Microsoft's Rape Joke at E3

Women and girls should not need to play games to play games. But we do. The following post is about sexism in gaming. You do not need to have a press pass to E3 or be into MLG to understand what happened or anything, just know that it is a gaming industry conference and that this industry is particularly hot spot for sexism and gender essentialism (along with dis/ableism, racism, and most social ills that come to the mind of rage quitting troglodytes).

Earlier this week, a cheap ass rape joke was made at a Microsoft press event. 
Feminist Frequency, no stranger to sexism and frequent target of the fetid MRA crowd, was given a reminder of their tantrum tactics when she mentioned Microsoft/Xbox's lack of female protagonists. The next day FF posted some offerings that do appear to offer women out in front. I like to think that she posted it just because it was news and an interesting juxtaposition. However, the bellowing boys of the web demand (you can see it for yourself in some of the offerings in the first FF link) that should any right, proper, human behavior happen anywhere near a sexist foul up, that it be reported on as well or nay, you are only telling an unfair part of a story to forward your misandrist agenda!

Microsoft issues an apology - so those would-be non-apologists attempting to downplay this or act like it was not wrong, can have a goddamn seat.

The trouble is not just the rape joke itself. The trouble is not just that it was issued by a superiorly experienced and equipped male player to a less experienced and equipped female player. The trouble is not just that it was made in a professional environment. The trouble is not just that it was made in a public environment.  The trouble is not that behavior like this but far more terrible is ubiquitous in not just gaming but in a lot of places in US culture - so much so that complaining about this one incident is seen as hair-splitting, nit-picking, and mountain-of-molehill making. The trouble is not just the message this sends to young gamers of all/any genders.

The trouble is all of the above. 

GimpyGamer: XBoxOne and Motion Wut?

Yesterday (5/21/13) I sat my complicated self down in front of the XBox One console reveal. I am a video gamer. I am also a mom, a wife, a girlfriend, a gimp, a member of the LGBT/QUILTBAG community, a mom of someone in the QUILTBAG community, a liberal (if we must), a franchise wide Halo fan, a person at the beginning of the middle of ages, I contain multitudes but let us get to the geek!

I liked a lot of what I saw, and I gave them room to save most of the sweet game reveals for E3. There is an industry show for that coming up soon, okay. It looks like Microsoft is really taking the dive to make the XBox One the ONE CONSOLE TO RULE THEM ALL. Not the other consoles, I mean, but to RULE YOUR LIVING/FAMILY ROOM!

And it wants to get your ass moving.

Here is the thing: gaming is a great pastime for some folks with disabilities. In particular, it allows for a time of virtual/physical competition that people with mobility issues really cannot get anywhere but with video games. When a game is really engaging, really immersive, you tend to equate the physicality of your avatar/silent protagonist/franchise space marine/sprite with your own. Just watch a handful of gamers sit together and play and watch their body language, not just before and after but during play

The reveal, and the industry in general, has me worried that as we progress along the motion control future, people like me are going to get left out in the cold. It is hard enough some days just to hold a controller, why must everything be swiped and pinched and snapped in big gestures? In a big way, this is what I got into gaming to avoid. I appreciate motion sensing in general - it lets my decrepit self work with a yoga section of a fitness game and a meditation game pretty well.

I want to shoot for the big snark target and say that if gamers wanted to be physical, they would go play goddamn sports outside! But that is not, and has never been true. Exercise and adventure games are great for kids in neighborhoods where maybe their parks are not as safe as they should be, exercise games let a lot of us that would feel awkward for a whole host of reasons in a gym participate in guided exercise, and sometimes it is just good in general to get off the couch, if you can.

The mandatory motions in tablet and phone games, the movement wands and cameras with consoles, the mandatory twitch skills raiding now requires - they could all start freezing out this small contingent of geeks to which I belong: gimpy gamers. Just keep us in mind, gaming industry. Sometimes it is hard enough to work a keyboard or a controller or a wand. Let us continue to play, too. Thanks.

Gimpy Gamer: The First Three

So I nearly jumped for joy when I read this: Halo 4 Creators Introduce Lifetime Ban for Sexism. Wow, that is a hell of a step in the right direction! As a lady gamer raising girl gamers, this is such welcome news that I cannot even tell you. Here is the Gamespot article.

One of the problems with bans like this is that in order to make it work, often other paying gamers have to remove themselves from the game in order to file a report/complaint about a gamer ruining everyone's good time with sexism, racism, homophobia, or their social ill of choice. 

It is an unfair expectation of someone paying to use a service to have to take some of that paid time to essentially work for the service instead. But this is the world we live in now. Since it is silly to expect any service like Playstation or XBox Live to be able to monitor every gamer in every game at every moment of every day, we have to do our part.

I want to see a movement where those of us paying to use a service like XBox Live vow to do our part. I want us to promise that we will take the first fifteen minutes of online game time to report it when trolls are being trolls. Or, say, your first three Matchmaking games of a night - promise that you will do your part and allow your games to be interrupted while you report someone making sexist rape "jokes" in your Matchmaking. Or promise to report the first three trolls of your night.

Once your three games, three trolls, or first fifteen minutes are done, then you can sit back and enjoy your flow, unless someone is so bad, so inhuman to their fellow players that you simply have to report them no matter how good your gaming flow has been up to that point.

Gaming flow is important to gamers: once you settle in, set the real world behind you and get your head in the space of your game of choice, you want to stay there if you can. That is reasonable. I argue that if you have some homophobic bigot ranting and raving through your Big Team Battle, then your flow has already been interrupted, and taking a moment to report the troll can help keep that particular troll from messing with not only your flow, but the flow of everyone else that plays too!

So please stand with me in taking The First Three pledge. Let us make multiplayer a better place for everyone, and show that we actually care about the community we play and live in! I know that after the election is over, I will be as immersed as I can be in Halo 4, both campaign and then maybe even matchmaking with strangers (usually I only play with folks I know). I will take the First Three pledge!