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Santa brought me the new Wii Fit Plus for Christmas and I’ve been playing for the last week and a half.  I mostly missed the Wii Fit hype and shortage last year, so I began knowing very little about this fitness game.  Using a balance board and the Wii remote, I’m able to do yoga poses and various aerobic, balancing, and strength-building exercises.

The box for Wii Fit Plus suggests children and old folks can enjoy Wii Fit.  I appreciate that it helps folks exercise and be active because I believe everyone should have access to exercise.  Of course, most of the world’s population can’t afford a Wii and Wii Fit is not accessible to many people with disabilities, but it introduces exercise to the temporarily able-bodied middle class folks privileged enough to game.

I’m a pretty active person and find the virtual jogging and cycling a wimpier substitution for the real thing.  But I’ve been doing the yoga and strength building routines on rainy days, and they do make me sweat and sore the next day.  Even if I don’t get a cardio workout with Wii Fit Plus, it’s already helped my flexibility, balance, and strength.

Flexibility, balance, and strength are fair things to work on.  I appreciate that the game can track my improvement.  What I’m less thrilled about is the game’s use of the body mass index (BMI) to calculate whether I’m underweight, “normal,” overweight, or obese.  I am surprised this contemporary game still uses the archaic BMI (invented over 150 years ago).  The BMI does not account for muscle weighing more than fat and often classifies athletes as overweight or obese.  It also standardizes white norms because it is based on white people.

Wii Fit has already drawn criticism for sparking potential eating disorders for diagnosing an active girl as overweight.  It also classifies my partner, who is slender with a fast metabolism but rarely exercises, as underweight.  The game says the average BMI for someone of his height is about 30 pounds heavier than what he is, which he could never gain, nor does he need to.

I don’t appreciate how the game assumes everyone wants to be thin and lean.  I buy into it.  As a feminist, I’m aware of how I’ve internalized mainstream beauty standards and know that is why I flirt with eating disorders myself.  Wii Fit enables me to obsess over my weight when I’d previously refused to own a scale so I wouldn’t let it measure my self-worth.  While my Wii praises me for fitting into the “normal” category, it asks me how I screwed up if I weigh in at a few pounds heavier than I had on the previous day.  Did I over eat?  Did I have a late night snack?

My advise to Wii Fit gamers is the same advice I’m telling myself: don’t take it too seriously.  Have fun doing sun salutations and virtual ski jumps, but don’t let the game make you feel bad about yourself.  Know it’s using old fashioned measurements of “health.”  Perhaps in future incarnations of Wii Fit we will be able to set more goals than just losing weight (or gaining, in the case of my “underweight” partner).  I hope a future incarnation of Wii Fit will use a more creature measure of “progress” than the body mass index.

Wii Fit: Don’t take it too seriously is a post from: The Border House

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An area in which I have plenty of interest is men’s studies, particularly as it evolves and steps away from detracting from feminism. I believe it can complement feminist studies in various ways, and this is the first part of a series I wish to write (and offer other authors of this blog), examining how men’s sexuality in games is presented. I will be looking at individual characters, their presentations, and comparing and contrasting to their female counterparts.

This post will include spoilers for Assassin’s Creed 2.

Ezio Auditore da Firenzi starts the game off as a spoiled noble’s son. During the lengthy tutorial section of the game, you guide him to his love interest, Cristina Vespucci. They have a short exchange, whereby she says he can come up for a minute, he says he only needs that much time, and she disparagingly remarks that, “She knows.” Jumping up, this seems forgotten, as the following cutscene sequence prompts you to press a QTE button, whereupon Ezio disrobes her, and they lay down in bed. The morning after her father bursts into the room and threatens and chases off Ezio.

At no point during this entire exchange is Ezio removed of any clothing, only his female companion.

Later, in Forli, Ezio rescues Caterina Sforza from an islet, and after the exchange tells Leonardo da Vinci that he will make a conquest of her, whereupon da Vinci firmly chastises him, on top of explaining she is not one to be taken so easily, as she is a capable woman in her own right.

In Romagna, after winning a horse race, Ezio takes Amelia, a seemingly common peasant girl, up on her offer for ‘private horseriding lessons.’ The cutscene that follows has them hiding next to a wagon of hay, and proceeding to have sex in broad daylight, right next to the road.

As an offer for his completing a quest (about which I’ll speak more later), Sister Teodora, the leader of the Venetian courtesans (who dresses like a nun, hence the appellation of sister) has a bevy of her workers escort Ezio and take care of him.

Ezio has a quite a bit of sex.

Yet, at no point is he himself sexualized in a visual manner. Surrounded by women with ample cleavage and varying courtesans, his sexuality becomes a matter of performance. From the joke about his minute man status to his feeling the need to assert that he will conquer Sforza, he seems to have to prove himself through performance and action.

This mimics what we traditionally see in media: a woman’s sexuality is worn around her breasts, whereas a male’s is predicated on gaining access to them. There are small comments about Ezio’s appearance, but at no point does it become the focus that his appearance is what is attracting these women to him.

To sleep with Cristina, he must win a race against his brother, and you press a button. In Forli, he rescues Caterina, which opens up a suggestion of future promise with a woman whose sexuality is professed as her own. Amelia can be bed after winning a time trial horserace. Sister Teodora has a worker who was cut up by a man, whom Ezio follows and dispatches with his newly attained pistol; in gratitude he is ‘rewarded.’

This further falls into the commodity for sex model that our own editor Alex has explicated in discussing the upcoming Alpha Protocol. In her post she quotes Thomas Macaulay Millar’s essay “Toward a Performance Model of Sex,” which can be found in Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape:

We live in a culture where sex is not so much an act as a thing: a substance that can be given, bought, sold, or stolen, that has a value and a supply-and-demand curve. In this “commodity model,” sex is like a ticket; women have it and men try to get it. Women may give it away or may trade it for something valuable, but either way it’s a transaction. This puts women in the position of seller, but also guardian or gatekeeper … Women are guardians of the tickets, men apply for access to them. This model pervades casual conversation about sex: Women “give it up.” men “get some.”

Two of the strongest females in the game happen to be prostitutes, further pushing forward this same analogy of sex being a good to offer. This also becomes an issue of reflecting society’s view of women during the Renaissance, and juxtaposes how ours has not changed. The goals in the game exemplify everything about this commodity model, showing how the women are there to have their bodies offered up to the male gaze, and taken by the male protagonist.

Another point I found notable is that Ezio lacks any suave mannerisms, and is often quite brutish. Ezio, in general, remains a rather uncouth, bewildered youth focused on revenge, permanently stuck in man-child syndrome, and still ’sowing his wild oats.’ Ezio is a type more than a character.

Alongside other problems with Ezio’s growth, it also serves to highlight that he is not only lacking maturity, but serves as a symbol for the mindset that is stunted by not acknowledging anything but his ‘right’ to sex, particularly as of the above interactions, the player may only opt out of one.

Playing Boy: Ezio Auditore da Firenzi is a post from: The Border House

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Social networking website BeautifulPeople.com (which I didn’t know existed) has banned 5000 members of their website for “letting themselves go” and gaining weight over the holiday season.

There is so much wrong with this, I’m not even sure where to begin.  First of all, the fact that the site even exists is discriminatory.  It claims “no more filtering through unattractive people on mainstream sites.”  It requires all members to approved by a voting panel of the opposite sex.  They say “BeautifulPeople does not define beauty it simply gives an accurate representation of what society’s ideal of beauty is.”  So, the point is to affirm and enforce society’s ideals?  Defining beauty would actually be an improvement over adapting and using the false idealistic sense of beauty that we are suffering from in our society.

Today, they actually released a press release that claims that “5000 festive fatties” were banned from their service for gaining weight over the holidays.  Apparently, the action came from vigilant members of the site taking action and calling them to be removed.  Hey, this isn’t the first time that a majority has taken away rights from a minority, is it?  The managing director of the website even was quoted saying “We responded to complaints by moving the newly chubby members back to the rating stage. This is the same as having them re-apply.”  Only a few hundred out of the 5000 were allowed back in after the voting process, because they weren’t beautiful enough.  This site does not believe that beautiful comes in all sizes, they are quite clear on that through their words and actions.  And, they felt the need to release a press release telling the world that they are adhering to these standards.

The founder of the company says “Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded”.  Why do they insist on calling overweight people fatties and chubbies?  I think having a discriminatory managing staff who says things like that is more likely to threaten your business model!  However, 550,000 users are active members on this website, and the ones that were removed have been given links to boot camps to improve their fitness so they can return to the site.

BeautifulPeople says that it understands that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that human beings want to be with people they they are attracted to.  They aim to eliminate the need to surf through “ugly people” and just see the cream of the crop in your local area.  They also promote the idea of throwing parties and having events that only invite the best looking people.  You aren’t voted in to be a member unless you match the definition of beautiful that the opposite sex decides upon.  What could go wrong?

BeautifulPeople.com removes 5000 overweight members is a post from: The Border House

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Happy New Year to everyone, it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these.  Admittedly, I’ve been slacking on keeping up with the internet over holiday break, so make sure to comment with some things I have missed!

Brenda Laurel discusses making video games for little girls.

China Central Television claims that video games cause teen pregnancy and murder.

Objectifying Women: Record of Agarest War goes full frontal.

A WoW_ladies LJ member experiences sexism at the video game store for the first time.

ChipChick names the top 5 women who impacted tech in 2009.  Includes staff from Sony Online Entertainment and..Lady GaGa?

GirlGamersSuck.com talks about EA Active is now targeting men in addition to women.

According to CBS and EA, more girls are getting into video games.  This is *still* news?

GamerGrrlz aims to be a feminist space for gamers like us!  Good luck to you

Our favorite Jezebel, Latoya Peterson talks about girl gamers.

Across the Divide – 1/4/09 is a post from: The Border House

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by guest contributor Alex H

Alex Horn is a Latino existentialist looking to explore the intersections of race, gender, and semantics in the video game world. He is an aspiring independent game designer based in Philadelphia.

It’s ok to dislike it too. Here’s why:

Bioshock has been written about extensively, and a lot of very creative criticism can be found online. One wishes the developers would just come forward and say “this, not this” and be done with it. Unfortunately they haven’t, so we’re left to guess the intentions (and unintentions) of the developers through the work they produced.

Recently, Lake Desire wrote a blog post about Bioshock that touched off a number of interesting comments. Some of the discussion centered on the game’s protagonist Jack, a white male. Lake Desire pointed out how Jack is a blank slate, and how annoying it is that the designers’ idea of a “blank slate” is male rather than female. Terry Mesnard then summed up what many others have pointed out, that the neutral personality of the protagonist is central to one of the game’s main themes – the illusion of freedom in a game. However, this doesn’t answer why Jack has to be a man. I hope to explain this problem in this post.

The initial argument for my post was simply going to be: look at the body of criticism that this game has spawned – it doesn’t make sense that the developers would have made an uninformed choice about the protagonist’s gender. However, this is definitely the easy way out, and is a logical fallacy to boot. In order to talk about something new, or add to the discussion rather than summarize, I did some research in popular blogs and academic work, and have found one thing, above all else, to be true: the criticism of Bioshock says more about the author of a critique than it does about the work itself.

This is often the case in semantics, but this case stands out because, with Bioshock, I found a very contentious debate, akin to Shakespeare scholars still arguing to this day over what he was trying to say in a soliloquy. And this is wonderful for various reasons. On an immediate level this means there is enough content in a video game to stir up this heated of a debate, as well as serious commentary engaging the material on a critical level. Less obvious, however, is how Bioshock and the subsequent discussion of themes reflect the state of the industry as an art form. Some of us are really interested in sex or gender issues, some of us focus on race. Some bloggers find religious significance, and some see class struggle. Some bloggers carry the weight of a mens rea, and some crusade for a cause.

Does Bioshock represent a condemnation of Ayn Rand and objectivist philosophy? I don’t think so, but I don’t think it’s a defense of it either. Bioshock gets it right by not judging, but by presenting. For every argument made on a blog, a convincing, cogent counter-argument can be made. Is it an oppressive work or a work of liberation? Structurally flawed, or self-reflexive? Was Andrew Ryan a crazed villain who destroyed so many people’s lives with his dreams? Yes and no. He seemed to place the blame on Fontaine. Was Fontaine to blame for the dystopia? Maybe, but we only get hints about what really happened. The point of the game is not to say ____ bad, ____ good, but to offer a brilliant portrait of a complex society that mirrors our own.

And what a pathetic, petty pack of petulant people pervades this place!

Bioshock is a wonderfully crafted work of art. Sander Cohen and Fort Frolic, in their terrible beauty, are a perfect marriage of art and game; they represent at the same time, respectively, the artist and the work of art, as well as the gamer and the game, and are the most critically overlooked pieces of the game. Sander Cohen plays Jack much like a gamer plays a game, using an avatar to beat mini-bosses. His collage of the pictures of the dead mini-bosses is very much the essence of his little mini-game, i.e. what results from Cohen “playing the game.” Here can be found at the same time, a representation of the emergent narrative (the pictures), or Fabula, as well as the Fabula itself (the art experience of viewing the collage of pictures placed in whatever order you choose, much like a video game). The final battle with the Fort Frolic splicers features the Waltz of the Flowers; ballet being a strictly defined set of rules for moving throughout a bounded space, and a beautiful bit of performance art, much like games.

The Medical Pavilion is obviously a critique of beauty culture, but by presenting the gamer with a critique of visual superficiality at the very beginning of the game, Dr. Steinman is also an analogy for an obsession with the visual in games (teh epic grafix arms race, which, ironically, can be said to have as its main protagonist Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, the same engine used to make Bioshock).

The Andrew Ryan death scene is the ultimate self-aware game design moment in the history of videogames, and practically screams to the player that yes, you are playing a videogame, we know you know, and we know why you know, and the different ways you know, and we are designing a game around that. Moreover, what does the scene say about Jack? He is a tool, a helpless baby, and a reflection of the privileged white male gamer power fantasy. Lake Desire understandably had trouble relating to Jack and becoming immersed in the game, which is a good thing, because this means she is not a privileged white male gamer with a power fantasy. Why does Andrew Ryan kill himself? There are many answers, but I think it’s because he’s holding out a secret hope for the ability of the gamer/Jack’s human spirit to transcend his or her existential plight. He desperately wanted Jack to cast aside the self-induced imprisonment, but Jack could not because he was not aware, just like the developers want gamers to face themselves and the Pavlovian gaming instincts of stimulus and response. Jack is like a rat in a maze following cues to the cheese. In the Andrew Ryan scene, I think the developers were trying to say the same about the average male gamer.

And then there’s the ending. The part of the game some people feel was tacked on. Some go as far as to say the “Dénouement.” The previously spoon-fed Jack is now reborn as a Big Daddy. Some argue he’s still spoon-fed, but this objection misses the point. Yes, Tenenbaum is now calling the shots, except now Jack/the gamer is aware of this, and as every good Buddhist Monk knows, being conscious of your existential imprisonment is paradoxically the only way to be free. So Jack accepts it and literally imprisons himself behind the façade of a Big Daddy. I like to see this as a cleansing: “I will choose my prison in order to do something worth doing!”

For me, this was no denouement; the climax of the game was the fight with Fontaine, and the rising action the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen in a videogame: the Little Sisters’ rooms. Little girls are locked away in literal prisons, all because of ADAM. This is where gender comes into play, because by ending the game the way the developers did, they make it not just about being self-aware as gamers, but being self-aware as human beings. These Little Sisters are people too, not to mention victims of child abuse, and the resulting ludonarrative dissonance that you get if you decide to harvest them for Adam is exactly what you deserve. The same people harvesting Little Sisters without batting an eye are probably also first in line for (insert repackaged sequel of action heavy game with an unimaginative narrative of your choice here). They’re the ones treating Ryan, Sander Cohen, Atlas, or Dr. Steinman as people, and Little Sisters as power-ups to be used to save the world.

But the game isn’t about saving the world. It’s about making up for all of these cases of women in refrigerators/objectified victims of sexism in the games industry. It’s about being self-critical. It’s about giving the Little Sisters the freedom to choose their own destiny, letting the Little Sister play the game too. I don’t have a little sister, but if I did, the “good ending” (aka the real ending) might have had me crying “aha!” tears rather than “that was amazing” tears.

This is why the protagonist has to be male, but I guess that says more about me than it does Bioshock!

It’s OK to Like Bioshock is a post from: The Border House

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A study was published in the Journal of Communication and has gotten significant media attention, at least in blog form (the paper is available for free here). Like many studies that end up in articles, particularly on somewhat controversial subjects, the conclusions being reported are not strongly supported by the study. On the other hand, it is interesting to watch what aspects of the study are appealing to bloggers and which are ignored, as well as which articles were clearly based off other summaries of the article, rather than reading the original. The researchers themselves appear to have an agenda, though, of emphasizing the “hardcore”-ness of female players, and in doing so perpetuate some of the value judgments described in Diamonds in the Rough and Those Other Girls: Conflicts Between Female Gamers

The article ignored anyone with non-binary gender or sex; I will be speaking here about the people surveyed the way they self-identified on the survey, though some of them may have only chosen to identify as male or female because of a lack of other options.

The article itself used data from a survey of Everquest II players and data about their playtime from Sony (which was accessed with the player’s permission). The researchers were Communications professors. Only one of them, Mia Consalvo Ph.D, appears to have a background in gender studies. She taught Women’s Studies at the University of Iowa. Many of her publications have be about gender or sexuality in games and gaming, though her degrees are in Communication. The data reported in this paper asked about gender, sexuality, income, happiness, loneliness, exercise, BMI, playtime, motivations for playing and whether or not people played with a spouse or partner. It appeared that they ignored people who did not report gender, and didn’t report data about race, disability or whether people considered themselves gamers, and conflated weight (classified by BMI) with health. It interpreted all this data through an extremely limited and simplistic gender role lens. They had a moment when they conflated gender identity and sexuality, speculating on “the potential androgyny that may be driving the bisexual players.” Within their limited, kyriarchal description of gender roles this might make sense, but they ignore much simpler explanations that rely only on sexual identity (like that these particular bisexual women may enjoy looking at the sexualized women in Everquest II) and feels unnecessary, particularly since the speculation is uncited and has no data behind it.

The finding that has been widely reported was that women played more hours than men and were less likely to be thinking about quitting, from which the researchers assert: “Our data suggest that female players—not males—are the real ‘‘hardcore’’ MMO players.” Of course, women also had significantly lower yearly salaries than men (despite higher education) and they didn’t appear to control for employment, so the extra time they play *could* be explained by more women not working in paid employment outside the home, or working part-time, and having more time to squeeze in an hour or two in the virtual world. It could also be explained by motivations; more women reported that their motivation involved socializing with other people in game, which presumably is more open-ended than progressive game content (I haven’t played Everquest II, but this is certainly true of WoW at the moment). Women were also likely to have played fewer other games, and men might have spent more time per week playing other games instead. That women were less likely to be thinking about quitting could be the result of women quitting more quickly when they did think about it, having begun playing more recently, enjoying the game more, or being more committed to the game than men. The researchers don’t seem to have made any particular effort to entertain other possible explanations for their findings, which I think is lazy science. Anyway, I digress, but my point is beyond the data they’ve collected I don’t hold this paper in particularly high regard. However, probably because it’s a paper that includes information about female gamers, it’s gotten a reasonable amount of digital ink.

How does “women play, on average, 17% more than men”, “women who play the game less likely to be considering quitting” and “Everquest II players underestimate their playtime” turn into a headline? (Warning: some of these articles are accompanied by borderline work-unsafe pictures of women playing video games in their underwear):
Study Finds Girl Gamers Are Seriously Hardcore, from Escapist Magazine
Girl Gamers Lowball Their Geekiness, from Edge
Study: Female Everquest II Players Still Logging More Hours, Still Not Honest About It, from Kotaku
Gal Gamers Geekier Than Guys, from Scientific America

So the finding that women played slightly more hours, described by the researchers as them being “hardcore”, also makes them as “geeky”. The fact that they “lied” by underestimating the hours played also appears to make a good headline (playing into the stereotype of women as deceitful, or ashamed of being geeky), despite the fact that men also underestimated time played. Many of the actual posts make this clear, but it’s presumably less eye catching than the implication that women are unwilling to admit that they are “really” hard-core geeks. The articles don’t always make it clear that this definition of “geeky” is simply how many hours per week someone remains logged into Everquest II and whether they are ambivalent about continuing to play.

Are there women who are also hardcore gamers? Of course! Absolutely! No doubt! The fact that that seems to be news to some people is unfortunate, but not unexpected. However, this study isn’t talking only about hardcore gamers, especially since no one involved seems to define the word (which the researchers get around by consistently using quotes around it, though bloggers and reporters don’t.)  I would have been more interested if the researchers investigated whether there was another group of committed women who play games many hours a day and don’t intend to quit.  Perhaps members of this group don’t think of themselves as “hardcore” and might “only” play because their romantic partner does. These are women who don’t have blogs, don’t wear t-shirts proclaiming their love of the game, and are ignored or discounted by the gaming press, by game companies and by gamers. They may, though, be playing just as much and with at least as much enthusiasm as visible gamers.

This data doesn’t go far enough to come to that conclusion, however, and the researchers don’t seem to ask that question. It almost seems like they are so excited to demonstrate the existence of a group of women who play Everquest II that they erase the possibility of heterogeneity within that group, particularly since bimodal distributions within their data might muck up some of their other conclusions if they are comparing hardcore apples to committed, enthusiastic, non-geek oranges. It’s nice to see data being collected on people who play games. The reports on that data, both published and in the blogosphere, leave something to be desired and overgeneralize egregiously.

Is she hardcore? Well, you could try asking… is a post from: The Border House

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This post was written by Rachel Walmsley.

Rachel Walmsley (http://rho.dreamwidth.org/) is a 28 year old British woman. She’s a transwoman and a gamer, predominantly enjoying RPGs, strategy and puzzle games.

When I saw that The Border House was looking for new writers, my first thought was “ooh, I must write something for them”. This was then closely followed by my second thought, “but what can I write?”

It isn’t that there’s a shortage of things that I have thoughts or opinions on. The problem is that as well as being a gamer, I’m also a transwoman and I wanted to write something from that perspective. I wrote a piece for the Geek Feminism Blog a few months ago about my experiences as a transwoman and a gamer, and while I could have written something along the same lines, I wanted to write something new and different.

The problem is that writing about transgender characters in games is hard because they just don’t exist. I’ve racked my brain trying to come up with transgender characters and I’m more or less coming up with a blank. There are a few non-human characters that don’t follow traditional gender roles, like Shale from Dragon Age: Origins to name a recent example. There are also a few games which have a male character cross-dress for comic effect. Yes, how utterly hilarious that isn’t.

In terms of People Who Are Like Me, though, I can’t think of anything. I’m not necessarily saying that these games don’t exist, but given that I play a lot of games and can’t think of any, they must be rare at best. I’d love to see a transsexual character in a game. It needn’t even be overt. How about having a seemingly female character who will tell you – if you get close enough – that she’s not comfortable in the female gender role and is planning to transition at some point in the future? Or how about a female character who mentions at some relevant point in conversation that she’s a transwoman?

I don’t doubt that it will happen at some point. I also suspect that the first times we see it will be writers or developers doing it just to prove how edgy they are. I have nightmare visions of a female character who is highly sexualized up until the revelation that she “used to be a man” in which case the male protagonist will be shocked and appalled at the deception and I will go and bang my head against a nearby wall.

Even if we do go through this sort of mis-step, I’m confident that some game will get there eventually. I’m also confident that when it finally does happen, the sky will continue to not fall.

What transgender representation in games? is a post from: The Border House

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Gaming Angels has a list of women they consider to be the ten most influential women of the past decade. The list includes people like Naughty Dog Creative Director Amy Hennig (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves) and Ubisoft Producer Jade Raymond (Assassin’s Creed, Assassins Creed II). In no particular order, they are:

• Lucy Bradshaw
• Kim Swift
• Jade Raymond
• Corrine Yu
• Megan Gaiser
• Kellee Santiago
• Amy Hennig
• Deborah Mars
• Cammie Dunaway
• Christa Phillips Carter

Head on over to Gaming Angels for the reasons why these women were selected.

What do you think of the list? Are there any industry women you think should have been on the list?

10 Most Influential Women in Games of the Past Decade is a post from: The Border House

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Recently, I read a post on Feminists with Disabilities about subtitles in games. In it, the author describes her experiences playing games, and the importance of subtitles for many gamers:

One thing that endeared me to WoW, however, is that all the dialogue is subtitled. I am not deaf, but I do sometimes have trouble sorting dialogue out from ambient noise, both in game and out. I don’t want to have to miss something in an otherwise mostly enjoyable game because I can’t understand what the NPCs are saying. It doesn’t matter how high you turn the volume, you just can’t get everything. WoW even lets me know when someone is yelling.

Games that do not have subtitles often negatively impact game play experience.  Apparently, Ubisoft listened to player feedback regarding the lack of subtitles in Assassin’s Creed, and they’ve included subtitles in Assassin’s Creed II. In 2008, Ubisoft publicly announced a commitment to including subtitles in many of its games:

Ubisoft says it’s committed to deaf and hard-of-hearing gamers, launching a new initiative that promises to include subtitles in all of its games produced in-house.

According to the company, this commitment entails modifications to some of its game engines, as well as the inclusion of subtitles in the conception phase of game development.

Ubisoft says it’s also aiming to include subtitles in projects already well into production, when technically possible.

It’s a welcome move with a lot of support from gamers.

Ubisoft’s Pledge to Include Subtitles is a post from: The Border House

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It’s been about a month since The Border House went live. Since then, a bunch of our awesome contributors have introduced themselves and jumped right into blogging some awesome, insightful posts. The comment section has been buzzing with great discussion from our equally smart readers. We’re all so grateful and excited that the blog has met with this incredible response both from bloggers who’ve eagerly volunteered to air their thoughts and insights, as well as their time, and to readers who’ve welcomed another site into the blogoverse.

We thought it would be a good time to check in with our readers and contributors, and ask for your thoughts. We want to know if we’re on track with this whole inclusive, intersectional, feminist gamer collaboration, and we welcome your feedback.

• What should we keep doing?
• What sorts of posts have you enjoyed the most? Mention specific posts if you like.
• What would you like to see more of?
• Is there anything you haven’t seen that you’d like us to cover?
• Are there any aspects of the blog that you’d like to see improved? This could be anything from technical suggestions to suggestions about how we can make our budding community more inclusive.

We’d love to hear what you think.  Please keep the discussion constructive, productive, and on-topic.

If you’re not comfortable posting your feedback in public, you can always reach us individually or as a group via email. Your feedback is always welcome, regardless of this post.

As the year ends, we’d like to thank our readers and contributors for reading so far. We’re looking forward to the new year, and hope you’ll join us.

Looking Back, Looking Forward is a post from: The Border House

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(by Guest Contributor Jordan Lynn)

I’m Jordan, a videogame researcher with a Master’s in Journalism and Communication. I live with my wife in Athens, GA, where we both work in an office that seeks to improve childhood education through videogames (without making crappy edutainment). I’ve been looking for a good outlet for my academic rantings, now that I’ve graduated; the Border House seems a good place for that

An image of a Brokeback Mountain XBox 360 game, with "I Wish I Knew How to Quit You" in rainbow colored font.

I am a 400-pound linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys.

I am a wizard with unimaginable power.

I am a shotgun-toting, wisecracking zombie destroyer.

I am an Operative in the Her Majesty’s Special Air Service.

I am a plumber who likes mushrooms.

I am a cage fighter with a bad attitude.

I am a knight on an epic quest.

I am a yellow three-quarter circle being chased by ghosts.

I am a giant, laser cannon-toting battle mech from the future.

But I am not gay.

I can break the sound barrier in a jet fighter.

I can take on a horde of mindless drones with my trusty rocket launcher.

I can explore uncharted planets.

I can drive a Ferrari through Manhattan at 217 MPH.

I can kill everything in sight.

I can create an entire species from the cellular level to spaceflight.

I can brave unfathomable danger to rescue the woman I love.

I can save millions from destruction in a nuclear assault.

I can do virtually anything.

But I cannot have a meaningful relationship with a same-sex partner.

The universe of videogames is populated with countless worlds: some simulate reality as we know it, others recreate how it once was, and others still imagine what it could be. These worlds are densely populated and highly active, and traveling between them poses no great difficulty. However, no matter the world you inhabit or the eyes through which you see the events of the world unfold, you cannot be gay.

Many video games include and positively portray minority groups in order to capitalize on that group’s market segment; however, for the so-called “gaymer,” there are no marketing campaigns, few witty advertisements (in fact, a single commercial for The Sims), and no other overtures to the market. There are exactly zero mass-marketed and commercially-available games developed for the homosexual gamer. We can imagine reasons for this. For example, the development and production of a game is very time-consuming and expensive, and the vast majority of such games do not return a profit for their investment; as such, developers seek to broaden their appeal wherever they can. Perhaps developers fear that the gaymer market isn’t strong enough to carry the sales of a game. From the Fejes article (2003) we learn that advertisers fear identifying their products with being gay, though they could reach the gay consumer through regular ads. Still, we must take into account that Fejes wrote this in 1975; in the intervening thirty-plus years, the market has shifted and the gay consumer has become a well-defined and analyzed market segment. Films like Brokeback Mountain win Academy Awards, and television shows like Will & Grace, Queer Eye, The L-word and others gain critical acclaim in prime-time spots. But where are the games?

Over those same thirty years, video games have risen from the role of electronic stepbrother of LEGOs and GI Joe action figures to becoming a valid medium for artistic expression. Games are outstripping even the strongest blockbuster films in terms of revenue and have become a household fixture around the globe. Protagonists in video games range widely in every category; characters of different ages, races, genders, cultural backgrounds, and even species can be found in a throughout the industry. However, for the primary, player-controlled character, there are no true homosexual representations; this is a marked contrast to other minority groups who have begun receiving detailed and elaborate treatment from game developers. Gay characters in games are few and far between, and what these characters represent has a lot to say about the video game industry.

Representations of homosexuality in games:

“Comic Relief and Stereotypes Go Good Together!”

One of the earliest and most common representations of homosexuality in mainstream games is that of the comically gay/transvestite/flamboyant minor character. Birdo, a boss character in Super Mario Brothers 2, was actually described as being a boy but wanting to be a girl and to be called “Birdetta” in the original Japanese instruction manual, an explanation edited out for the American release. Streets of Rage 3, Final Fight, and the immensely popular Street Fighter 2 all included flamboyantly gay characters, replete with feathers, whips, and leather, that were removed for the transition from Japan to the Western markets. Flea, a male antagonist in Chrono Trigger (arguably one of the most popular games of all time), is depicted in a pink school girl uniform in updated versions. More recently, Makato from Enchanted Arms is a walking stereotype, a flamboyant queen whose lispy and high-pitched voice matches the mold; at least he’s not shielded in androgyny (gameplayer.com).

“Lesbians ARE SO HAWT OMG!!!!11″

Though the market demographics for videogame consumption have shifted away from the teenage male, in many cases it doesn’t appear that developers have caught on to the same trend. Immature, hyper-sexualized representations of women still persist; should I even mention “breast physics?” What better way to further inflame the lonely, hyper-libidinous gamer than digital girl-on-girl action! Fear Effect 2 is the most widely noted example, outside of limited-distribution porn games, for featuring a pair of buxom female protagonists who titillate and tease the player.

The Optionally Gay, or “Bisexual is Good Enough, Right?”

Many of the sidekicks and minor characters listed above are openly gay, but aren’t main characters. For main characters, progressive portrayals are apparently revolving around the “optionally gay:” in some open-ended games, there is the possibility of pursuing a gay romance or subplot, but it is never a requirement. Fable and Fable 2 allow the character to woo and marry men and women – but many more women will respond than men to your romantic overtures, and all wooing is purely optional. Bertram, if rescued during the events of Temple of Elemental Evil, will marry one of the male characters and live happily ever after – but saving him isn’t necessary for the story. Rockstar’s Bully features a protagonist that gets kisses to restore health in a prep school, and sometimes boys are an option, but only if you choose to pursue it. Mass Effect, a widely acclaimed game with a great deal of story options, allows a female protagonist to develop a relationship with a man or with a woman, which are exclusive; however, the developers dodge the word “lesbian” by making the wooed female in question actually a member of an androgynous alien race, who all miraculously look like beautiful (if blue-tinted) women, but really have no gender. Sneaky sneaky! Still not gay.

Portrayals of Non-Stereotypical LGBT

There are a small number of games I’ve seen with homosexual characters portrayed respectfully and tastefully. Bioware, makers of Mass Effect referenced above, released Knights of the Old Republic several years ago as an addition to the Star Wars universe. At one point the player fights a female opponent, and can choose to spare her and recruit her, or finish her after the battle. If the player kills Juhani, a female character accosts the player for murdering her love, with specific references to a lesbian partnership, and vows revenge.This also marks the first appearance of a gay character in the vast collection of Star Wars media.

The Sims, a reality simulation game, allows for characters to form romantic attachments to other characters as the player, who micromanages the world, dictates. This includes same-sex relationships, which are handled no differently within the game as heterosexual relationships. The Sims is also notable for its willingness to appeal to homosexual consumers in their advertising; one of their commercials, using real actors instead of electronic images to represent the game, pairs two men together romantically as one of a rapid succession of images.

There are more portrayals of homosexual themes, characters, and references throughout the video game world than can be listed here; the important theme is the fact that none of these portrayals are LGBT-centric, and it seems developers are hesitant to tackle the gaming world’s equivalent to Brokeback Mountain. This is hardly surprising, as depiction of even the most tasteful of sexual images included in a video game can spark national controversy almost overnight (with one such controversy going so far as the United States Senate). If video games can’t discuss or portray sexuality, even in the most artistic and thoughtful way, then how can a reasonable discussion of homosexuality begin? If Brokeback Mountain had been released as a videogame, remaining faithful to the same powerful source material, and even keeping the same budget and actors, the infamous tent scene would have caused an unprecedented uproar. The game would be banned from several countries around the globe, no major retailer in the United States would dare carry it (because, of course, it would carry the dreaded Adults Only rating), and the company that made the game would likely fold in the wake of massive revenue losses. This is not hyperbole; Mass Effect was lambasted on FOXNews as a “pornography simulator” and they ran several hours of coverage of the ills of the game – and the sex scene to which they are referring lasts less than 30 seconds, is PG-13 in content, and requires forty hours of gameplay and the cultivation of a romantic relationship within the game to unlock.

It also can’t help matters along that this is an age of virtually anonymous internet communications. Offensive speech and behaviors, removed from any sense of accountability, have reached new heights of vulgarity. In my experience, the word “gay” is one of the most commonly used gaming terms in existence, and is quite versatile in expressing displeasure. Standing off from a melee to attack with a long range weapon is “gay sniping;” killing players as they spawn is “gay;” unsportsmanlike conduct is “gay;” and if you have anything to say into the microphone, then without a doubt, you are “gay.” The term has become so ubiquitous as an expression of rebuke or objection that even non-homophobic players are utilizing the term frequently, not out of hatred towards any one group of people, but simply because the term has been appropriated into new usage in the video game world. Indeed, any player on Microsoft’s Xbox Live, Sony’s Home, or any of several Massively Multiplayer Online gamers must avoid self-identifying as gay in their gamertags, or online aliases; not for fear of ostracism and harassment from their peers, but to prevent being banned by the content provider for having inappropriate sexual content in their name. In efforts to prevent harassment based on these common terms of derision, game developers have blocked LGBT players from legitimately establishing gay-friendly guilds and associations.

These arguments are never so poignant as when paired with experience from reality. One of my closest friends, who has recently come out of the closet, is also a fellow hardcore gamer. Without any hesitation, during intense online matches and in moments of extreme frustration, I find myself shouting “DAMMIT THAT IS SO GAY!” into the microphone; I have appropriated the term from such constant exposure, and it means nothing more to me than a generalized expression of displeasure. But slowly it dawns on me, with my companion’s affirmation of his sexuality, that I am spouting hate. I do not hate homosexuality, but like a parrot I mimic the language I have heard; or better, like a young child I have learned the word to plug in the gap in my expression of negative emotions, and know nothing of the consequences of using it wantonly. I am reluctant to regard this ever-present term as offensive – since many use the word as I do, I assume they don’t use it as an expression of hate. It’s just a word, right? Additionally, I’ve heard many worse epithets, splattered about the chat channels like the macabre remains of the zombies we routinely annihilate. I’m not bad like them; they’re bad, and they spread hate because they’re bad people from somewhere else. They aren’t like me. I’m one of the good guys. Right? ….right?

Do I object to the use of racial, gender, and sexuality slurs? No.

Do I realign my personal vocabulary to remove offensive terms, not just reduce their use? No.

Do I refuse to play with people who use such terms in online battle? No.

Do I sit back and silently approve of a system that is presenting hostile conditions for any actual LGBT gamers who may have the misfortune of wanting to play one of these games online, and be subjected to all of this hate-filled rhetoric? Yes.

I hate presenting problems without presenting potential solutions. Do we start with the developers, to release games that legitimize homosexual portrayals in videogames, and hope the players adapt to the new ideas of tolerance? It’s too financially risky; the games could fail, and producers could see this as evidence that the market won’t support LGBT games. Do we start with the players, and educate them, possibly making them receptive to more thorough portrayals of LGBT issues? I would equate the difficulty level of educating anonymous internet combatants in sensitivity to roughly the same level as teaching a cat the basic tenets of Thermodynamics. Do we tackle the perception of the medium as a whole, presenting videogames as more than a toy attached to the television, but as a valid outlet for artistic human expression? We could, or we could wait fifteen years for the last of the generation before videogames retires and dies off, an option I’ve heard voiced by several industry professionals. How do you fight a war against hate and fear and discrimination when the enemy is a thousand miles away? How about in the apartment next door? How about sitting on your couch reading this article from behind your glasses? For me, I’m starting small.

I can listen to what others say without accepting it.

I can support those in the gamer community who are working for change.

I can openly and honestly evaluate my own behaviors and opinions.

I can have a meaningful relationship with my best friend, and cultivate respect for his culture.

I am an academic researcher of videogames.

I am a hardcore gamer.

I am ready to see a game that can change my view of the world.

But I am not gay.

…at least, not yet. I’m just waiting for the right game.

(originally posted here)

Fejes, F. (2003) Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-Reader. SAGE Publications.

http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documents/Gays-in-Gaming.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKzF173GqTU Mass Effect vs FOX News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6alOnuN-wCY Halo 3 and the word “gay”
http://www.gaygamer.net/top-20-gayest-video-game-characters/index.php?page=2
http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2008/05/gayer-player-ge.html

A Treatise on Homosexuality and Gaming is a post from: The Border House

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This post was written by Latoya Peterson, originally posted at Racialicious, and is kindly republished here with permission.

Latoya Peterson provides a hip-hop feminist and anti-racist view on pop culture with a special focus on video games, anime, American comics, manga, magazines, film, television, and music. She is the Editor at Racialicious, is a Contributor at Jezebel, and has written for The American Prospect, Bitch Magazine, Clutch Magazine, the Women’s Review of Books, Slate’s Double X, and the Guardian.

On Christmas, reader Mel sent us a little present. He wrote in about a flash based indie video game covered by the Escapist. The title? Ching Chong Beautiful.

I click over the link, expecting to see a take down. After all, the Escapist does publish a lot of progressive gaming commentary, and our blog bud Pat over at Token Minorities has been known to bless them with a piece or two. So imagine my shock when I checked the endorsement :

That’s kind of the principle behind Newgrounds’ latest well-promoted title, the kind-of-offensive-but-actually-really-funny Ching Chong Beautiful, developed by The Swain. Your brother is kidnapped by Mr. Beautiful, whose obstacle course is A.) known to be deadly and unbeatable and B.) the most popular TV show in Japan. In order to save your brother, you must get a thoroughbred horse, and the only way to do that is – you guessed it – enter Ching Chong Beautiful.

The game starts throwing stereotypes in the blender from the intro page:

A Game of Great Endurance Challenge!

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/520768

The game features the new High Scores system and Newgrounds medals! So go grab some green tea, get drunk on sake, and maybe poach some whales if there’s time…the Bang Wong Fishhead Corporation challenges you to defeat Mr.Beautiful’s ancient obstacle course: Ching Chong Beautiful!

And it goes from there.

Now, before some gamers wander over here from other sites complaining about our general lack of humor and understanding, let me make something crystal clear: I get all the fucking jokes. I know what MXC is, I used to watch it on Spike. I know what Takeshi’s Castle is, I’ve watched it online. I know what this is:

The green can next to the television labeled “Sweat” is a play on the sports drink Pocari Sweat, which normally comes in a blue and white can or bottle. (And yes, I’ve tried that too.)

I’m aware that CCB is, in part, mocking the nature of these kinds of game shows that specialize in sadistic environments and public humiliation. But it’s still racist.

Much of the “humor” is visual. The game is set in Japan and includes lots of stereotypical images like these:

And for extra “oh, we’re so cool and un-PC” points, they named their levels things like “Crater Stadium” and “Spicy Tuna Bowl.”

The caption under Crater Stadium says: “A radioactive crater formed from big nuclear bomb! I couldn’t think of a more fitting location for my second course. You will die!”

The only thing missing was the orientalist riff.

So I play through the game. Sadly, the game play was actually fun. The initial concept (being trapped in a Japanese game show) was interesting and the game itself was just the right combination of frustrating and addictive. However, that was brought to a quick stop after a wall jump ended badly, and my little character Ching nearly cracked his head open on a block. Normally, when this happens, he yells out things like “this is bullshit!” or “aww, man!” (The announcer occasionally yells out “Too bad Chinatown!” after you fall.) But after that particular time, Ching screams: “You’re out of your zipperheads!”

What the fuck?

Predictably, the comments to the game are a cesspool – but I was interested to take a peek at the conversation over on the Escapist. And lo and behold, a couple lone voices of reason tried to call attention to how fucked up this all is:

SaintWaldo writes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_chong

Are you really this insensitive?

Just to clarify, this is equivalent to naming your Southern themed Flash game “N***er Lovely”.

Making me even more angry, this story was the FIRST thing I read on Christmas morning. Thanks, Escapist, for filling my holiday with racism.

The response? “Cool down, man.”

SaintWaldo keeps fighting:

HK_01:

Cool down, man.

No. I won’t “cool down”, mainly because I’M not the uncool one.

It’s a racial slur, it offends me, and I’m going to say so. Calmly. I’m also offended that you seem to read any disagreement as “not cool”. I’m rational and presenting coherent arguments that this is a racist title and should not be on the front page of an international magazine on a major holiday. What isn’t cool is being told to not voice your objections to racism. So, concern taken for what it is, but, please, don’t tell me how I should be expressing my genuine disagreement with promoting this title. I don’t tell you anything of the sort.

Other readers chime in as well:

spiral helix:

Thank you Waldo. Big props to you for standing up and pointing out how racist the title of this game is. It is offensive and your reaction is definitely justified. I’m pretty disappointed that Escapist would be so desperate for material over holiday period that they would even stoop to promoting a game with such a title. I usually come to escapist just to watch zero punctuation but the completely inappropriate title of the article made click on it. Thank you escapist for reminding me why i never read the articles here.

BonsaiK:

As someone who is part-Chinese I do find this game as not a very prudent choice for The Escapist to highlight. I’d definitely stop short of saying “I’m offended” (racial epithets make up easily over half of my CD collection after all) but I wonder if it’s the best choice especially given how many young people visit this site. “Ching-Chong” is a reference to Chinese people, but the game is parodying a type of TV show that is Japanese and actually has nothing to do with China. I guess to the American who made this game, that’s not an important distinction for him, because in his eyes Asians are obviously all the same. I interpret this as being very racist, even if he didn’t have any actual racist intent in making the game. It’s a shame that he had to taint his game with a stupid and unfunny name like this because I actually don’t mind the gameplay concept and some of the other humour in the game is reasonably clever.

I realise that The Escapist and a lot of gamers in general are obsessed with Japanese culture (although I can’t work out why, it seems very random to me) so I guess something that both references Japenese culture and is a computer game was irresistible to them as it helps them to magnify this (artificial) link. The fact that the article writer was willing to gloss over a little bit of inconvenient racism, because the article subject matter was just that tempting, makes the Escapist look amateurish. I think that The Escapist can find better things to write articles about than what some racist kid did on Newgrounds.

At this point, the author of the post steps in – and completely sidesteps the racism, merely noting that the game is popular and that is why it was recommended. Fail.

And the usual excuses are trotted out. Other gamers say things like “it’s not that offensive” or ching chong isn’t a slur, it’s a “percieved [sic] view of the sound of the language,” and “As for the racism, I think we should give a pass to any words that have not been used seriously in over fourty years.”

One person helpfully adds: “Having said all that, it’s entirely your right to be offended if you’re oriental, however if not, I think it might be an overreaction.”

Sigh.

So aside from the usual amount of racism, CCB strikes me as a wonderful example of reinforcing stereotypes when you are trying to mock them. This actually happens fairly often in media. The last time I tackled it in the gaming sphere was when I talked about Chris Mottes, CEO of Deadline Games, and his defense of racism in his title Chili Con Carnage:

Employing Mexican-American voice actors? Great job! Promoting underground Mexican bands? Even better. I was so impressed by Mottes’ initiative, I was completely blindsided by his next statement.

However, in reviews, forums, and blogs following the releases of both games, some people slammed Deadline for being bigoted towards Mexicans. While we did employ stereotypes we considered lighthearted and humorous, our intent was most certainly not to cast Mexican individuals in a derogatory light…But despite our best efforts, critics still slammed us for being racists.

…

Why, Chris, why? Why would you throw away all your hard work for a couple cheap, race based humor shots?

The reality is that no stereotype can be considered light-hearted and humorous. A stereotype is defined as “an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group.” Stereotypes are negative. Even “positive” stereotypes are ultimately detrimental to the groups that struggle to find a sense of self within the narrow parameters of society’s vision.

I’ll touch on this more in next month’s Cerise, but I have to say I was blown away. The tone of Mottes’ piece is unmistakably clear – this is how game designers think. This is how they justify their characters. It is as if the thought never crossed their minds that maybe, just maybe, the industry is sending a very powerful message out to minorities by saying that we do not exist outside of our stereotypical roles. If there were five or ten games with a multi-faceted, modern latino protagonist, maybe slipping in a few “light-hearted” stereotypes in one third person shooter would not be such a huge deal. It is still ill-advised, but you would have enough positive images on the market to balance out the negative images broadcast into the homes of every person who purchased this one game.

However, there is no balance. Stereotype after stereotype abound in the virtually crafted console world, with very few characters of color to provide an alternate perspective. Mottes argues that “most games with racist characters do not reflect the mindset of their developers.” I would argue that they do. It reflects the developer’s mindset in dealing with the world and in dealing with minorities. If the developer was not holding on to this mindset that minorities can be categorized with one or two main characteristics, we would have multi-faceted characters of color to play.

You lose the element of humor when you begin to reinforce the same dynamics you claim to poke fun at. A game lampooning television shows like Takeshi’s Castle? Fair enough. A game that relies on heavily stereotyped images, throws in random associations to bits and pieces of Japanese culture, and openly uses racial slurs? Not funny, not innovative, just racist.

What’s worse is that the game (and subsequent reaction) reinforces stereotypes on two levels. The first, what we described above, is the continuing animus toward Asians and Asian Americans, which result in people dismissing the voices and experiences of those impacted by this type of racism. The second is the reinforcement of the wacky Japan narrative, without which MXC would not have been possible. Interestingly, this othering, which masquerades as “understanding” other cultures, actually allows many people to lay their prejudices, xenophobia, and racism out on the table. As Lisa Katayama writes at Boing Boing:

The simple fact that I’m Japanese quickly became one of my greatest advantages as an aspiring writer. I started paying attention to my motherland as a repository of story ideas. I looked at things differently when I went back home, honed my story-finding skills, and launched my own blog, TokyoMango. I got major Japan-related assignments from magazines, consulting gigs from print and radio outlets, and a book deal. It was really strange for me, because all I thought I was doing was telling people about the place I came from. One thing was clear: Weird Japan sells. It’s an almost guaranteed success for book publishers and major traffic bait for blogs.

But writing about my own country’s quirks has its downside. I strive to tell each story objectively without condescension or sensationalism, but every time I write an article about, say, the engineer who has a body pillow girlfriend or the grad student who married a Nintendo DS character, I get hundreds of racially-charged comments from readers, long ranting responses from defenders of Japanese culture, and dozens of emails from people at big media outlets who want to find out more about these “strange” phenomena.

Why do so many love to gawk at this mysterious, foreign “other” that is Japanese culture? There are plenty of strange things going on in the US too, but when it happens in Japan, it’s suddenly incomprehensible, despicable, awesome, and crazy. This fascination doesn’t just end with angry commenters, either. Over the last couple of decades, it has spawned a huge industry of magazines, blogs, and products themed around Japanese culture marketed to Westerners by Westerners who are also obsessed with Japanese culture.

Lisa Katayama writes wonderful, interesting things – but she also began to feel the sting of racism continued to share small things from Japan. What started out as fun became bastardized into something ugly and awful. And games like CCB help to perpetuate the worst of both worlds: anti-Asian racism and wacky Japan stereotypes.

Ching Chong Beautiful Exposes Racism in Video Game Design is a post from: The Border House

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Via Joystiq comes news that the first issue of the Dragon Age comic that was announced back in October will be out in March 2010. It is being produced by IDW Publishing and, unfortunately, still being written by Orson Scott Card.

For those who haven’t heard yet, Orson Scott Card not only holds radically anti-gay views, he is a board member of the National Organization for Marriage, and has advocated overthrowing any government that legalizes same-sex marriage. This is not a man with whom I and others simply have political disagreements with. This is a man who uses his fame and fortune to fight against the basic human rights of millions of people, based on an aspect of their identity that he doesn’t like.

The last time Orson Scott Card came up in gaming circles, it was around the summer XBLA title Shadow Complex. I’ll give an overview of the incident, since The Border House did not exist back then. OSC wrote the story and dialogue for Shadow Complex (ETA: A reader reminds me it was actually Peter David who wrote the actual story and dialogue, but it was based on a universe created by OSC, and:) his name was used heavily in order to promote the game (which is a Metroidvania-style side-scrolling shooter, with a story that revolves around a man saving his girlfriend from a liberal conspiracy). This caused ripples in the online gaming community, where many people pointed out OSC’s views and acts, some advocating boycotting the game. The arguments against boycotting mostly revolved around the question “Why take it out on an entire studio if one person involved says something homophobic?” First of all, due to the nature of privilege, pretty much all straight people are going to make SOME sort of homophobic statement at some point in their lives; it’s safe to say OSC’s behavior goes well beyond simply making ignorant statements. Secondly, this is not just some guy in the art department shooting his mouth off; the publisher and developer are using his name to promote and profit off the game.

The case is pretty much the same for the Dragon Age comic. The added irony here is that, despite valid criticisms, Dragon Age is one of, if not the, most progressive games out there in terms of sexual inclusivity. It has two bisexual characters, and allows for homosexual sex and relationships. There is an obvious conflict of interest here, especially in terms of the storytelling: will the backgrounds and personalities of the bisexual characters be rewritten or ignored? Will they be part of some inane and insulting “I had a same-sex relationship but I learned better!” plot? Or will they simply not exist at all?

In addition, why not have a BioWare internal writer write the comic, as they did for the prequel novel? This person would have a deeper knowledge of the Dragon Age lore and a better feel for the tone and atmosphere of the setting and characters than any outside writer possibly could, and also they aren’t Orson Scott Card.

My purpose in bringing all of this up again is that I think it is important to bring up Orson Scott Card’s hateful views and, more importantly, his hateful and dangerous activism whenever his name comes up, so that everyone knows about it, and people can decide for themselves whether it is worth it to support him in order to play a game or read a comic book.

More on Orson Scott Card:
Orson Scott Card, homophobic terrorist, against the orderly pursuit of happiness – Yonmei, Feminist SF blog
Orson Scott Card is a misogynistic homophobic wanker – Yonmei, Feminist SF blog
Orson Scott Card: Criminalize Homosexual Behavior – Austin Cline

Dragon Age comic out in March, written by raging homophobe Orson Scott Card is a post from: The Border House

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http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=848

I’m Joana, I’m 23 and I’m from Brazil. Studying Journalism at the moment in the university, I’m almost at the end of it. I enjoy reading and writing (wrote a little fairy tale book about a princess who cuts heads off). I’m a feminist (yes, so is my princess, who wears trousers) and I love gaming since I was seven, I suppose. I don’t remember when I first got my hands on a joystick, but I remember it was my parents’ Atari 2600. My favourite game back then was Snoopy and the Red Baron. You were Snoopy on top of his house and you had to shoot theses red airplanes that looked like they were from World War I. When you shot them down they turned into a bag of popcorn or something. Awesome.

I got a Mega Drive next, loved Sonic, my childhood hero. Sorry to see what has become of him. I loved Streets of Rage, Tom Jam & Earl, great games. Then I wanted a Super Nintendo, I was fascinated by Donkey Kong Country. When I got to the shop, the guy there put me in front of StarFox 64 on the Nintendo 64. It’s a shooting game in space, in case you don’t know. I couldn’t believe it, it was too good, the controller even shook when I bumped into some obstacle or was shot. I got a N64 and it was one of my best videogames. Loved Zelda Ocarina of Time, still think it’s the greatest game ever. Loved Banjo-Kazooie, Mario 64, Mario Kart, Pokémon Stadium, Zelda Majora’s Mask and many others.

Continuing my videogame saga, once the N64 got old, I got a Gamecube. This one I didn’t play as much, I was studying hard at the time and I didn’t have any friends who got one, so I ended up with few games. My favourite from this videogame was Zelda Twilight Princess. I got a Wii now, I’m so very happy with it. I already have a friend who owns one and we lend each other games. I couldn’t believe it when I played it for the first time in a shop, it was the most fun thing in the world to cut grass in Twilight Princess thanks to the controller. This was the main reason I got a Wii, I love the idea of the character on the screen repeating my movements, it’s so much more immersive for me.

As for handhelds, I got an original GameBoy (with Pokémon Blue) and a Nintendo DS Lite. I don’t play them as much, but they’re good for when you go to a place where you have to wait and don’t have enough light to read or for when you won’t have much time and just want to have some quick fun.

I always notice the lack of playable female characters on videogames. It’s as if they’re ignoring half of the world’s population. Are they mad? That’s sad for me as I love games so much. I’m a female, I want to play as a female. It’s an identity matter. And, please, a character who is dressed and prepared for the challenges she must face, not wearing small shorts while it’s snowing. Yes, that exists, I’m not exaggerating. Check Tomb Raider Anniversary.

I’m putting my Mii as my picture as I think she is rather cute. And she gets to star in loads of games such as the multiplayer of WarioWare: Smooth Moves. Not a fan of Wii Sports though. Oh, a Mii is an avatar used in the Wii, in case you’re not familiar with them.

Hi from Joana is a post from: The Border House

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http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=831

I ran across this blog post tonight on ChicagoNow.com that claimed to be written by a “gamer girl” who plays World of Warcraft.  I skimmed the article and quickly realized it didn’t contain much substance, and ended up settling on one of the comments, which said:

As a female gamer I have mixed feelings about girls with low self esteems in RL (real world) who flaunt a fake confidence and avatar sexuality in the game world. On one hand I’d love to see more women gamers, on the other, those women make it harder for real gamer girls to interact with males in the game.

I really wanted to blog about the internal sexism in that statement and the words that followed it, but after re-reading the original blog post I realized that the whole post was most likely bogus.  Now I can’t get beyond that.  It’s quite clear to me that this was a freelance writer carrying out an assignment to be a female gamer for the sake of a blog post, and here’s why:

Lightning fast download speed

Meghan Freebeck claims:

I was first introduced to World of Warcraft (WoW) by accident. A college sophomore at the time, I walked away from my laptop in the library for a few moments and a friend downloaded the game to my computer as a joke.

So, she walked away for “a few moments” and an entire almost-20-GB MMORPG downloaded to her laptop?  Mmm, okay.

Robust character creation

She then goes on to say that she spent 5 hours customizing her female warrior.  I’m sorry, but blood elves don’t have that many customization options.

Exhaustive gamer lingo

In my favorite quote of the whole blog post,

My name in the ‘World’ is ‘Mulier Proeliator’, which means Woman Warrior in Latin. I am a Blood Elf from the Horde Realm.

Well, considering you cannot have a name with a space in it, and Mulierproeliator is too long…I’m doubting that.  Unless of course, this is a roleplay character.  However, there isn’t a realm in WoW named “Horde”.  Just an entire faction.

This post screams with obvious farmed website content.  It even opens with a tantalizingly-sexy opening paragraph to draw readers in, and talks about her “fantastic cleavage” and skin tight armor.  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen posts like this.  The only thing I can assume is that these kind of articles are bringing traffic to these websites which is why they’re hiring freelance writers to create this content.

I don’t doubt that the author logged in to play WoW once or twice for the sake of this article, but was she someone who played it obsessively and didn’t leave her house for days?  Highly doubtful.  Was this a progressive article about women in gaming?  I don’t think it was.  It seems like yet another “I play games and I’m a girl so RAWR!” blog posts that we see so many of lately (even from people who obviously don’t game).  Readers, why do you think that is?  It feels like female gamers on the web are turning into nothing more than SEO and ad revenue for website owners and content farms.  Who is monetizing on this?  We could figure it out by turning Adsense on here on the Border House and see what kind of ads come up – but I don’t want to do that.  ;)

Female gamers and website traffic is a post from: The Border House

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