Your Money Vs. Tropes in Video Games

  Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.  It's a capitalized, as it's a proper noun.  It's totally a thing.  Kind of a strange thing, to be honest.  Here is a mirror, because I don't think it deserves ad revenue.  For a pretty good reason, I believe.

  It's the first of a series of videos by Anita Sarkeesian, someone I briefly touched on (not like that) my previous post.  She's quite an interesting woman, a self-proclaimed critic of popular culture.  However, her scope of criticism is fairly narrow, so to cut the fat I'll say that she analyzes sexist attitudes and makes both blog and vlogs about them for a larger website, Feminist Frequency.

  I don't like ad hominem, so I'm not going to say anything about Anita Sarkeesian.  There's a wealth of information available about her and her plight online, it's really only a Google search away.  I won't lie and say that there aren't issues I take with her, however.  Mainly, that she has disabled comments (and ratings, but meh) on her videos.

    Let's talk about a certain game, first.  It's a mouthful, Super Robot Wars: Endless Frontier OG Saga.  It's one of the more niche-y niche titles released for the DS, part of a broader series (Super Robot Wars, or Super Robot Taisen for the weeabooishly correct) that has seen few releases stateside.  The first thing you'll notice is how well endowed the specimen to the left of this paragraph is.  That's Nanbu Kaguya, one of the (mostly) female protagonists in this game.  It's aware of how heavy set her chest is and references it frequently--both the game and other protagonists.  Rarely, if ever, is she actually called Kaguya, most prefer to refer to her as the "cow lady".  How endearing.

  I don't feel Japanese RPGs have had much success this generation, which is what makes the title she's from even more spectacular.  Borrowing a battle system from Namco x Capcom, it goes past the player navigating menus and performing systems of juggles and tag combos in battle.  Battle against loli witches and busty mermaids, to be precise.  It's something that's remained ignored due to the massive amount of fan service.  If you're a white nerd, this won't really be much of an issue (it certainly wasn't for me).

  Now, to consider more of the game.  The story is a mess of nonsense, rife with corny dialog and ambitions no greater than providing a reason they exist in the same world as KOS-MOS, the blue-haired android from Xenosaga.  There are also titties.  Big ones, flat chests, the gamete is covered almost in totality.  Something you won't play when other people are around, no doubt.  The question is, how much of this is a detriment to the game?

    Maybe it's just my privilege speaking, but not much I think.  Games have, for a the most part, adhered to this philosophy that stories only serve the purpose to move the player forward.  To be honest, there's not much I remember of the story in Endless Frontier.  There were some gates, and I fought a bunch of Gundams and a buxom fox merchant lady.  I didn't really care.  I'm pretty positive Majesco didn't want me to care, at least not too much.  The gameplay was compelling enough to continue forward, the story was secondary, and this is a scenario that time and time again has worked for the titles people place amongst their favorites.  Who would've ever called Devil May Cry's story telling or character exposition Shakespearean?  Definitely not someone trying to sell you a Devil May Cry game.  Why would anyone ever buy Bowser's Inside Story for a closer, more personal look at the game's antagonist and his motivations behind constantly capturing Princess Peach?  Perhaps he's just fond of cake.

  However, every once in awhile, a fresh face comes around.  A character that posits a new idea, a game that does something different.  A much younger and edgier me was enjoying a murderous romp through Unreal Tournament 99 when American McGee's Alice was released.  Being a fan of the Lewis Caroll story from my childhood (and having read it and Through the Looking Glass) multiple times, I immediately sought out a copy.  Platformers were rare on the PC, and all of the game that I had seen spoke volumes of the detail given to the world of this game.

  Truth be told, the game was an average platformer at best.  The visuals (of course at the time) were outstanding, and Alice's cold, disconnected back-and-forth between the Cheshire cat was lyrical the way Grimm's Fairy Tales were, but with a distinctly sociopathic undertone.  Fast forward to today, and we live in the wake of the sequel, Alice: Madness Returns.  When it was released, it was free money.  Now that it's been out for quite some time, the verdict on the game seems to be much similar; the combat, though better, the game itself suffers from a rushed production cycle, something symptomatic of many would-be great games this generation.

  It's a damn shame.  It was a beautiful title no doubt; the movement of Alice's hair and the visual design of this game are all things of beauty.  A clever juxtaposition via Alice's tools of warfare, common house-hold utensils as a kitchen knife, tea-pot and pepper shaker.  In essence, Alice was battling horrifying monsters with the tools women were imprisoned in the kitchen with before the fifties.  As a game, and as as a character, it oozed smart sensibilities that were biting and poignant, making the fact that the game's massive list of cut content all that much worse.  Strangely enough, the game's publisher EA has launched their Hate Is Not a Game campaign, championing themselves as supporters of the LBGT movement.  Apparently, they didn't have it in their budgets to realize one of the more often-forgotten icons of early gaming.

  Which is ultimately the problem.  When it comes to video games, it's quite difficult to judge them on the same merit as movies and books.  They're interactive, and thusly player input requires an impact on story-telling.  When you watch a movie or listen to a folk song, the story is information you are being explicit shown and told, your interaction is minimal.  Most games design characters as much as necessary to fit in with the visual aesthetic of their universe, which is something that isn't innately bad, but frequently this results in the AAA titles that dominate the industry.  Games graced with never-ending budgets and long production cycles.  They're built for mass appeal to a very core demographic, either an installed base in the case of Zelda, or males age 18-25 in the case of Gears of War.

  The problem is that we're stuck in this limbo of determining whether or not video games are entertainment for consumption, or the budding art-form people love to claim they are.  When I chain-saw a locust in half in Gears of War, I'm inclined to think that video games are in no way art.  I have instagibbed millions of people with a flak cannon, never once thinking what I was doing was anything more than an over-the-top, gore-infused exercise in total domination.  Then, I play games like Pathologic and I'm not so sure anymore.

    There are games like Lollipop Chainsaw, games that riff on the idea of traditional female protagonists with quite interesting results.  Then, there are titles like Pathologic, which I can't be too sure are "fun" enough to be even considered a game in the first place.  One thing they do have in common is that they're experiences that last with me long after the game is over.  Their worlds and atmospheres become imprinted into my senses, the thick fog of Pathologic and the ridiculous sound of hearts popping out of zombies that you mercilessly chainsaw one after another.  Were they made to ultimately turn a profit?  Maybe.  Did they?  Not entirely.

  In the end, that is ultimately the issue.  There's this double-speak that exists where people want the writing in video games to improve past being simplistic situations commonly explored in myth, television and film, but it's something wanted in games that are, in the end, built for mass appeal.

  What is it that people want out of a character in video games?  When you consider Makoto, what sticks out in your mind: fighting to prove the worth of her dojo and fighting style, or kara-canceling, lightning-fast knuckles flying at whiplash speed across Oceanic Rim?  Though Zelda herself is one of Anita's particular cases of the Damsel in Distress trope, what I remember the most about Windwaker was fighting Ganon at her side, not leaving her behind because the road ahead was too dangerous.

  When examining characters at their most basic relations to the stories they're featured in, it can almost always be typically boiled down to the idea of the mono-myth, an idea popularized by Joseph Campbell.  It's that no new story has been told, and that stories retold are constantly giving new paint on the idea of what a hero is.  The idea of coming "full circle", acquiring a boon that transforms the hero into an elevated and idealized figure.  Video games, perhaps more than any form of art or entertainment, apply themselves to this formula in totality, seemingly not even trying to hide it the way post-modernism does.  That's because a game ultimately wants the player to succeed.  Even Dark and Demon's Souls will see you joyously howling over victory after multiple humiliating deaths.

  In the end, a larger issue is at hand here.  It's one that has been unfortunately hijacked by Anita Sarkeesian and turned into a not-so-biting expose of pop culture, when pop culture is not what defines video games as a medium at all.  She says in her video that video games are becoming an important part of the sociopolitical landscape, and while that is undoubtedly true, the way games have changed over the ages only seems like slow progress because the market is seemingly kept afloat by people who just want to shoot other people in Call of Duty.  While this is not my demographic, it's not one that I'll say is without merit, as when I was young that was me.  As I grew older, however, I yearned to find something more unique.  Something more than just gunning down opponents.

  Well, mostly.  At the end of the day, wanting things like this to change; wanting more intelligent characters and a better grade of story telling is not something that's going to come from the offices of EA.  Capcom aren't going to revolutionize the way we see story telling and character design any time soon.  It's going to be smaller titles, games so rough around the edges that their appeal will be very limited.  Wanting Nintendo to feature Zelda as the protagonist of a Zelda game radically changes the landscape of a title with an install base many developers would kill for, it's something Nintendo won't be doing.  Not because they don't care about doing away with gender constructs, but because they know what their fans want.  Not to rescue the princess, but to explore dungeons and solve puzzles as the Hero of Time, Link.

  Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games is part of a broader issue that is being ignored, and going about it in a very non-constructive manner.  It's unfortunate that the negative buzz has martyred her, but the entire issue has become a dramatic cavalcade that seems to have eclipsed her point altogether.  Maybe, though, people will learn that when they pay for Gears of War over Alice: Madness Returns, they're investing in what they want to see more of.  Then we can really start to break some ground with this issue.

Noise in the Echo Chamber

When I play games on the PC, I tend to leave Netflix on.  Stream through the entirety of the X-Files during a rather extravagant playthrough of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl.  Half the time, my headphones are on and I'm not even paying attention to what episode is going on.  It could be the one where Mulder finds out clones of his sister have been mass produced, or the episode where Scully's Pomeranian gets eaten by a gigantic alligator.  I won't notice, though; instead, I'll take a peak at scenes that would otherwise be disjointed whenever I start the series to playing, or save and quit when I feel like I need air.  At this point, I just know it all by heart.  At least, so much so I would never openly admit this to another human being.

    Noise is just something that is always there.  It's inescapable.  It doesn't even have to be auditory, during loading screens I'll see a suspect pantomime a recollection to Mulder or Scully and continue on when the Zone becomes real again.  There is a certain amount of noise you're subjected to in this day and age if you're playing video games.  If you're serious about video games.  If you're passionate about video games.  This noise comes in the shape of buzzwords, marketing angles and journalists propagating and shaping the way we view games, titles are constantly given eights out of tens to denote broad appeal and safe gameplay.  These are things we just sort of accept as par for the course, just like no one actually reads the pseudo-intellectual drivel Pitchfork actually writes, they just check the number score before heading to iTunes or the Pirate Bay.

  This generation has been quite a frustrating one to play through, and the "echo chamber" this noise resides in has been growing more intolerable since.  I'm not trying to pine for any perceived "golden days" of the slow-drip of information via different gaming magazines, but this culture has sprung up around video games that, ultimately, has nothing to do with video games.

  Quite possibly the most perplexed I've been in quite some time was after the release of Mass Effect 3, many fans (myself included) felt disillusioned by the direction the series had taken.  Personally, I felt as if the series had gone from a very detailed and interesting space opera heavily influenced by Star Wars, to the dudebro soap opera now characterized by some of the most cringe-worthy excuses for "character development" and exposition in video games.  While I felt my criticisms and resolve to not support the game were enough, other people saw it fit to make their distaste known by bombing its Metacritic page.  This is a common phenomenon, by more on that later.  What was baffling about all of this was EA's response, implying that this was a coordinated effort by homophobes.

  Most people weren't taken by the ruse so easily, however.  Rightfully so, my female Shepard romanced Liara pretty much every time I played.  Fast forward to now, where, almost ironically, this sentiment has manifested itself.  That, somehow, EA is representative of a sexually and gender-diverse group that simultaneously cares nothing for people who just want to play Sim City 5.

  It's strange enough a turn of events to leave you scratching your head for quite some time.   This is further exacerbated by a word that was thrown around so much that the lone mention of it warrants rolling eyes and an anguished, apprehensive sigh: entitlement.  Made infamous by a writer from IGN, this video declared gamers dissatisfied by Mass Effect 3 as "entitled."  It's worth noting that this video was re-uploaded to YouTube, the original seems nowhere to be found.

  It was a ridiculous notion.  We are consumers.  We vote with our dollars; it's not an issue of being "entitled" to anything.  Developers aren't "entitled" to anyone's money just because they continue to use the Mass Effect name.  There are games that have taken pretty extreme and different approaches to gameplay, the most immediate example being Metal Gear Solid 2.  No one, when that game was released, was ready to face the fact that they wouldn't be playing as Solid Snake; rather a new protagonist the series had never seen before.  It was a critical and commercial success, one of the definitive games for the Playstation 2. 

  This behavior didn't end, however.  In a glorious vindication, a game named DmC: Devil May Cry was released.  It bombed.  So hard, in fact, that its sales were only a third of Devil May Cry 4's at launch.  A game developer who had antagonized the DMC fanbase over a year before release was met with the typical response from fans dejected in such a manner.  The linked article even goes so far to make it a point to blame the Devil May Cry fanbase for it failing, which people have pointed out ironically recalls to mind a sense that developers feel entitled to consumers' money.  Who'd have thought?

  I looked up for a brief moment to notice which episode of the X-files is on right now.  I'm not sure of the number, but it's definitely in season 1.  Scully and Mulder were sent to an arctic research facility miles away from civilization, and now a parasite is infecting people causing them to yearn escape in order to infect civilization at large.  Interesting coincidence.

  Most recently, and regrettably, the name Anita Sarkeesian has risen to public consciousness.  An obvious third-wave feminists, she's featured on an blog and series of YouTube videos titled "Feminist Frequency," dedicated to pointing out sexism in popular culture.  I won't link it, but a quick search on YouTube will yield results. 

  Her case is definitely an odd one.  The idea that sexism would be prevalent in popular culture, and especially video games, is something that does warrant some research.  Unfortunately, the discussion has been overshadowed by people thoroughly uninterested in having a discussion. 

  The above picture is taken from Metroid: Other M.  Metroid itself is a series that Nintendo hasn't really put much stock in over time, the fantastic Metroid Prime series by Retro studios being the last time the series was done justice.  When Sakamoto announced that Team Ninja would, along with him, be developing a new Metroid title, it was clear that Nintendo had saved an otherwise terrible E3 and was about to breathe new life into the Metroid series.  Something I personally was ecstatic about.

  Upon release, things weren't so upbeat.  For the most part, the silent protagonist had become incapable of independent action, adhering to the whim and command of her superior officer.  At a certain point, she will refuse to activate a power of her suit that would prevent her from taking damage in lava, because her commanding-officer-slash-man-crush hadn't given her the clear to do so.  This is the woman who fearlessly mowed down hundreds of space pirates, whose arch nemesis is an immortal dragon.  This is something few protagonists, male or female, can boast.  Upon seeing Ridley, Samus is reduced to a crying girl, an insult to her character and something that left a horrid taste in mind and many others' mouths for quite some time.

  This was all presented in a hideous abortion of the forced marriage of Metroid's exploration-based gameplay and action game elements, of which neither are properly realized.

  Couple that with the fact that video game characters across the board haven't had much in the way of evolution throughout this generation and there does seem to be a real problem.  There are a lot of games stuck in the old ways of having stories only as vehicles to drive gameplay forward, without exploring the ways storytelling can be unique to video games as a medium.  You'll see a lot of people making the case that video games are a budding art-form, citing examples like Portal and Shadow of the Colossus.  While I don't doubt there would be some merit in asserting those titles as such, I would lend it more towards games like Pathologic, a game so deeply affecting that calling it "fun" is something I doubt people will be saying about it. Ever.

  However, the larger issue here is ignored because it's been hijacked by a gender-specific series known as "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games."  The first video in her series, the comments and ratings have been disabled, unfortunately drowning out discussion.  Why?  Originally, Anita claimed she was being subjected to misogynistic abuse.  While the abuse was misogynistic in nature, is it so hard to believe that trolls on the internet are going to say the easiest, meanest things they can? 

  I won't give my specific thoughts on the video, because I've been talking about them pretty extensively since the video was released.  The channels for this are somewhat limited, as levying criticisms is treading eggshells.  Certain places receive it well and open a discussion, meanwhile a certain former Unreal employee is quite prepared to compare you to the Taliban should you A.) not assume an identity when discussing it and B.) not find it enlightening material. 

  It's something that's quite difficult to swallow, because this is something that's quite widespread by this point.  She was on TedxWomen to discuss the abuse she faced, taking the spotlight off legitimate criticisms and effectively painting people who didn't want the discussion to end as people defending tools of misogyny.  Meanwhile, her first video tackles games that are, for lack of a better world, old.  They're archaic.  Zelda and Mario, her primary targets as exemplary of the Damsel in Distress trope, are franchises steeped in tradition where the player does not care about Zelda or Link as people, but as tools to facilitate the player exploring dungeons and solving puzzles; or in the case of Mario, jumping on turtles and losing first place because of a blue shell.

  These criticisms are, however, a discussion that she won't engage in.  Instead, the situation is further devolving into an issue of there being no discussion about it at all.  It's either about Anita being right or you being a chauvinist.  It's either about the female depiction in video games or you support "societal constructs" of men and women not being equal (because at some point, different and not equal became mutually exclusive).  The entire debate is something that feels... unnatural.  like a permutation of something that could have some real, lasting impact, but is instead turned into a platform for people to critique video games' slow progress as an art form. 

  The fact that the conversation is so stymied is something that keeps this echo chamber rattling.  At the end of the day, no input is desired from the people who actually play and passionately care about video games.  Why?  Because to those people, to me, video games are not "pop culture."  Most people who play video games don't play them for hits, ad revenue or name recognition, anything of the sort really.  Most people don't seek personal validation and representation in video games, because we're looking for a gameplay experience. 
 
  I keep hoping that eventually this noise will fade, that these flash-in-the-pan instances become archaic groupthink, but it only seems to happen as new nuances are brought in.  Part of me is morbidly curious to see what new, ridiculous nonsense will these fools come up with next?