42% of women and 37% of men own game consoles

[Derec]

http://cheezburger.com/8582039552/video-game-news-more-us-women-own-consoles-than-men

Pew Research source: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/...hip-2015/pi_2015-10-29_device-ownership_1-07/

The study does not say what percentage of those console owners play the consoles themselves, or bought the consoles for their kids, but clearly we are reaching (and perhaps even passed) gender parity in gaming.

So, are all those females blind or just really flat-chested?

Seriously though, there is the issue of buying consoles for kids or even boyfriends and also the issue of console vs. PC gamers. It also doesn't say how much time everybody spends playing games. So I do not think the metric is a very useful one.

 

[Derec]

I think now we understand why game developers are so interested in making games that are not exclusive to the male perspective.

Nothing wrong with that, and it's not new either.

I know a lot of anti-women gamers are up in arms about this change in gaming, but it's long past due if you ask me.

You call them anti-women gamers but I do not think that is fair.
Gamer-gate started not because "anti-women gamers" objected to broadening of scope of game design but because radical feminists like that Swedish chick (Anita Sore-something or other) objected to male-centered games. She even took issue with Mario rescuing a princess, for fuck's sake!

 

[Underseer]

Nothing wrong with that, and it's not new either.

I know a lot of anti-women gamers are up in arms about this change in gaming, but it's long past due if you ask me.

You call them anti-women gamers but I do not think that is fair.
Gamer-gate started not because "anti-women gamers" objected to broadening of scope of game design but because radical feminists like that Swedish chick (Anita Sore-something or other) objected to male-centered games. She even took issue with Mario rescuing a princess, for fuck's sake!

Actually, the complaints about Sarkeesian is a perfect example of the poor arguments used by the anti-women crowd.

I heard a lot of hullaballoo about Sarkeesian's videos, then watched a few for myself. She simply made valid observations about tropes used in games, and it was hardly the "feminazi anti-man screed" everyone was screaming about. Fuck, she even acknowledged that the "damsel in distress" trope is much less present in modern games than it was in the 1980s, and that modern games have excellent examples of sexual subjectification to counter the sexual objectification (e.g. more female protagonists who perform actions rather than waiting for actions to be performed upon them).

 

[Derec]

If you've bought a console for a kid I don't think you really consider it to be yours, not sure how it was worded though.

If you bought the console for "the family" though you might, and that is a major appeal of especially Wii which catered more to families rather than hardcore gamers.

But the controversy is a bit silly. There are enough video game titles released to cover different tastes without shortchanging the traditional audience.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, the complaints about Sarkeesian is a perfect example of the poor arguments used by the anti-women crowd.
I heard a lot of hullaballoo about Sarkeesian's videos, then watched a few for myself. She simply made valid observations about tropes used in games, and it was hardly the "feminazi anti-man screed" everyone was screaming about. Fuck, she even acknowledged that the "damsel in distress" trope is much less present in modern games than it was in the 1980s, and that modern games have excellent examples of sexual subjectification to counter the sexual objectification.

The problem with her and those who agree with her is that she objects to certain tropes that do not appeal to her. The solution is: if you don't like a particular game, play another one. Instead, she is whining about games she disagrees with.

 

[Derec]

No, it has absolutely nothing to do with that. It has to do with things like how overt displays of sexism are now catering to a smaller portion of the potential market and how it's in the best interests of game designers to develop products which target a female audience as well as a male one.

But there are enough titles being released to cater to a diversity of tastes instead of everything being hybridized to a common denominator which is I think the objective of that Sark-woman, who sees any scantily clad female NPC as "overt sexism" which is silly.

 

[KeepTalking]

If you bought the console for "the family" though you might, and that is a major appeal of especially Wii which catered more to families rather than hardcore gamers.

But the controversy is a bit silly. There are enough video game titles released to cover different tastes without shortchanging the traditional audience.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, the complaints about Sarkeesian is a perfect example of the poor arguments used by the anti-women crowd.
I heard a lot of hullaballoo about Sarkeesian's videos, then watched a few for myself. She simply made valid observations about tropes used in games, and it was hardly the "feminazi anti-man screed" everyone was screaming about. Fuck, she even acknowledged that the "damsel in distress" trope is much less present in modern games than it was in the 1980s, and that modern games have excellent examples of sexual subjectification to counter the sexual objectification.

The problem with her and those who agree with her is that she objects to certain tropes that do not appeal to her. The solution is: if you don't like a particular game, play another one. Instead, she is whining about games she disagrees with.

Whining about games you disagree with is one of the favorite pass-times of all gamer geeks everywhere. If you're with your gaming friends, and you are not playing a game, or singing the praises of a game, chances are that you are bitching about games you don't like. Quite often you are doing all three things at the same time.

So, why does Sarkeesian get singled out by gamers for doing what gamers do? I think it is because the gamers who attacked her felt threatened by her perspective.

 

[bigfield]

So, why does Sarkeesian get singled out by gamers for doing what gamers do? I think it is because the gamers who attacked her felt threatened by her perspective.

She's a con artist.

She made a fortune from her Tropes vs. Women Kickstarter by publishing hate mail messages. Even though her target was $5,000, she received $158,000 from feminists who sympathised with her.

The quality of her videos before the Kickstarter were awful. Her videos are poorly researched, full of factual errors and piss-poor arguments. And even though she received more than thirty times her target for the Kickstarter, the Tropes vs. Women series were no improvement, despite taking years to produce them and having approximately $30,000 to spend on each video.

One of the things that really stank about her videos was that the work she did did not even require $5,000. Other Youtubers produce the same kinds of with better research. The stated reasonfor needing the money was to buy video games, but much of her content was taken from other Youtube videos, meaning that she didn't use the games that she needed money to buy.

Despite the poor quality of her work, she has become famous, giving talks at TEDx events and appearing on TV, not because she provides any insight, but because the hate she attracts makes her a heroic figure in the eyes of feminists. And the more undeserved success she gets, the more hate she attracts, and the more support she gets.

The end result is that a lot of people, really, truly hate her guts because she's a fraud who is making big money by attacking their pastime, and a lot of other people think she she is a hero for shining a light on the evils of video games while bravely standing up to rape and death threats from gamer bullies.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Most likely never going to buy a console again. Last one I got was the 360.

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So, why does Sarkeesian get singled out by gamers for doing what gamers do? I think it is because the gamers who attacked her felt threatened by her perspective.

It's more that she's completely wrong.

 

[ronburgundy]

But without the games, the console is an expensive paperweight. Nobody cares about the gender parity in paperweight ownership. It's what one does with the consoles that's important, not the fact of their existence.

Exactly. Which is my point and why the OP is somewhat meaningless. If you really want to see what's happening in gaming from a gender perspective, you should be looking at hours of games played. For all we know, the game consoles could mostly have been purchased by the mothers for their teen boys to play. If you were to blindly look at the purchases in my family when I was a kid, you might think my mom liked to play basketball, baseball and go fishing, when in fact, she has done none of those things. She bought that stuff for me and my little brother.

^^THIS^^

The OP stat is meaningless, because % who "own a game console" has very little correlation with who is playing games most often and what kind of games . Gaming companies are making $ hand-over-fist, in large part because they spend massive $$ on consumer research. IF they still making games with big-titted damsels who need saving by studs with guns, then that is because their valid research using relevant variables that actually predict game purchases (unlike the OP variable) shows that is what millions of people will buy. Sure, there are more female gamers now than in the past, but it nowhere near equal in terms of which gender most often plays the kinds of high-cost games on which the companies turn the big profits. It is still likely closer to 90/10 on that score. And sure, there is an under-tapped market of female gamers, and you can bet your ass the companies are scrambling to find ways to tap that shit But those new games will not replace the sexist games, they will be in addition to those game which will exist so long as their are enough people (mostly men) on the planet that want to play them (IOW, as long as video games exist).

 

[KeepTalking]

So, why does Sarkeesian get singled out by gamers for doing what gamers do? I think it is because the gamers who attacked her felt threatened by her perspective.

She's a con artist.

She made a fortune from her Tropes vs. Women Kickstarter by publishing hate mail messages. Even though her target was $5,000, she received $158,000 from feminists who sympathised with her.

The quality of her videos before the Kickstarter were awful. Her videos are poorly researched, full of factual errors and piss-poor arguments. And even though she received more than thirty times her target for the Kickstarter, the Tropes vs. Women series were no improvement, despite taking years to produce them and having approximately $30,000 to spend on each video.

One of the things that really stank about her videos was that the work she did did not even require $5,000. Other Youtubers produce the same kinds of with better research. The stated reasonfor needing the money was to buy video games, but much of her content was taken from other Youtube videos, meaning that she didn't use the games that she needed money to buy.

Despite the poor quality of her work, she has become famous, giving talks at TEDx events and appearing on TV, not because she provides any insight, but because the hate she attracts makes her a heroic figure in the eyes of feminists. And the more undeserved success she gets, the more hate she attracts, and the more support she gets.

The end result is that a lot of people, really, truly hate her guts because she's a fraud who is making big money by attacking their pastime, and a lot of other people think she she is a hero for shining a light on the evils of video games while bravely standing up to rape and death threats from gamer bullies.

I think you need to look up the meaning of "con artist". It would appear that she actually did produce that which she promised to produce. That some do not feel the production is of sufficient quality does not matter, so long as most of those who contributed to the financing of the production feel that it is. The fact that she only asked for $5,000 in the Kickstarter tells me that she was not out to con anyone. It seems more of a case that the Kickstarter was such a success she found that she could actually make a living from what she was doing, rather than just recouping some of the money she envisioned spending on producing the videos. Kickstarter has done this for a lot of people.

I don't actually know much about Sarkeesian. I have not watched her videos, other than one or two clips from when the whole controversy was in full swing, and I don't plan to watch them any time in the near future. I don't agree with her point of view from what I little I have seen, but then again there are a lot of whining gamers with whom I do not share a point of view. it is a reason to ignore them, not to attack them, or threaten them with violence. Well, other than threatening them with a well aimed headshot in a game of CounterStrike Source or Unreal Tournament.

 

[KeepTalking]

Most likely never going to buy a console again. Last one I got was the 360.

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So, why does Sarkeesian get singled out by gamers for doing what gamers do? I think it is because the gamers who attacked her felt threatened by her perspective.

It's more that she's completely wrong.

There are a ton of whining gamers who are completely wrong. So, what's so special about Sarkeesian that she cannot be simply ignored for espousing a point of view that is completely wrong?