Man Shaming at The Verge

One Russell Brandom wrote a piece on The Verge entitled "Never mind the hardware, why didn't Sony's PS4 event have any women?" Which was a man shaming piece of crap post that should never have seen the light of day.

Let's start with the subheading:

A boy's club industry is bad for everyone, especially gamers

Bad for everyone? That's a bold statement. Lets assume (incorrectly I might add) that games have been the domain of "boys" since the Atari 2600. This guy actually wants to tell us that all the advances in games since then has been "bad for everyone"? Really? He has no way to support such a statement. The data doesn't support it and of course he doesn't provide any. We're supposed to just believe him because we're supposed to believe that so called "boy's clubs" are inherently bad.

Fuck this dude.

Ok. I'm being harsh. I'm sorry. Russell actually begins with a pretty decent observation:

If you didn't notice, it's probably because there also weren't any female devs or executives onstage at the Wii U launch, or the EA Gamescom event, or the most recent HTC unveiling, or any Apple keynote in recent memory. With an all-male board and executive staff, Apple would have no one to send. In 2013, that should be shocking, but it's so much the industry norm that it's hard to single Sony out as especially egregious. Onstage, this is what the game industry looks like. It just isn't what gamers look like

When you analyze this statement you realize it completely crushed Russell's "boy's club" theory. Why? Because all of the companies he listed as being "boy's clubs" are wildly successful with millions upon millions of happy customers. If "boy's clubs" were inherently "bad for everyone" then it would stand to reason that Apple, among the others listed, would be in dire financial straights.

Then there's this:

According to the Entertainment Software Association, 47 percent of gamers are women — effectively gender parity. But only eleven percent of game industry employees are women, measuring across all departments. It's the same mismatch we saw last night: women in the audience, but none on stage.

The problem with the citation is that the PDF tells us nothing about what these women are purchasing and whether those purchases are relevant to a PS4 Console launch. Why is this important? It is important because "gamer" has been made to include games played on phones and other mobile devices and so just because 47% of "gamers" are female, does not mean that 47% of console users are women. The Mary Sue points out this issue:

The rise of games that can be played on smartphones probably also accounts for a more diverse audience of gamers. People not necessarily attracted to traditional console games have found love with downloadable games like Angry Birds as well as strategy and educational games. In fact, 55 percent of gamers play on portable devices.

I assure you that Angry Birds is not what people are buying consoles for.

Then there are gamers who don’t feel the need to spring for a console and simply use their computers. Online gamers account for 19 percent of the entire gaming audience; puzzle/card/trivia games make up 47 percent of computer-based gaming. Role-playing games and MMOs accounted for 32 percent of computer based games.

Ummm...I said that right? And the PS4 is what? A console? Right. So exactly what are women "gamers" playing the most? Bejeweled, World of Warcraft, Farmville, Crosswords and Sodoku, Cakeshop.

The Times of India reported on women gamers:

Much like everyday life, women are attracted to games with a social element which allow for communicating with other gamers. 43% of women have used social networking games compared to 26% of men.

I'm not going to go on and on about the statistics, but it has been clear to me for a long time that generally speaking, women "game" differently than men. And that's OK. And maybe, just maybe the lack of presence at this particular venue is related to that (though I cannot say for certain). Back to Russell though.

After the badly sourced "statistics" he then gets to the meat of his problem:

It’s why Sony thinks it can get away with sexist ads like this, only to find out too late that it can’t. It’s why you see things like the spectacularly queasy gender politics of this summer’s Hitman: Absolution trailer.

This is part of the man shaming. Men, straight men, like breasts. Straight men like to touch them. I know this comes as a total shock to some people. So the advert is a direct shot at those men. Crude? Perhaps. Sexist? Ha.

Look, I won't take anyone's commentary on "sexist" advertising until I see round condemnations for advertising that features dumb as rocks men next to their wives/girlfriends. Or the adverts where women get to slap (that's assault) the men (who are usually boyfriends or husbands). Or the wildly popular Fiat Abarth advert where the anthropomorphized vehicle slaps the male onlooker. This last advert I saw no less than 6 times in the space of a two hour movie.

As for the Hitman trailer. Le sigh. Of ALL the imagery to get upset about; nuns, a whole lot of violence, THE problem were the scantily clad women. Typical American hypocrisy where violence is OK but breasts? not so much. Russell can pass me on that one. Though I would be interested in how many Hitman customers are women.

And most importantly, it’s why women in the industry were lining up under the #1 reason why a few months ago to share stories of being harrassed or otherwise silenced. The industry alienates its female fans over and over and over. And each time it comes back to the same point: surely, if there were a woman in the room, she would have pointed out that this was a terrible idea. The men should have noticed it too, but clearly they didn’t.

Yes a woman would have pointed out how she would not like so and such. But what is lost on Russell is that simply because a women does not like something does not make it a "terrible idea". And this is the problem. This is the man shaming. This is the "you guys must change for us" entitlement attitude that permeates much of this discussion.

The more "meat":

What's worse for gamers isn't the bad ideas that get through but the good ones that don't. By now, we have a pretty good idea of what a male-dominated game culture can do — a lot of guns, mostly, which is what we saw front-and-center at Sony last night — but it's hard to even imagine the distaff counterpart

Ahh guns. That didn't take long. Well if Russell had bothered to look at the PDF of the "who are gamers" that he linked to earlier he would have noticed a few things:

42% of online games played most often are puzzles, card games, game shows and trivia. Not a gun in sight. 47% of mobile games are of the same type.

Of game console type of games sold in 2011 only 18% of them are shooters. 18%. Sports and racing combined (no weapons of any type) outrank shooters. Add "family and you have 38% of the console games sold being non weapon games.

By units sold "Just Dance" was the second most sold game.

Clearly then Russell's "boy's club" that only produces "mostly guns" is total and utter bullshit.

More importantly, even if shooters represented the vast majority of so called "boy's club" products. Who is Russell (or anybody else) to pass judgment on that form of entertainment? I don't pass judgment on women who spend hours upon hours living a double life in The Sims or girls playing My Little Pony on their Nintendo DS. It's not my business what they spend their time doing. I. Don't. Care.

but the truth is, gaming culture is so relentlessly male that it's hard to imagine games outside of it Well Russell has a poor imagination then. Perhaps he's too used to "feminists" telling him what to think. *smirk*

The result is a lot of boring games with different variations on the same testosterone-fueled themes.

Because of course "testosterone-fueled" themes are "bad". Russell could have made his case without the completely unnecessary swipes at males. He could have asked the same questions about the presence of women in the presentation by simply pointing to their use of games and how Sony intended (or not) to appeal to this growing market. That's a perfectly fine line to take. But count me in on the group of men who will no longer tolerate being "shamed" for being marketed to or for choosing to play with my fellow gents if I so chose. And yes, I agree, the "armour" on most of these female characters is quite stupid.