Maybe not everyone on Kos pays that much attention to videogames, but seriously, this is worth paying attention to. The backstory: recently, there's been something of a debate... ok, flame war... over sexism in videogames. On one side, you have characters like Ivy from Soul Calibur who are - how can I put this nicely - anatomically impossible. On the other hand you have female characters who can't do anything but wait for the hero to arrive.
At the same time, you have a new trailer for Hitman: Absolution which features fake nuns in spandex, as well as lollipop chainsaw coming out, where you play as a cheerleader with a chainsaw.
Here's the part that got me to write a diary. See, there's a new series out called "tropes vs. women in videogames," which is about the different ways that women are stereotyped in videogames. It's a project that's going to involve research and a bit of film - a video series to educate. Not so controversial, right?
Cue the rape and death threats.
Myself being male, a teenager, and a passionate gamer, I know for a fact that the gaming community can start a flame war over anything, from the ending of Mass effect to which games reviewers thought were the best. Being hyper-reactive is nothing unusual.
That's not to say I'm backing up the inferno that got started up over the "tropes vs. women" series. It's actually worse than the usual flame - I don't think anyone has threatened to torch Gamestop's headquarters over their magazine's review of a game. Nor has anyone modified Gamestop's wikipedia page to include pornography, obscene language (how do you even get the n-word into a debate over women in videogames?) and threats of death and rape. This isn't even a company or collection of people that's being attacked - this is one person, Anita Sarkeesian, who has to deal with all this.
That, and face it, she has a point. Gamers reading this - name a game without a damsel in distress or a female character that has revealing clothing (provided that the game even has a female character).
I can't either.
I don't really think there's much I can do to curb that hatred that's been started up, but I can offer my two cents and ask everyone to please stop the death threats and other obscene tactics. I can understand why some people could start a flame war with the whole "arrow to the knee" thing, but this is just ridiculous.