Midterm Blog Post

Question 3.  How does critically looking at videogame(s) highlight flaws in our current society?

            Videogames often reflect real life values and morals in order to connect with its players. Unfortunately the majority of designers create games targeted for the stereotypical game consumer. The white, middle class, heterosexual male which we know statistically, does not actually make up the majority of videogame players anymore. However these stereotypical games continue to be made because we continue to buy them. The supporting argument for these sexist, racist and heteronormative games is frequently “it’s only a game, why do you have to analyze it?”.

            Well it may “just be a game” but designers are portraying real life situations and real life injustices in a desensitizing way. Players become desensitized to the brutal and unjust treatment of women and minorities in games because it is currently a common theme across games. It is a common theme in games because it is a common reality in our society. Games like “Grand Theft Auto”, “God of War” and “Fallout” have further pushed the polar opposite characteristics of genders in gaming. Commonly creating player one as the dominant white male, who has power and control over the female and minority characters. But wait that sounds familiar… We live in a society majority ruled by white males, who have power and control over female and minority citizens… But “it’s only a game”.

            Values and morals that reflect our current society are often hidden in games, appearing to be just another part of the game. But the designers had to purposefully include those aspects; like racism and sexism, they did not just appear in the game on their own. Designers create games that they think will sell, and when racist and sexist games continue to sell year after year, that tells us something about game consumers.

            Not only are games designed to include sexist and racist themes, those beliefs carry over to the some of the real life players as well. The majority of game designers are male, and many think they have power over the culture of gaming. That the culture of gaming is theirs to design, theirs to control, and theirs to play. Female gamers are constantly scrutinized, disrespected and sexually objectified in the gaming world…. But wait, doesn’t that sound like the real world as well? The sexist and racist society we live in, is what gave white males the idea in the first place that they could monopolize an ever growing entertainment outlet like gaming. White male supremacy in the gaming world will not stop until it is stopped in our reality.

 

Emily Castonguay 

Narrative/Counter Narrative Analysis

I believe Parable of the Polygons fits in with a counter narrative discourse simply because it is not something people talk about anymore. Segregation is an issue that society seems to think has dissipated in the 1950-60's when laws were passed, but it has become so ingrained in our way of life that it just happens without anyone ever noticing. This game brings it to light again in a fun, cute way while also talking about the issue as the "levels" go on. The game also targets the player to make a change in their own lives. Throughout, they keep repeating things like, "...harmless choices make a harmful world" and, "small individual bias can lead to large collective bias." The game is targeting and demanding a change in the world we live in based on such a large social issue.

-Alison

Sent from Windows Mail

Notice:  Class will meet in Horace Mann 182 on 3/14

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Midterm Blog (20%)

Choose ONE question to answer in your blog:

1.  Make some connections between class content (a blog post or class discussion) and Ready Player One.

2.  How does looking at Ready Player One highlight flaws in our current society?

3.  How does critically looking at videogame(s) highlight flaws in our current society?

4.  Shaw (linked here and in your syllabus) finds two problematic approaches to rectify the misrepresentation of women in games:  The “Add women and stir” approach (increasing the diversity of game-makers), and placing the burden of change on representatives from the marginalized group(s).  Choose one of these two approaches to write about in your blog.  What’s the approach and what are issues related to the approach?  Then think beyond the problematic approaches:  How can we “create critiques of representation that are politically engaged enough to resist market logics and nimble enough to encompass interactive, personalized, customized media texts?”

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Blogs will be scored on the following items:

1. Is your name on the blog?
2. Did you WRITE the question which you are answering?
3. Did you ANSWER the question (starting with a thesis sentence)?
4. Did you reference concepts discussed in class, the blog, or class texts?
5. Is your opinion/perspective represented?
6. Did you use conventional English and grammar?

Facebook is my avatar

In what way does ready player one relate to class discussion/ blog posts….

After reading 'Ready Player One' it has become obvious that our class discussions and blog posts have related

to the reading in more than one way. Ready Player one addresses a variety of different topics as well as our class

discussion. Ready player one relates based in the future touches many issues we have in 2016.

For starters todays gamer gate, i don't mean just the issues of sexism in video games causing controversy, in

the case of Anita Sarkeesian. The type of harassment and fear Anita faces is equivalent to the players in RPO and

the sixers. Both are facing threats, they know where Anita lives as the sixers do the players. Anita is facing death

threats like the RPO players and the threats are directly related to a game. The gamers threatening Anita are so

involved and infatuated with the games they play Anita criticizing it pushes them to put her in fear. The sixes are so

obsessed with winning that they too use threats and even president on them when blowing up Wades home and

killing Daito.

Instagram, facebook, snap chat and other social networks is another way our class discussions relate to RPO.

Wade and the other people of oasis are so obsessed with their online life that they neglect their real lives. They can

be whomever they want on oasis, they can make their icon appear to look nothing like them. My group had

considered the idea that we too do this, we only post the part of our lives and of course pictures that make us look

good, happy, pretty, skinny, rich and other ideas along these lines. If you sign on my Facebook you'll never see

images of me in sweat pants eating chocolate cake watching Greys reruns. Instead are photos of me dressed up, at

fancy dinners, cruise ships, vacationing in mexico and pictures that make my boyfriend and i seem like the perfect

pair. Like Wades avatar and the other avatars in oasis, through social networking i am able to create the image

of my life that i wish for others to see. Instagram is probably a better example, my instagram makes me seem like

one of those girls who don't have a job and blog about fitness, make up, fashion and the latest trends. And as

you can see on Mondays its difficult to think thats the same person.

Not only do we create a false reality through our social networking but like Wade we live through technology

(another topic discussed in early semester). Thinking back to before everyone had a cell phone (cell phones

weren't popular when i was in high school) The halls in school were loud, I'd actually have to call my friends houses

and you never knew what anyone was doing, there was no where to post on your wall that you were at the mall,

or at the movies etc. Now most of our contact with friends is posting on each others walls, sending text messages,

i didn't even need to talk with friends about my trip because it was all up on my media pages for everyone to see.

We are in an oasis, most of our school work is online, a majority of our communication is online or via text message

and now you can even take all your classes online, we are in Oasis and we don't even recognize it.

The biggest similarity i find between our lives and RPO (class discussions) is how much we live are lives

through technology and create a false picture for peers through our "avatars". All though we don't have an avatar

like Wade we create an avatar through the pictures we post and articles and create the version of ourselves we

want others to view.

Staci Marsden

Midterm

 

How does critically looking at video games highlight flaws in our society?

I can remember when I was a little girl I was never placed in front of a television for more than a half hour or better yet, I never played video games. Running around outside with my sisters and neighborhood friends is what our early evening consisted of. It is evident that times have definitely changed. The everyday norm is placing children in front of a television or Ipad to play video games-and not just your average video game. Today, video games express violence, racism/ hatred towards women-all over dirty and nasty images that children as such young ages should not be viewing at all.  

It is also important to use your critical eye when viewing video games. Specific video games display ideologies, like mentioned above that leave the viewers to believe everything they see or hear in the media is true. Lets take violence for example. The media possesses violence in most video games- lets not forget that young kids are playing these video games. For example, if you look at grand theft auto, it's ALL shooting and all you see are weapons. The purpose of the game is to shoot/kill the most people and protect yourself from getting shot. If we have little children or even teenagers who play this game with no parental control, they are going to think that shooting people is an "okay" action. However, there are some parents that stress that a virtual world is not real and shooting people is not something you do to people. But they are young-children are innocent. Does playing this video game decrease their innocence? With that being said, I have some of my students who come to school saying, "I am going to shoot you." I ask them where they hear it from and most of them respond, "The game on Mommy or Daddy's phone." Craziness to me. How is this expectable? Those words should never be in anyone's vocabulary, let alone a young child. They are consuming themselves with this language that the media is representing as "normal" and acceptable.

Racism and hatred towards women-or women being used as sexualized objects are often seen in many video games. However, this notion is not even visible to most MEN playing the game because they are consumed in the action which is taking place; not who the action may be happening to. For example, Anita Sarkessian made a few outstanding videos in regards to the way women are treated in video games. Anita's Women As a Background video focused on numerous types of video games in regards to women being sexualized objects instead of subjects. Look closely to the women next time you come in contact with a video game. They are just there. There is no story behind them. They do not have a story. They hardly have clothes on. They are there to be used for sex. How often is a woman the main character in a video game? Never. The men always have to be in control. The media is representing this incorrect vision of women-young children will grow up to believe that women should be treated like this. Women have always struggled with their place in society-always feeling inferior to men, men always have to be in control, men only want them for their sexy body parts, hey are only on this earth to have children and so forth-concluding that all video games support this awful, untrue, flaw of representing of women in our society.

Women in regards to racism are seen in a couple of games. For example Anita explains to her audience that the women who are being represented, as strippers are usually a Chinese or Foreign girl-because men love European girls. Concluding that women are being valued for their bodies and their body parts; again, a flaw that needs to be recognized. After Anita's videos became viral she received awful death threats, rape threats, and violence letters-all because she was trying to stress the way certain women are being treated in video games is unacceptable.

 One needs to critically think about the video games they are actually playing. Not the wining or losing part of it, but the overall flaws it is bringing to our society. Like stated above, the concepts such, as violence, race and hatred towards women are three examples of flaws that tie in to society today. Sadly, violence is happening all around us everyday. The media, such as video games mirrors this ideology that violence is an action that is acceptable. When one considers race and hatred towards women, these are also flaws that are reflected in our society. Not only are more women getting raped each year but they way they are treated, in the real world and virtual world is again, a reaction from the media.  

Bethany Gencarella

 

Midterm- Adrianne Shaw

4.  Shaw (linked here and in your syllabus) finds two problematic approaches to rectify the misrepresentation of women in games:  The "Add women and stir" approach (increasing the diversity of game-makers), and placing the burden of change on representatives from the marginalized group(s).  Choose one of these two approaches to write about in your blog.  What's the approach and what are issues related to the approach?  Then think beyond the problematic approaches:  How can we "create critiques of representation that are politically engaged enough to resist market logics and nimble enough to encompass interactive, personalized, customized media texts?"

 

In Shaw's piece, she talks about two different ways that people claim that sexism can be can be removed from video games where women are used as ""damsels in distress", "sexy sidekicks", and "rewards"."  One of the tactics people claim would work is called the "add women and stir" approach.  This approach claims that all videogame companies have to do is to hire women, and just their presence and input will erase the misogyny within gaming.   Shaw says that the issue is this "approach assumes that there are no structural limitations within the industry that preclude this representation, that men in the industry are simply incapable of creating texts that are not representations of themselves or their fantasies, and that all women are feminists."

 

The end of that quote is very important, not all women are feminists.  This could mean that videogame companies could go out and hire women that don't consider themselves feminists, so they are either less likely to fight sexism within videogames, or they may not even see it.  They could just see the sexism within all the videogames and not think twice about it because that's just the way that so many games are.  Plus, even if the gaming companies found female feminists that would try to fight misogyny within games, those women would probably face the same harassment as Sarkeesian and the other women within "Gamergate".

 

I feel like the only to "create critiques of representation that are politically engaged enough to resist market logics and nimble enough to encompass interactive, personalized, customized media texts" is to get all feminist gamers, no matter their gender, race, or any other identities, need to join together and hold gaming companies to hire standards.  The biggest thing is that women and other members of marginalized groups cannot be fighting on their own, there needs to be allies (people with privilege fighting for the people with less privilege) supporting their voices.

 

-Matt

Midterm Blog Post

How does critically looking at video games highlight flaws in our society?

Throughout the semester, we have constantly discussed video games in relation to the society we live in, even when we were discussing sports we would go back to video games. Video games are a huge aspect of the twenty-first century and they definitely do not seem to be going away any time soon so it is very important to understand the impact that they have. Video games have grown to be a huge aspect of popular culture and should be analyzed just as much as we constantly analyze literature, film, and art. Even if that includes highlighting what is wrong with what popular culture, like video games, 

Video games reflect what society would like them to reflect. Over the past thirty or so years, video games have been growing in production, graphics are getting better, stories are becoming more and more involved, and gaming has gone past just the group of kids that would go to an arcade with a bag of quarters and attempt to get the highest score. So when video games begin to show off a large degree of violence, most noticeably violence against women, it begins to show off what society really values and what society strives to portray.

I remember being a little kid watching my older cousin and sister play “Duke Nukem and the Land of Babes” on the Playstation and not thinking twice about the graphic images of women that were portrayed. Flash forward about fifteen years and I recently played “Bioshock,” a video game that was prominently discussed in “Women as Background Decorations Part 2,” and witnessed basically everything that was stated in the video. Women were sexual objects, used to fuel the flame under the protagonist’s fight. This sort of stuff really highlights the idea behind women being secondary characters to a protagonist’s fight. It happens in movies, television shows, literature, and even sports games. When these kinds of images are displayed, it just emphasizes the flaw in our society that women are not considered to be as cool and as powerful as men.

Video games also highlight the violence seen in our society. When you play a video game like “Grand Theft Auto” or “Call of Duty” it has the power to desensitize others into believing that this violence is normal and necessary. Although there are both studies for an against the view that violence in video game has any effect on the players, but its still there. It is still making it okay to view this violence and commit violence in video games. Killing a prostitute is just fine in GTA, apparently. It really shows how much violence seems to be okay as long as it’s “fake.”

I think what really reflects how society views critically analyzing games is how those who publicly analyze them are treated. When women like Anita Sarkeesian are sent death threats, rape threats, and have their personal information leaked simply because they believe in analyzing video games and calling out video games for their misogynistic and negative portrayal of women and people of color, there’s some sort of flaw in society in there. There’s a xenophobia portrayed because it is so often that white men are portrayed in a positive and strong light that when people call out others on the need for change, suddenly it is as though the whole world has been turned upside. I think this reaction really shows the xenophobia represented within our society which makes us less likely to like or understand change, which can be really negative for any form of growth.

Taylor O'Neill