I've never understood why not having a 50/50 gender split in any given thing is a problem, or that's it's only a problem when women are the minority (no one ever complains about a lack of male romance novel authors).
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for equal opportunity between the sexes. Equal opportunity between the sexes should go without saying. But equal opportunity doesn't necessarily mean equal outcome. What happens if all the women who want to be game devs become game devs and they're STILL outnumbered by men in the industry? Are we gonna start telling women "More of you should want to be game devs. Stop not wanting to be game devs!" The real answer is probably more along the lines of "We change gaming until it's something more women want to be a part of", but how far does that go until gaming becomes unrecognizable from what it used to be that made it so appealing in the first place?
"Changes in attitudes towards the depiction of women in games has created a public debate between those who want a more noticeable gender equality, and those who feel such changes are detrimental or unnecessary."
No, that's not the problem. Gender equality is fine. Hell, gender equality is GREAT. It's not that gender equality or better representation of women in games is not needed, it's just that it doesn't need to supersede anything to exist. Rise of the Tomb Raider and DOAX3 are perfectly capable of peaceful co-existence.
@dracuella: Sarkeesian's biggest flaw ultimately comes down to what she wants in the long term. We saw this in her reaction to Mad Max: Fury Road. "It's not just about letting women to action movie guy stuff". As if to say that action stuff is intrinsically male, which is all kinds of problematic. Sarkeesian doesn't just want better representation of women in media. If she did I would have zero problems with her. What she wants is for us as a species to engage in a massive cultural reevaluation of what we even consider "entertainment" to begin with. It's not gonna happen.
I know that Rey, Finn and Po are kinda the "new trinity" for this film, but I've been kinda scratching my head as to who the actual main character is supposed to be. From the framing of this poster can we assume that it's Rey?
@4mnesiac Actually from what I've heard the lack of conventional healing encourages smarter, more tactical gameplay, especially on the higher difficulties, since it requires you to be smart about how you use your skills rather than just charging in and chugging potions and relying on a healing-speced mage when necessary like you could do in Origins. I haven't played the game yet, so I can only relate what I've heard from people who have.
BioWare's servings lately have definitely been subpar, there is absolutely no denying it. That being said, I can't help but raise an eyebrow at some of the comments on this page. My personal thoughts on their last two games?
Dragon Age 2 was a disappointment in almost every conceivable way. Shorter story, less interesting (although not bad) cast of characters, repetitive and unbalanced gameplay, and a highly disjointed story that was brilliant in some parts but head-scratching in others. I could forgive all that though. My ire for DA2 was not directed at the devs, but rather at publishers who said...
"Hey, take this DLC for Dragon Age: Origins that's meant to be a interquel/midquel tie-in in preparation for the sequel and turn it into a full-fledged game so we can charge full price for it. Oh, by the way, we're re-assigning most of your staff to work on SWTOR. Anyway, you got 1 year. Get that sh*t done."
In fact, in a weird way it's kind of a testament to BioWare's talent that they made a game as functional as DA2 through all that.
Mass Effect 3... pretty much the same thing over again. Moments of absolute brilliance mixed with moments of absolute facepalm, along with some pretty obvious indications that the game was rushed out the door, along with series inconsistencies that made it plainly obvious that, like with DA2, a great deal of the ME staff was re-assigned by EA to work on an MMO that... at BEST turned out "okay". I'll give the mainstream critics some credit with ME3; even the most glowingly positive reviews for the game came with the caveat that the ending was god-awful.
Still, I can't help but get the impression from the comments section that even if Inquisition was the the greatest thing since Baldur's Gate 2, EA's label would still have people rolling their eyes at it, which is a shame, 'cause unlike DA2 and ME3 which had red lights going off in my head from the get-go just from watching gameplay, I'm not getting any bad vibes from DA:I. We'll see =)
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