Playing Character Death

Over the New Year holiday weekend, I played a lot of video games, finishing two of them. Coincidentally, both of those games contained scenes where you play as a character in an unbeatable scenario, where the character is eventually killed (permanently). They were similar in a lot of ways, so I’d like to examine and compare them.

The games I’m talking about are Naruto Shippuuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, and obviously this post will contain huge spoilers for those games (and the Naruto Shippuuden anime, obviously).

Let’s start with Naruto. Naruto Shippuuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 (hereafter “Storm 2”) is a fighting game that includes a single-player adventure campaign that covers the first eight seasons (just under 200 episodes) of the Naruto Shippuuden anime. Storm 2 is the sequel to 2008’s Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm (“Storm 1”), which covered the entire original Naruto anime (aside from the last “filler” arc). The show has an enormous cast of ninjas that all have unique fighting styles and abilities, which makes it perfect source material for a fighting game, and a great many have been made. What makes the Storm games unique is that they attempt to most closely recreate not only the story of the anime, but the over-the-top battles that are the main draw of the series. In normal battles, each character has their own “Ultimate Jutsu,” and at the end of each story chapter is a multi-phase boss battle split up by quicktime events (here’s an example from early on in Storm 2).

Late in the game–here’s your second spoiler warning–Naruto’s mentor, Jiraiya, faces a former student who now goes by the name Pain. It’s a normal boss battle (here’s the video if you want to watch it), but there is an additional segment at the end:

And I Didn't Even Use Tarot Cards

Remember way back when, when I did that little rant for a Round Table about difficulty? And how I was playing Assassin’s Creed and the original Uncharted at that time, and made the following prediction?:

Two games I’m currently playing are Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. I’m not particularly far into either, but even so, I can tell you which game I will get completely through and which one I will not. (Hint: it’s the one with an easy mode!)

Guess what game I STILL haven’t finished, and will resort to watching on YouTube in preparation for the sequel?

Here’s hoping Assassin’s Creed 2 doesn’t end up being as impossible as the first one was for me.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Review

My FIRST REVIEW EVAR! is up at GameCritics.com, and it’s about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Here’s an excerpt relevant to this blog:

Characters from the first game make a comeback—Sully makes a cameo and Elena is back as a major player—and newcomers Harry Flynn and Chloe Frazer, the latter whom adds a touch of much-needed diversity to our group of heroes, are introduced. Although at times characters’ motivations are not clear, overall, characterization is one of the areas where Among Thieves is head and shoulders above nearly every other major game out there. Clever writing combined with top-notch voice acting, animation, and character design results in a cast of characters that come across as likable and, most of all, realistic—not only in their appearances and sharp banter, but their actions.

In particular, Chloe and Elena are brilliant examples of female characters done right, something gaming desperately needs. With her midriff-baring shirt and ultra-tight pants, Chloe is a bit sexualized, but overall both women are realistic, clever, and—above all—independent. While there is a love triangle element, it is handled with tact; lesser writers than Naughty Dog’s team would have seen Chloe and Elena snap at each other in a childish “catfight” over Drake—not so here. Naughty Dog truly treats their female characters with the same care and respect as their male characters, not something most people in Hollywood, let alone video games, can boast. Further evidence of Naughty Dog’s skill can be found in Tenzin, the Tibetan man who aids Drake briefly in the second half of the game. A minor character who could have easily devolved into a stereotype is instead a fully formed and sympathetic character with a background, motivations, and a family. In the end, the only character that suffers from a lack of development is the villain, who is, yet again, an over-the-top evil caricature, but this time he’s Serbian instead of British.

Read the whole thing!

#EAFail Link Roundup

#EAFail is a total clusterfuck of misogyny and pandering to the lowest common denominator. Here are a bunch of resources on it. (Last updated August 3 at 10:00 PM EST.)

IRIS Forums Thread

This post on Digg

GayGamer’s PixelPoet entered the contest with a photo of himself and a “booth bear” in order to make a point. He ended up being selected as a runner-up winner and sending an amazing letter explaining exactly why he was declining the prize, pointing out the heteronormativity and sexism of the contest and giving suggestions for what to do with the prize instead. Read it, seriously!

Acid for Blood: Convention Sexual Harassment and #EAFail — in-depth analysis by Brinstar

General Posts

Ars Technica post explaining the situation.

The Escapist also reports on the situation.

AdFreak’s post against the contest. (H/T Brinstar in comments.)

GamingAngels points out that the hub-bub over the “male only” IGN contest should have tipped them off (H/T Brinstar):

Alright, I get it. The game is about the 7 Deadly Sins, one of them being Lust. And sure, this is one of the easiest (aside from Sloth) sins to use to promote the game. But really? After the debacle with the IGN contest recently wouldn’t at least do a little thinking about the audience – not to mention the ‘booth babes’? The contest is specific in stating “any booth babe” so, this isn’t even about the girls that might be at the Dante’s Inferno area – which means every girl working a booth at the Con is fair game in their eyes.

Negative Gamer tears the contest apart (H/T Brinstar!):

In their continuingly desperate plea for people to care about their game, EA have taken to just being bigots. In a competition being held at Comic-Con you have to “commit an act of lust” with one of their booth babes, then post the picture on twitter.The winner gets a “sinfull night with two hot girls” (the quote should technically be in all caps, but I thought you may not be able to handle it).

Even Destructoid thinks the contest is sleazy (H/T @sephiros):

On the other hand, there’s something repulsive about offering people up as prizes in your PR stunt, especially given game culture’s bad habit of over-sexualizing its female characters anyway. And while our beautiful free market ideally allows booth babes to opt out of stunts like this at their discretion, let’s be realistic: living in California ain’t cheap and the rent still has to get paid. Even if there’s nothing technically wrong going on here, it’s still sleazy and, at the very least, alienating.

MetaFilter post (H/T Pearl in the comments.)

Technology News: “EA’s Big Success at Comic-Con This Year? Alienating Women Gamers” (Same article at Wired’s GeekDad.) (Same article at Coolbeans.)

More links care of Brinstar:
Post on LJ comm sf_drama.
Post by LJ user yendi
JournalFen community unfunnybusiness
Post on FF site Limit Break
OffWorld
.tiff
Jezebel: “Not only is this promotion gross and a bit sad, it also reinforces the notion that everyone at Comic Con is a horny douchebag loser who just wants to rub up against a Booth Babe for a cheap thrill.”
Kotaku: “The contest details, emblazoned on the chest of a woman in faux tattoo, also offers five runner-up prizes which includes a copy of the game, a $240 EA gift card, a limited edition shirt and ‘tons more swag.’ No word if that swag includes brass knuckles.”
LJ comm girl_gamers: “EA must not think highly of male gamers… and they don’t seem to think anything at all of female gamers.”
Technologizer: “If only the gaming blogs covering the story could see the forest from the trees. Destructoid, for example, cries foul despite having no problem celebrating booth babes during E3.”
Newsarama: “What NOT to do at SDCC”
Kotaku post about @danteteam’s failpology.
Broken Toys. And here’s a follow up:

And I apologize for any confusion in how I worded my belief that your marketing team was devoid of common sense, views its female employees as sexual objects, and reflects poorly on our entire industry in its juvenile pursuit of attention.

Kill Ten Rats: “EA, when I talked about game developers and porn stars, I was not implying that you should treat your employees like underpaid prostitutes.” Here is the follow up.
Jeremy Preacher:

I’ve worked Comic-Con. and while there are lots of perfectly normal, well-adjusted people there, there are also a LOT of people with boundary issues, an imperfect understanding of social norms, and/or a really fucking twisted view of women. It’s hard enough to maintain one’s personal space – having fucking Marketing supporting the random gropage as a CONTEST does NOT HELP.

Edmonton Journal‘s Button Mash: ”
EA Games pimp out booth babes at Comic-Con, the Internet explodes”
Geeks Are Sexy
Social Media Today post describing what went wrong WRT using Twitter as a contest platform. (Same post on Social Media Guidelines.)
Pope Hat post on the legal issues involved: “‘Acts of Lust’ At Comic Con: Electronic Arts Wants To Make Some Lawyers Very Happy”:

Employers have an obligation to take reasonable steps to protect employees from sexual harassment by customers and other third parties. They also have an obligation to refrain from encouraging and ratifying such harassment. This is a briskly developing area of law. And while EA might plausibly argue (as have employers like Hooters, for instance) that being ogled is part and parcel of the Booth Babe job, they’re going to have a tough time explaining how Booth Babes signed up to be exposed to ill-defined “acts of lust.”

Tradeskill Perspective talks about organizations such as Women in Games and Gamers in Real Life (GIRL) that try to raise awareness about issues relating to women in games and the industry.
Set on Stun: “Misogyny Marketing: EA Pimps Booth Babes for Dante’s Inferno Game”
VG247
Get Your Blogs Out
DigitalFemme: “The next person to tell me that the only thing a company is looking for in a consumer’s pants is a wallet or that the only color a company sees is green is going to get told off. For days. Because time and time again this has been proven to be untrue.”
Spinksville
dwell on it: “Booth-babes though, as a marketing gimmick, are just insulting. I’ve got nothing at all against the women who do the work. It’s a job like any other – and not an easy job by any means – and people are paying for it. But really, the whole notion that they have to be there is an insult to gamers, and to game journos – whether or not that insult is actually warranted.”
Kellie Parker succinctly explains the sexism and heteronormativity of the contest.
Blippitt: “#EAFail: Video Game Marketing Gone Bad”
Shack News

Carnal Nation: “#EAFail – Is EA Games Deliberately Being Crass For The Publicity?”

At Mother Jones, Stephanie Volkoff Green investigates which other circles of hell EA manages to fall into with this contest.

Geek Syndicate‘s post. (H/T jeffy in comments.)

Yahoo! Games’s PluggedIn: “EA blasted over questionable marketing stunt”; this post made Yahoo’s top 4 news articles. (H/T @BigDumbHippy)

Joystiq: “Photos of the booth girls and their potential “dates” can be found on the Dante’s Inferno Facebook page. Our faith in humanity can be found in the corner, curled up and mumbling something to itself.” And the follow up: “We can’t imagine Beelzebub begs pardon from those he makes swim through a sea of fire and brimstone for all eternity. ‘Oh, man. That looks like it hurts. I’m like, really sorry about this, guys. Do you want some aloe?'”

Penny Arcade weighs in:

Now, Electronic Arts seems determined to wrest the title of “most egregious promotional bullshit” from the Acclaim of old, with some crazy Comic Con antics that involve committing “acts of lust” on “booth babes.” They apologized, ostensibly, but it’s a mealymouthed, worthless thing – a recitation of what they’ve done, capped with the assertion that they’re sorry you’re offended, but not sorry for offending you, as though your reaction were some bizarre, extra-dimensional phenomenon independent of their own actions.

Kieron Gillen at Rock, Paper, Shotgun decries the contest, describing a couple stories of con-goers harassing his friends at SDCC:

On the first day, a Photographer friend of ours wandered over, sighing that she’d already had her arse pinched four times.

This is what comicon is like without a multinational corporation deciding to turn it into a sport.

Feminist Responses

A comment on Ars Technica by an actual “booth babe” with firsthand experience of con harassment (H/T Brinstar). Here is an excerpt, but be sure to read the whole thing:

Lastly, you guys think that people offended by this are over-reacting because SANE people at a con would never do something criminal? Spoken like someone who’s not female and dressed up at a con. Last week I had some moron ACTUALLY STALK one of my new girls. Kept coming back to the booth even after she told him she wouldn’t hang out. He kept getting more insistent that she hang out with him and give him her phone number. Kept telling her he’d come back when she asked him not to. Tried to FOLLOW HER. Yah, that’s obviously not dangerous AT ALL. I’ve had my own issues over the years, including stalkers, men trying to take invasive photos, or grabbing things they shouldn’t. I have at least a couple of guys a con who cross the line. Please don’t downplay the seriousness of a situation that you know NOTHING ABOUT.

Here is the Kotaku post about iola’s comment. It’s good that it’s getting so much attention.

Shakesville post about it. From a comment by trifling:

One particular horror of this is that entrants to the competition are encouraged to “(take) photos with the models working the Dante’s Inferno booth or any other booth babes at the show.” Forgive my potential lack of understanding of the operation of the event, but I am pretty sure that the tone of this competition is encouraging more than the average “stand next to her and smile” photo, and they are encouraging this interaction with people who do not work for them or have any association at all with this competition.

A Midwife in Training post about how she mostly buys EA games but will now be boycotting them:

I’m loving the fact that EA seems to think that my gender isn’t interested in their video games or winning contests for free swag. Or that I wouldn’t be offended that they’ve declared open season on the “booth babes”, essentially reinforcing the misguided idea that harassing or “lusting” after a woman, and then snapping a picture of it for proof, is a great way to get her to spend some time with you.

Response from PixiePalace:

EA is not only condoning behavior that dehumanizes women, but they are encouraging and rewarding it. This is socially irresponsible and morally repugnant. I don’t bring up morals a whole lot because I think it’s kind of a dicey subject, but this one kind of pushes me over the edge. We live in a rape culture and this kind of a contest reinforces that. I know that these models likely went into this job knowing about this contest, but I also know that some of the women to take booth babe jobs really need the jobs, regardless of how degrading they are (it’s better than stripping or worse, right?) and that women are told that being objectified is good for them (when we know, scientifically, that it’s not). Saying that it’s ok because they went into it with their eyes open doesn’t make it better.

The F-Word: “EA games invites convention attendees to sexually harass ‘booth babes'”

Feminist Law Professors: “EA has a new way to annoy its own models: give out prizes for Comic Con attendees who commit acts of lust with their booth babes. Also, if you win, you get to take the lady out to dinner! This is going to end well for everyone involved.”

Girl vs. Robot: (H/T Kat in the comments.) This is a great post that outlines the sexism faced by girls and women in nerd-dom:

The problem is that gamer girls are nerds too. They feel the same pressure to conform to mainstream society that male nerds do. However, when they reject it and flee to the communities of nerds online, they often are faced with a second pressure to behave in a certain way, whether that be the hyper anime girl ideal or the “one of the guys” anti-girl. Girl gamers are just looking for a place to be themselves.

YES, YES, YES. That is it exactly. (Also the third paragraph is an excellent example of satirizing sexism. The sarcasm is quite clear and the statement truly ridiculous.)

Feministing Community: “EA Fail: How to Alienate Female Gamers”

Geek Girls Rule!:

As I’ve said many, many times before… I am not against being pretty or sexy, or whatever. I am not against finding people hot. I AM against setting up your employees for sexual harassment, and probably some sexual assault as well. People, male or female, have a tendency to behave badly when feeling anonymous in a crowd. Add that to this society’s view of women’s bodies as objects and public property, then give them permission to engage in one level of bad behavior… The stupid starts to stack up pretty quickly.

Other Resources

Brinstar’s screencap of @danteteam’s now-removed response (now re-posted?) to the Twitter outrage.

TweetGrid search for #EAFail, this can be used to keep up with the latest developments on Twitter. Responses should also be under the hashtag #lust and as replies to @danteteam.

Via Brinstar, two posts on harassment, containing specific stories of incidents of harassment. This stuff HAPPENS, and it happens A LOT:
Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!
Cerise article on con harassment and Girl-Wonder’s Con Anti-Harassment Project.
More on harassment at last year’s SDCC

In addition, this stunt has serious shades of the “Open Source Boob Project” debacle from last year. More analysis here.

If you have any more posts or resources, drop them in the comments.

A summarized list of the grievances against this “contest”, in no particular order:
— Assumes women and gay men aren’t interested in the game/don’t play games at all.
— Caters to the lowest common denominator of male game/comic fan: the drooling fanboy who can only get a date with a woman if he wins a fucking contest.
— Disembodied female chest and other sexist imagery used in the ad.
— Language that encourages sexual harassment of not only EA’s “booth babes” but every model at Comic-Con. (“commit an act of lust”)
— Women being offered as prizes.
— Prize worded in a way to imply the winner will get to have sex with the models; there is a word for this, and it’s prostitution.
— Women referred to as “girls”.
— All-around sleaziness and grossness, and an attitude that completely ignores and erases the RAMPANT harassment women, especially booth babes, have to put up with at gaming/comic/etc. conventions.

This contest ENCOURAGES the behavior that makes cons UNSAFE FOR WOMEN. PERIOD.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

And now, W!F continues its tradition of timeliness with this post about Gears of War 2, which came out six months ago.

Recently I happened to watch the notorious tear-jerking scene in Gears of War 2 where one of the main heroes, Dom, is finally reunited with his wife, Maria, after she’s been tortured by the Locust for ten years, and then he shoots her in the head.

Okay, it’s not quite like that. But it’s close enough that it made me fairly angry. From what I see, it looks like Dom thinks he’s found his beautiful wife, but when it turns out she’s not so beautiful anymore, he decides the best course of action is a “mercy killing”. This all plays out in about a minute. He takes ONE MINUTE to make the decision to KILL HIS WIFE. Instead of, you know, getting her some medical attention at least. That’s just ridiculous.

I had a short conversation on Twitter with Mr Ryan Gan of the JPAG where he came up with some possible explanations, but when it comes down to it, the in-game reasoning doesn’t matter much. I was completely missing the point when I criticized that aspect of the scene. Even if the in-game reasoning were completely solid and logical, the game still utilizes the tired and sexist Women in Refrigerators trope; it is still part of a bigger and disturbing pattern of entertainment where female characters are killed off in order to develop or provide motivation for a male character. It’s not only lazy writing but lazy game design [relevant part is after the spoiler warning].

Getting lost in sorting out in-game justifications for sexism or racism or homophobia or transphobia and so on muddles the issue: just because there is an in-game explanation for something doesn’t mean it’s not offensive. Of course the people who created the thing are going to have some kind of flimsy rationale for it existing!

We saw this a lot with the Resident Evil 5 controversy. When critics expressed shock that RE5 contained African zombies actually wearing grass skirts and wielding spears, some responded that this was all explained in the game; the residents of Kiujuju regressed to a more primitive state as a side effect of the zombie virus.

Great, so there’s an in-game explanation for it. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s still a blatant racist caricature. In addition, why is a certain way of dressing considered “regressing” to a “more primitive state”? The thinking behind this design choice is ignorant and lazy at best. (Once again, N’Gai Croal has the answers.)

Now, this does not mean in-game explanations are completely irrelevant when criticizing games. The explanation for why something is a certain way or why a character does something can have important affects on the meaning of that thing or a person’s interpretation of the game. But these explanations cannot excuse lazy or ignorant writing, and/or helping to perpetuate institutionalized oppression. It’s something that generally needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis, but here’s a hint: if the criticism has to do with racism, transphobia, and/or other oppressions, then the in-game rationale isn’t going to matter very much.

This Week's Most Misogynistic Game in the World: Golden Axe: Beast Rider

I haven’t played the game myself (and definitely won’t… ever), but according to GameSpot reviewer Chris Watters:

[Golden Axe: Beast Rider] is definitely M for Mature. You’ll see, um, the premise is basically all of Tyris’s sisterhood is slaughtered, and so throughout the game you’ll just see like, you know, naked women’s torsos just hanging from trees and stuff like that.

(The Hotspot, 10/28/2008)

Oversexualized women are an unfortunate commonality in many games. Generalized violence against women is somewhat expected in violent games. But sexualized violence against women? No fucking thank you.

Golden Axe: Beast Rider–this week’s most misogynistic game… in the wooorld!

(Perhaps I’ve been watching too much Countdown lately?)

Faith: The Next Jade?

Ask anyone to name the best female game character, and chances are the answer you’ll get is Jade, from Beyond Good and Evil (the other likely answer would be Alyx Vance from Half-Life, though she’s not the player character). Jade is a fantastic character in addition to being a capable and intelligent woman, well deserving of all the praise she’s gotten since the game came out in 2003.

But that’s the thing–BG&E came out in 2003… a full five years ago. That’s a long time in video game land. Yet we haven’t seen a female protagonist at least on par with Jade?

Luckily for us, that could change with the release of Mirror’s Edge next month. The protagonist is a young woman built similarly to Jade, though in keeping with ME’s more realistic art style. It’s a great start, but what remains to be seen is whether Faith is as interesting a character as Jade is; personality and relationships are the other, arguably more important half of what makes a strong female character. The fact that they are both women of color is awesome as well.

While I’m writing about Faith, I’d like to take a moment to write about this Kotaku article. I discovered it via a post on Gaming Angels, which is celebrating Love Your Body Day with some fantastic posts. (I pretty much boycott Kotaku.)

The article posts a piece of official art of Faith, followed by a fan alteration of the image. The changes appear to be simply: a rounder face, rounder eyes, removal of the badass eye tattoo, and much larger breasts with visible nipples (implying she is not wearing a bra, which would be extremely painful considering the fact that she is a RUNNER).

The changes are not surprising. The face was stripped of all character and made into Generic Final Fantasy Heroine (commenters who preferred the fan-made image’s face because it’s “softer” and more “feminine”–because women shouldn’t be tough). And of course women need to have C-cups or larger to be attractive. That someone had the gall to declare that Faith wasn’t hot enough and actually take the time to alter the image in that way is sad but not surprising, either. (Has this ever happened to a male game character? No, really, has it?)

What really irritated me about the post was the vast amount of assumptions made by the “artist”. This is how Kotaku describes the fan’s intent:

As reader Torokun points out: “There is always a huge complain from Asian gamers whenever Western developers design Asian female characters…” As Torokun continues, this is mainly because many Westerners’ definition of what is considered as “Asian” beauty is very different from what Asians consider beautiful.”

While I have no doubt beauty standards differ slightly around the globe, Torokun makes the assumptions that:

• Faith’s appearance was designed to be attractive to straight American men, rather than as one aspect of her entire character.
• Not only that, but she was specifically designed to appear as an idealized Asian woman for straight (presumably white) American men.
• All Asian men are attracted to one specific body and face type, to the exclusion of anyone else.
• That a female game character must meet certain beauty standards in order to be viable.
• Tough =/= feminine =/= attractive.

All of which is really bothersome to me, especially the first part. She’s a character, not a pinup. No one complains that male characters aren’t hot enough. It’s pretty sad that some can’t even accept female game characters–who, by and large ARE made to be attractive even when they’re not blatantly sexualized and/or idealized–as they are without feeling the need to break out photoshop and make them “better.”

The Lesser of Two Evils: Altair and the Assassin's Creed

When it comes to Altair, protagonist of last year’s most polarizing game, Assassin’s Creed, I’m torn between adoration and disgust. On the one hand, Altair is a total badass who can run across rooftops and climb church towers with ease. On the other, he is really not so nice a guy, even aside from the whole assassin thing.

It’s clear Ubisoft put a lot of focus on the free running system (which, by the way, is pure fun) and the animations that go along with it. The animations in particular convey a lot about Altair: he moves with confidence, even arrogance, and runs, leaps, and climbs with the grace of a skilled athlete. Upon reaching a perch high above Jerusalem, Altair crouches on a thin plank like it’s no big deal. He’s like a cat; he even swaggers a bit when he walks.

All of this goes quite some way to endear him to the player (or to me, at least). Yes, he’s a cocky little bastard, but he can clearly back up all that talk.

And yet the game constantly reminds you that, while (in the first three missions, which is as far as I’ve gotten) Altair’s targets are clearly evil men–the first brutally stabs and murders an innocent man in the middle of a public square–Altair himself is merely the less evil of the two. The evil side of our murderous protagonist is shown through both not only in cutscenes, but through certain game mechanics as well.

It is made clear off the bat that Altair doesn’t think much of the Creed, one rule of which states that assassins must not kill innocents, when he murders an old man in the opening scene of the game. Soon enough, the assassin leader demotes Altair (losing most of the sync bar and his weapons) for breaking the Creed and causing a lot of trouble. Altair isn’t phased; the leader and the men at the Assassin’s Bureaus scold his continued arrogance and disdain for the Creed.

Altair’s violent personality is reflected in the options available for interacting with the people of the various cities he travels to. Of particular note is the game’s somewhat troublesome treatment of the homeless beggars.

Women beggars (they are all women, as are the citizens you can rescue, which strikes me as very strange, not to mention unrealistic) are placed in certain areas of a given city, and when Altair enters that area, they will run up to him and harass him for money, prevent his movement, and draw attention to him by loudly telling him about their poor starving family.

At first I felt bad for them, but as they became more and more abundant and really began to impede my progress, I just felt annoyed. The only options given to the player to deal with them are to gently push them out of the way if you’re not in a hurry, or if you are, kill or beat them. You can’t give donations (another odd thing, given that you can pickpocket “thugs”, though for knives, not money).

That the violent reaction, however, falls in line with Altair’s character: the arrogant killer we’re supposed to be rooting for. The game defies expectations by not making the protagonist a noble rebel killing off truly evil men who deserve what they get, and the gameplay is not conflicting with the story here, which is good. Every other investigative option given to Altair thus far is violent, with the exception of eavesdropping, but that’s easy and it comes at no cost to Altair at all (whereas giving alms would cost him money he could spend on weapons and whatnot). As disgusting as it is, this is our protagonist through and through. (That said, I would like to see Ubisoft take a different approach to this in future installments.)

So I want to like Altair, with his effortless skill and arrogant ways, but I can’t, because he’s only slightly better than the men he’s sent to kill. Of course, having only finished the first two assassinations, I’m looking forward to seeing what character arc (if any!) occurs as the story progresses.

Liking Something Sexist Doesn't Necessarily Make You Sexist

I had to comment on this because I am dismayed and disappointed by Leigh Alexander’s thoughts here, and surprisingly impressed with some of the Kotaku readers.

Alexander does two seriously unprofessional things in this post: 1. Puts words in Samhita’s (of Feministing) mouth, and 2. Attacks Feministing, both without addressing the actual issue here: that GTA IV is a sexist game. And it is, there is no doubt about it.

However, enjoying GTA IV doesn’t make you a sexist. Here is where Alexander’s scramble to defend the game comes in: she’s not a sexist–she’s a woman, in fact!–and she likes GTA IV, so it must be okay! Yeah, no. First of all, she writes, “Are those who enjoy [GTA IV] misogynists? Feminist interest blog Feministing certainly thinks so…” which is totally inaccurate. Samhita didn’t say anything of the sort. Where did Alexander get this from?

Example time: I enjoy the Phoenix Wright games, which contain, among other issues, a male gaze-rife portrayal of one of the female characters. The second game also has a racist portrayal of a Native American. Does enjoying Phoenix Wright make me sexist or a racist? Of course not. But I’m not naive enough to pretend the games are an equality fest.

Alexander brings out the usual arguments against criticisms of GTA IV (all of which avoid the real issue)–the Mature rating, the social satire aspect, the idea that the game just reflects real-world sexism. It’s imitating life, huh? If that’s so, where are the male prostitutes? Where are the male strippers? Why are there no women with personality? If the game is “about choice”, then why can’t you date a man, or hell, be friends with a woman? Why are all women potential dates, and therefore potential sex partners? Surely there are plenty of men–even mobsters–out there in the real world who have female friends they don’t sleep with?

Alexander goes on to say:

To call misogyny here is divisive, actually, implying that the treatment of women needs to be elevated above the treatment of any other group – as if “woman” were a separate, special “race” with a unified mind. We aren’t, thank you.

In fact, with all due respect for the feminist community, demand for that sort of favoritism seems to breed resentment – perhaps even the very resentment that GTA IV provides the framework to explore. Just who are those large-breasted logo silhouettes on Feministing’s website supposed to be giving the middle finger to, anyway?

First of all, if you think feminists want women to have special treatment, you’re incredibly off-base. Go read the Feminism 101 blog. Feminists want equality, not preferential treatment for women. And the treatment of people in this game is not equal between women and men.

Secondly, totally avoiding the subject while criticizing the Feministing site? (The logo is a reclamation of the mudflap girl, by the way–much like Bitch Magazine is a reclamation of the word “bitch.”) Not a good way to make an argument. It also angers me because the online gaming culture is already so anti-feminist that Alexander’s comments just reinforce that mindset. There are definitely things to criticize about Samhita’s post, but attacking her and the site is not the way to go about it.

The complaint is that the game reinforces the misogyny already well entrenched in our culture. Just because other things are worse, just because that’s the way it is, just because it’s a game, just because it’s supposedly satire, just because Samhita didn’t play the game, doesn’t make it not sexist. In fact, there are people out there who played the game, enjoyed it, and found it sexist! Hey, here are two of them!

I applaud Kotaku commenters KcP and badasscat for their eloquent points.

So relax, Alexander, you’re not a sexist for liking GTA IV. You’re a sexist for denying that the game is at the very least problematic.

A Brief Summary of Sexism in GTA IV

(… with informative links! Last updated: 6/1)

[Edit 16 Oct 2009: It has come to my attention that this post contains a factual error, which has now been corrected, and more content has been added. All changes are in italics, with the date.]

As someone who is completely in favor of games as a recognized art form, and who will be attempting to critique games with that mindset in the near future (I swear), I feel compelled to call out sexism in video games when I see it. And nowhere in video games is it more blatant than in GTA IV.

First, some facts:
— I am not in favor of having the game banned or otherwise censored. Free speech and all that.
— No, I haven’t played the game. But the things I bring up here have been confirmed by people who have played the game, or by gameplay footage. Along with that, I can only actually point out things that I HAVE confirmed happening, so there very well may be more.
— I am well aware of the style and history of the GTA series.
— I do not think GTA IV will cause healthy, balanced adults or teens to go out and rape women/shoot cops/whatever.
— I do not think the game is completely void of redeeming qualities. For example, the graphics are very nice.

The game world of Grand Theft Auto IV is an environment of misogyny. The most grievous evidence of this is the sexualized violence against women, though other details contribute. Together, the evidence suggests a deliberate attempt to create a world that devalues women and reinforces misogynistic attitudes.

Sexualized Violence Against Women
In GTA IV, the player character can pick up prostitutes, have sex with them, and then kill them. Even if the sex isn’t rape, which hasn’t yet been confirmed as something that can occur in the game, murder just after sex is still sexualized violence. In GTA IV, the player can only do this to women. There are no male prostitutes and the player cannot have a boyfriend. The only characters the player can commit sexualized violence against are female ones [Edit: This is incorrect, though the point stands: there is one exception. See below.]. That is a misogynistic environment.

(Added 10/16/09:) One oversight from when I originally wrote this post was leaving out the case of one mission where you take a gay man out on a date in order to assassinate him, which is the one exception to my previous statement that only women are victims of sexualized violence in the game. (Chalk it up to straight privilege.) Since homophobia and misogyny are so deeply connected, it’s not surprising that the one man the player can commit sexualized violence against is gay. Source. Thanks to Kateri for pointing this out to me, and for the link.

Further, the game presents the mature subject matter in a very immature way. Suggested further reading on this point: “Mature vs Mature” — Man Bytes Blog.

Lack of Female Characters with Depth
The only major characters in GTA IV are male. The only female characters in the game are nameless Liberty City inhabitants, prostitutes, and random enemies [Edit 10/16/09: This is incorrect, though there still aren’t any female characters of importance and/or depth. See below for more thoughts on the female characters in GTA IV.]. This is a serious flaw in a work of fiction. There is no reason to have no major female characters with as much depth as many of the male characters apparently have.

Edit 10/16/09: Two people who have played GTA IV had this to say on Twitter about the female characters in the game. I am quoting them and linking to their tweets with permission.
From @fyreball13:

The statement that women are faceless and nameless is a gray area. There are two women you interact with often, one being Roman’s cousin* [see correction below], another being a girl that is working for the police and the third being a woman who deals drugs.
*One is Niko’s cousin Roman’s girlfriend/wife. She does help a fair bit, but neither are MAJOR players.
However, the MAIN characters that Niko hangs out with etc. are all male and the female charcters seemingly disappear after they have moved the story along, usually introducing you to a man who can give you newer missions.

From @stillgray:

Most, if not all of the male characters (even the “likable” ones) are misogynists in GTA IV.
The moment you step off the boat in GTA IV, your cousin Roman goes on about easy American women and denigrates those from home.
The whole intro sets the tone for the rest of the game. We know where the developers stand on views of gender.

Other Details
There exists an internet cafe called Tw@, pronounced “twat.” Twat is “vulgar synonym for the human vulva, vagina, or clitoris, and is used as a derogatory epithet” (Wikipedia). It’s not clever or satirical to name a place after a derogatory term for female genitalia. It’s immature and contributes to the atmosphere of misogyny.

Also, a female fast food worker asks the player character if he wants a handjob with his burger. Because clearly a female character cannot exist unless there is the possibility of some sexual interaction. The immaturity paints games as something for young teens.

Update: Via Feminist Gamers, an interesting comment by Cola on Feministing about a certain mission in GTA IV, quoted in part (full comment here):

“Just as I was starting to think Niko was really great, I realised he was a moralising hypocrite. Oh, and then he hit a woman he was kidnapping for trying to get away and referred to her as ‘the bitch.’ Then he hit her again to get her to look at him so he could take a picture of her gagged face to send to her father.

It was really hard to keep playing after that. This woman was portrayed, in contrast to the protagonist, as selfish, shallow, and bitchy. I had nothing but sympathy for her, because she was justifiably scared and angry, but she was being cast as this shrieking whore (she hit on Niko before he kidnapped her).”

Clearly the portrayal and treatment of women in this game leaves a lot to be desired.

The fact that this game is receiving nothing but the highest marks from game reviewers and is being hailed as the greatest game ever made upsets me. Is this really something we want to hold up as gaming’s finest? (I can’t help thinking back to the analysis of No More Heroes I linked to last post, and how NMH is a direct satire of Western GTA fans.) I realize the game does technically impressive things, but what is it saying with that technology? Isn’t that just as important?

General Reading, or People Who Put it Better Than I Do
“GTA discussion… over there” — Feminist Gamers (with a link to Feministing)
“Some GTA IV Questions” — Man Bytes Blog
“I’ve Decided That It’s Simple After All” — The True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller
“How Can Grand Theft Auto Transition from Base Entertainment to Art?” — Latoya Peterson, Cerise Magazine (May 2008). Fantastic article, highly recommended.
“Grand Theft Auto IV” — Scholarly Gamer. A general (but interesting and thorough) critique of the game, but contains some concise examinations of the misogyny and homophobia in the game.
“Oh, right… Grand Theft Auto is coming out…” — No Cookies for Me. (How did I miss this the first time around?)
Edit 10/16/09: Added this post by Thomas Cross:
— Blog Banter: Quitter! — Shouldn’t Be Gaming (Tom describes why he stopped playing the game.)

Common Defenses
“It’s just a game!”
No. Games are creative expressions just like books, movies, and television, and are thus open to critique.
Suggested reading:
“The Problem with That Line ‘It’s Just a Game’ — Are Our Games Our Fantasies?” — MTV Multiplayer
“It’s Just a Game” — Feminist Gamers

“But you kill men, too.” Or, “Why is killing a prostitute worse than killing a pedestrian?”
The problem is not just the killing. I do not think you shouldn’t be able to kill female characters in a video game. The problem is the sexualized violence that is directed only at women, as well as the greater misogynistic atmosphere the game reinforces through other details and the lack of any female characters with depth. The rampant violence is NOT equal-opportunity.

“But sexism is a problem in this game/movie/any and all other media.”
Yeah, it is. But right now I’m talking about GTA IV.

“There are no incentives to killing prostitutes.”
Yes, there are. You gain health back by hiring them and you get back the money you spent after killing them. That’s more incentive than mowing down pedestrians.

“It’s not part of the story. Rockstar isn’t promoting doing this sort of thing.”
Except that they are promoting it by allowing it to happen. Liberty City is not a real world, it is a deliberately crafted piece of fiction; things just don’t happen. Everything in the world and everything that happens has to be deliberately allowed by the creators. Isn’t it unrealistic how there are no children at all in Liberty City? That’s because the game would definitely get an AO rating if the player were allowed to kill children. Developer choice.

On this point, see also: “On IGN’s Grand Theft Auto IV Video” — Cruise Elroy