R ([info]rb13) wrote in [info]feminist_gamers,
@ 2005-11-14 12:34:00
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Link: Petition to Choose Gender in Fable 2
I saw this on Kotaku earlier:

I'm not some crazy feminist, or equal rights advocate, or anything to that nature. I'm not even female, and I in no way claim to speak for all of them. But there is an issue I want to address...

For some of you this isn't a big deal. For me it's a different story because I make games for a living. I hear the demographic data of who buys games and who is playing them every year. It really bothers me. There is a problem that our industry has openly admitted to, but hasn't done much to correct. That problem is the 45% of gamers out there who are female and who do not have a voice. As I said, I don't presume to be that voice, I just want to help forward-thinking in game development.

45% is a big number... and they all can't be expected to play Sims. My wife kicks the ever-loving crap out of me every time we play Quake III together... if it weren't for the gore and gothic decor she'd be hooked. I know there are plenty of girls (and women) who play World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. Many more who play racing games such as Forza and Gran Turrismo. My wife personally likes playing San Francisco Rush: 2049. All good examples of games that have no gender boundaries. Fable is certainly a fantastic title... so why design a game to alienate half of your potential audience?


[Fable 2 Petition via Kotaku]

When I first heard about Fable, I was pretty disappointed that they didn't allow you to choose your character's gender, and my hope was that Fable 2 would provide the player with this option.

Crossposted to [info]girl_gamers

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[info]cephalophore
2005-11-14 10:32 pm UTC (link)
"I'm not some crazy feminist, or equal rights advocate, or anything to that nature"

What a fucking shithead. Then again, you have to be in order to be included in the Gawker/Denton umbrella.

Please be less sexist so we can be more sexist (aka "we d00ds like to play chicks in games because if we have to stare at someone's ass for 40 hours; ok, 4 in fable..."), I guess.

But the best review of Fable I've ever heard pretty much came down to "The RPG-lite where you can do anything you want, besides play a female character."

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[info]aricaiu
2005-11-16 05:33 pm UTC (link)
"I'm not some crazy feminist, or equal rights advocate, or anything to that nature."

Well, at least he admits he isn't for equal rights. I hate it when people say, "I'm not a feminist, but I am for equal rights and against sexism."

I'm one woman who hasn't picked up Fable because I can't play a character of my gender.

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[info]cephalophore
2005-11-16 07:40 pm UTC (link)
being able to marry a bunch of virtual women, "bitch slap" them, and lead them off into the woods and murder them isn't my idea of open-ended game play...

Of course, Molyneuax thinks he's all advanced and sophisticated (or just fucking french) for including gay crushes or whatever, as if that mitigates the misogyny, as if men's bodies are being dumped in the woods by their partners in real life every day at the same rate.

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[info]rb13
2005-11-16 07:47 pm UTC (link)
The player makes the choice to do those things. One needn't engage in evil acts in Fable. It's not Molyneux, but the player who is at fault. Molyneux just designed the world in order to provide a conscious choice for the player. Just like in the real world, you don't have to steal a car to get from one place to the next -- you make a choice to do so.

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[info]cephalophore
2005-11-16 09:15 pm UTC (link)
I think that's a bullshit answer. (Please don't take that as a personal attack)

You can't do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in these games. That's just not feasible from a design standpoint. Hence every option that is available is both an artistic and political choice on the part of the designer. The reason misogyny and sexualized violence is a choice is because neither can seriously upset the overarching plot because the person writing the plot isn't particularly interested in judging the player on those actions. In fable, you might get a negative-check towards the dark side or whatever for murdering your wife on a forest path, but it's not going to interfere with the quest to "kill foozle." Hence, it's not a moral or conscious option the player is being presented with, but an easy, expendable one, where the designer didn't have to work too hard to include it. Even if you asked the most misogynist player what he'd prefer, wife killing or dynamically growing trees (a dropped feature), he'd probably go with the latter. But because misogyny is cheap from a technical perspective (b00b polygons, combat flags, etc.), it's a nobrainer to include it. Sex sells. Violent sex sells more.

Consider for example all the MEN complaining that you can't kill kids in Fable; their complaint being that it's against the open endedness of the game (and this complaint about a limit on their freedom got more press than the complaint than a female character wasn't playable, mind you; petitions of the sort are nothing new and go all the way back to Origin's Ultima 8). Why draw the line there? This is similar to how "Real Doll" fucktoy makers also draw the line at creating child dolls: somehow, women's ability as adults to "consent to abuse" (a patriarchal oxymoron) is projected onto their virtual likeness, in games, or $5000 blow up dolls. They have to draw the line there, not because they REALLY care about "the children" but because by drawing it there, there is a line, and it makes their treatment of women more acceptable and justifiable.

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