslock post. Do you think I hate straight people and love racism?

2766

Honestly, I’ve stopped reading your posts for the most part because they’re almost always annoying and rarely bring anything to the table.

2767

I’m a guy who has sex with guys, and I’ve observed that you have a big chip on your shoulder about guys who have sex with women.

2768

I’m glad that I wasn’t the one who misinterpreted your joke.

2769

OK so you won’t answer my question. Cool. Good luck hanging out with your friends here, dude, they seem like very nice and smart people. Did you just not plan ahead at all with that post? “Desslock is right about how you’re awful, but I can’t explain how or why because I don’t read, apparently, any of the posts in this thread”

2770

I think you have problems with anyone who doesn’t echo your own thoughts.

2771

Dude. You have YET to make a post that wasn’t fucking awful. After the first 30 I stopped reading them. I’d skim them and see the same shit as every other post. You haven’t said anything in good faith. Every post is you acting like Christ reborn if Christ was an asshole. Why would I want to engage with you? Why would anyone?

For that matter, I’m just adding you to ignore because you’ve never said anything of value and likely never will.

2772

Look this conversation is moving so fast I just can’t interject often enough. Let me just say up front that I understand Virgil Hilts’s points. I know if I have to respond time and time again I would no doubt slip in some sarcastic comments here and there to relieve the frustration, which will promptly be misinterpreted. I’m not excusing Virgil Hilts for being sarcastic sometimes. S/he is obviously aware of this and tried to rein it in.

Racism and sexism aren’t necessarily overt and personal. They are also institutional and subtle. Statistics can show some of the problems (e.g. disproportionally high black arrest/conviction rate over other racial groups in US).

ME3 is close to my heart so I’ll bat. Bioware are (in)famous for including homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual romance in their games (mind you most are badly written romance, but they are equally bad). Even then the default protagonist is male. You start the game blind and you get Manshep. But the voice acting of Femshep is SO SO much better than Manshep. The injustice is that on merit Femshep is better but only (IIRC) ~25% of ME3 players experienced the better Shepard. You would THINK Bioware have the presence of mind to make Femshep the default because they would want to showcase the best they can offer up front. But they didn’t.

This is the default bias at work. Because people generally accept that by default the guy is the hero, or even WANT the guy to be hero, so Bioware just go with the flow despite themselves. In turn this reinforces the stereotype that only men are heroes. So my attitude towards Bioware is “you guys are great with diversity, but can’t you make Femshep the default protagonist because Jennifer Hale is a better voice actress for Shepard?”. There is no demand, no pressure or anything. Just a general constructive suggestion.

Nowadays in polite company we generally don’t see overt sexism and racism. But the subtle biases like ME3 protagonist are still there. 2014 was a year when we voiced our concerns and realise there are a lot of us out there. I invite everyone to see the biases themselves and join us.

2773

…The logical result when dealing with corporations is that ME games stop being made.
Not that you get your way.

2774

Good post, Soma. As a man, it’s easy for me to forget the default male hero is just that, the default. I’m a guy and the game’s hero is my analogue, so sure, he should be male, too. But a female gamer has to override that default almost every time, the exception coming in games like Tomb Raider or NOLF that have an exclusively female protagonist. Having the default be female to showcase an actress like Hale makes a lot of sense and should happen frequently in all types of games where you can select your character’s gender.

2775

Logical result of what? Soma wasn’t calling for a boycott or a protest. AFAIK, Bioware has been very open to commentary on gender issues, the ME games improved from 1-3 on that subject without the games getting pulled.

2776

Another HUGE VICTORY for GamerGate, though, they got Polygon to clarify their previously inscrutable policy on opinion columns:

2777

Yes, and now you’ve thrown it in their faces.

GG on getting future interesting articles pruned though.

2778

??? I don’t follow.

2779

I think he’s trying to say you’re not allowed to criticize Bioware for falling to unconscious bias like default male if they’re better than most companies out there.

I think he’s worried that your criticism will make them stop producing games he likes or something?

2780

They’ll just avoid romance, if there’s the potential of massive backlash over it.

There’s a sharp difference between criticism (in this case, they should have provided online sites the female image as well) and #GG.