I would also point out that The Sims--the #1 selling PC game of all time--is played predominantly by women.
^Which only reinforces my point - male-interest games aren't indicative of the industry needing to 'grow up'.
I'm just surprised he'd be using Facebook. Hell, I'm old fogiesh enough not use Facebook. That's a kid's game, that.
Comics wish they were a male-interest. In truth their audience is far more limited than 'men', and that's not the basis for their ridicule. At this point in time it's probably true. In any case I wouldn't want to be kept around because I'm 'irreplaceable'. I disagree entirely. There are many male-dominated fields, activities and genres that aren't ridiculed by those who don't engage in them: from sport to chess to climbing Mt. Everest. Equally, there are female-dominated genres and activities that are. Twilight is a current high-profile example, but certainly romance fiction more broadly. Let it never be said that women are in any way morally superior to men. .... which is what we've been talking about.
No it isn't. I don't believe we (as a society) should ever be blase about violence as entertainment. As moral beings, violence and murder should be abhorrent to us; and by extension fiction depicting such should be unappealing. And yet we are also biological constructs, subject to a variety of primal urges which are entirely amoral in nature. Violent entertainment (sports, films, games) is not of itself problematic, it has therapeutic value and allows us to relieve stress and indulge our base nature as predators in a way that is generally harmless. The specifics, however, do matter: relative and absolute quantity, context, degree of abstraction, etc. In my time as a gamer, I've probably killed millions of virtual people and yet I do not hesitate to describe Manhunt as filth. Violence is not a male phenomenon; females are violent, and appreciate violence. The fundamental nature of the beast is the same, the differences are merely biochemical, to which it makes no sense to ascribe any particular moral value. My earlier comment about males being replaceable is that, well, they don't bring anything to the table that the species couldn't do without (and, indeed, be better off without) at this point. The most significant negative impact would be a reduction in the pace of 'advancement', technological or otherwise. Males tend to push the frontiers, an extension of their greater aggression. But I don't rate 'the progress of the species' very highly, it's the happiness of the ~7 billion bubbles of consciousness that matters, not whether or not they've achieved nuclear fusion. And there's never been any significant correlation observed between material progress and happiness. I'm not quite sure how folks survived before film myself, but evidently they did. The real question is whether women could survive without men. We've seen what happens in reverse: we call it 'the army', and it is perhaps the most terrible of all human inventions.
^I'm not going to go around and around with you on this. Suffice to say that if all the men on Earth disappeared today the loss of construction and engineering skills alone would place the future of the now all-female human race in jeopardy, and that's ignoring their inability to reproduce.
I didn't realise we had been. I wouldn't want to hang the fate of the sex on skills that could be recovered within a generation or two myself. Or are we taking all the books as well?
^The sort of skills I'm talking about have traditionally be passed on through apprenticeships, not by learning out of books. Since these are very much male-dominated fields the number of people with the ability to pass them on would be decimated. This is besides the point of this thread, however. Attempting to eliminate violent human impulses is a fools errand. The only sensible thing to do is to give people a safe outlet and video games provide that.
Rii, you're talking utter bollocks. You're basically picking one aspect of gaming and focusing on it to try and validate your point. With the advent of the Wii and the DS, gaming has become waaaay more mainstream, and is an acceptable activity amongst males and females alike. I have 6 female friends on Xbox Live (all of which I know in real life, too), and they play games ranging from Arcade titles, through puzzle games, all the way up to Call of Duty, Dead Space and GTA. Lets not even get started on the amount of women in Manchester who can be seen playing a DS on their lunch break, or the number of women who own and use a Wii. The problem with you, Rii, is that your posts indicate that you think there should be one level of gaming for all, and that there's something wrong with certain people being more into violent games than others. That's just fucking ridiculous, and the problems only occur when opinions like this are perpetuated.
Well said. I don't know where people get the idea that video games are all Halo, GTA, and Call of Duty. They aren't. And just to throw some facts in here, from the Entertainment Software Association (basically, the video game industry's lobbying group): Sauce
Absolutely. It's complete and utter bollocks. As is the entire argument. Placing a judgement on the entire industry, whether Music, videogames, films or publishing is just blinding yourself to what's good just to back up your own biased view point. Yes there's a lot of shit on TV, in Books, in Music and in films but that's mostly the high profile, lowest common denominator shite that fills the shelves at supermarkets and doesn't take in to account the fantastic stuff being made that doesn't sell 10 million copies yet has a solid fan base.
So, basically, you've staked out your position and are not interested in discussing or adjusting it, even in the face of contrary facts. Good to know.
You know what, I'm actually starting to become convinced that the real reason you don't like these games, or the people who play them, is because you're shit at them. You're not that YouTube kid who punched a wall cause he sucked at MW2, are you? Translation; you're a cheap troll, who falls back on baiting when your point is proved wrong. You initiated the dialogue with me, and then you abandoned it after your pissy little rant was shot down in flames. Now, as usual, you've moved on to baiting and name calling. How long til you stop pussyfooting around and actually call me an arsehole?
Who agreed to that? I certainly didn't. You're talking about the Lifetime Movie Network, aren't you? Don't pretend you don't enjoy your subscription to it.
You all did. A few of us don't agree but still the whole sugar and spice thing persists. Don't get that over here, thankfully.