This isn't about treating women better, it's a crazy Twitter stunt that's going to spin it's wheels in the mud for a month and then vanish until...  I dunno...  Maybe when Anita posts her first video this'll all come back up and we can all have the same conversations again?  I'm just tired of what all this seems to be bringing.  It's a bunch of lame tertiary babble about the nature of the industry.

To the best of my knowledge, it didn't start off as an intentional "stunt" but as a response to someone asking a question (which may have been entirely innocent or not, I really don't know). Obviously, posting an awesome tweet is not going to change the world.

Getting people to talk about things, if they can manage to listen instead of leaping into being ragey and defensive on both sides, can make a meaningful difference for individuals, even if it can't change the world by itself. And making a difference for individuals can possibly help over time. It certainly can't hurt.

Nobody sensible is expecting you to get out and drag the entire video game industry up a hill by your bootstraps and turn it into a paragon of virtue. But if you recognise that there are systemic reasons why women are underrepresented in the industry, then you have the option of saying "That's not really it" when you hear some chucklehead saying "Women just don't like games", and if you recognise that potential female game developers are rarely supported or encouraged, maybe it'll prompt you to support or encourage people that you meet who might someday be into games.

You don't have to fight an entire war on your own to make a difference.

[female]

I think someone covered "female" - it really is used by dicks to dehumanise. Compare: "stupid females" to "stupid women". It's actually taking the human part out and replacing it with a sex - implying "females" have more in common with females of other species than male humans.

that definitely seems far-fetched. I can't imagine how anyone would make that argument with a straight face and then expect to be taken seriously.

It's not that everyone always means something horrible by it, but it is sometimes used in a derogatory fashion.

Classic example: the bizarre Kzinti episode of Star Trek The Animated Series, where the psychic whines "Do not make me read the mind of a female!!!"

Nitpicking every single word someone says is counterproductive, things often come out not quite how we meant them, so again it's not like anyone saying "female" as a noun is a bad person, just recognise that it does carry some negative baggage. Especially if it's in a paragraph structure where one is comparing "men" to "females".

I mean 'girl games' being games about waitressing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, having babies with werewolves and vampires, expansions with extra clothing (sarcasm of course )

There's nothing actually *wrong* about making games about being a waitress who pops out werewolf cubs on the side... if the game doesn't suck.

"Girl games" are a complex problem. Many do suck. Many others are assumed to suck because they are girly, and written off without even being tried. And if you happen to like girly games, good luck finding anyone willing to write reviews of them so you can find the ones that don't suck.

Obviously, labeling them "girl games" is a problem in itself. Not all women want to play those games, and not only women want to play those games... but it can require a bit of thick skin to admit that you actually enjoy them, whether you're male or female, because people tend to automatically badmouth what they see as girly.

I mean simply putting a small patch and genderbending the protagonist of a game to try to appeal to women. (and the absurdity of it selling so well)

But isn't it impressive just how little effort it can take to let the entire other half of the population feel included?

It's equally absurd to make the protagonist of a game explicitly male when it's completely unnecessary to do so. The voice acting argument was mentioned earlier and sure, in a game with a defined protagonist with a voice it makes a big difference to have gender choice. But I see so many games where the protagonist is a silent collection of pixels - or not even displayed on screen at any point - and still explicitly gendered male and/or given "save the girlfriend" motivations.

I don't want every game in the world to have protagonist selection (for one, I tend to write games with female protagonists!) but it's telling how many people aren't inclusive in games where it would be very easy to be so.

I actually have a female alt (with a hot photo), and while she's never released anything, she gets tons of meaningless praise on a few ugly screenshots. While female alts are great for farming information and getting favors, I think I get fairer treatment with these androgynous nicks.

See, look closely and you're starting to see it's a bit more complex than just gender. Making a male profile with a particularly attractive and commanding avatar will also make a difference in how people treat you. It's not being perceived as female alone that is making the difference for you there.

I've been female all my life and I have yet to see a heaping pile of favors being handed my direction. If I were hot, I suspect I would get more attention... and more harassment.

... Okay, I do get the occasional twelve year old on the GMC sending me private messages asking me to marry him because he's heard that I'm female and hasn't figured out that I'm nearly three times his age and married, but those aren't useful favors.

"White knights" are those who praise everything a girl does even when it's bad.

As far as I know the standard definition of white-knighting is people leaping in to defend women from perceived attacks in the hopes of scoring points and getting laid - that is, a guy who doesn't really care but is trying to look like he does. In the usage I've seen, it's only being a "knight" if you have something to defend - just praising wouldn't count, but firing back against critics would.

It might be better to just say what you mean instead of trying to use terms that mean different things to different people and will just confuse the discussion.

Girls will get this, a lot. I think probably the biggest thing keeping girls from becoming prominent game developers is that they get so much meaningless praise, and no criticism.

I can't speak for every single female developer in the world, obviously, but I and the people I know certainly do not get heaped with meaningless praise and no criticism.

I suspect you're getting confirmation bias there - you remember the times you see someone you thought was 'unworthy' being mindlessly praised more than you remember the rest. Or, for that matter, the amount of times you saw someone you thought was worthy being mindlessly praised by his fanboys.

Anyone who becomes too famous tends to develop an echo chamber if they're not careful. Sometimes it sends them off the rails. There are all sorts of developers, authors, etc, who started out okay, got famous enough to overrule editorial control, and then started producing terrible crap because there was no longer anyone reining them in

[EXACTLY]

Oh, but if someone made games for women, you'd end up with Diner Dash and The Sims at best

You mean, popular and successful games which have huge fanbases but are constantly criticised on 'hardcore' gamer sites because they're popular with a different audience?

(the old MLP, not the FiM one).

You mean the one that had actual evil demons stealing souls, nightmare cities trapped between dimensions, and epic magical quests, as opposed to the modern one which is more about having fun parties with your friends? It's amazing how many people reflexively bash the old MLP without having ever watched it.

FiM is of better quality overall - tighter writing, better animation, etc. But as a five year old girl I *loved* that the MLP cartoon gave me serialised magical adventures with cliffhangers and somewhat scary badguys. I wish there had been more.

Can't speak for Barbie though, I found Barbie creepy as a little girl.

Or something weird like Mrs Pacman.

... Isn't Ms Pacman generally considered to be the superior Pacman experience? (Or do you just mean the bizarreness of sticking a bow on something to call it female? That is kinda weird.)

On the other hand, with games where gendered characters really are not critical to the plot, the option of playing female pacman instead of male pacman would often be appreciated. There are unbelievably huge numbers of games with complete excuse plots that tack on "and you're male" when it's not necessary, or even "save your girlfriend" when it's totally irrelevant to 99.9% of the game.

Why can't girls just play the same games all the boys play?

Many of them do play the same games. But why can't boys just play the same games all the girls play?

I don't think it has much to do with female soldiers having big racks, because we all know Duke Nukem has big balls but love/hate him anyway.

Never played Duke Nukem myself, but while you could probably draw a comparison between Duke Nukem and Bayonetta (over-the-top slightly ridiculous sexuality entangled with a power trip) it doesn't really compare to the average representation problem. Duke Nukem is not, afaik, being presented in a character-incongruous way in order to enhance his sexual appeal to a demographic that isn't you.

A better comparison might be the way some western male players freak out about playing JRPGs because they are intensely uncomfortable about the way the male characters ahve been designed to appeal to a different demographic.

If you're working for a games company that wants female characters with Stripperific costumes, you should probably just find a better job.

That is EXACTLY why it's being brought up as part of 1reasonwhy. Because people see this sort of thing being extremely common and decide to look elsewhere for a better job.

[we all are]

But I will definitely not support someone who tries to portray ALL white males as responsible to the shitty workplaces that are common in so many places.

We are all products of our culture, regardless of sex or race or anything else. We are all influenced by our cultural expectations. Even women, even feminist women, will at times instinctively overlook female contributions and turn to male authority in certain spheres (or female authority in others) because we're so used to things being that way that we make stupid assumptions.

Nobody's perfect. Being part of the problem doesn't make you evil. But not being evil doesn't mean you're not part of the problem - we all are!

Do you see what I'm saying? I'm not saying "You're a man, therefore you are the oppressor!" It's not like any one person here rules the world and is responsible for all the evils in the world.

No one person can turn the tides either. The best you can do is attempt to occasionally examine your own actions and try to ensure that you're not being a jerk... and to not get offended and angry when the subject comes up, or to huff that everyone should just learn to deal with it.

There is some frustration in seeing people throw more money at the idea of a game than an actual game. Some of the same thing happens on Greenlight, where you see mass waves of interest at titles which are good at marketing and promising the world, while the game itself may not exist or may be drastically not what people expected.

Can be annoying for people who prefer to actually make a game and then try to sell it rather than sell Hopes And Dreams.

Well, if he claims he wants to do the game full-time it looks like he will need to quit his real job. So assuming you are his wife how would you feel about that.

Happy that my spouse was able to follow his dreams and do something he really enjoyed?

Now, I don't know the particulars of the game you're talking about as I haven't been following this thread. But if you have a working game design and you need an infusion of cash to finish the art, what's the problem with that?

So, we're finally getting an Excellence in Narrative category. THANK YOU IT'S ABOUT TIME.

Of course, now I can actually fret and worry about the results instead of thinking "well, it's a pretty long shot..."

it appears the only other game like them readily available for modern systems is Dead Cyborg

... What are you defining as modern systems here? I admit I haven't been following the adventure scene in the past few years, but there has BEEN an active niche adventure scene for a very long time, largely ignored by the mainstream media.

Anyway, there are multiple communities dedicated exclusively to adventure games of all sorts, Myst-like or not. try justadventure.com or adventuregamers.com for starters

An AI-driven swashbuckling intrigue romance RPG, where every time I start a game I get a new world of complicated NPC relationships to involve myself in, and dress myself in fabulous silks and velvets, wave my sword around, swing from chandeliers, kick evil wizards in the face, sweep ladies and gentlemen off their feet and learn their secrets in bed and occasionally get outsmarted, stabbed, and betrayed.

Except even that I'd get tired of after a while, I don't want to be stuck with only one game to play even if that game is awesome.

I saw the title of this thread and wondered what problems you were having with X.

There are two different orange-and-black-Greek games?

Most gamers who like indie games are very technical people, and have learned over the years that clicking ads are ultimately bad.

Do you have any evidence for this belief, or are you basing it on the fact that most indie developers you know are very technical people?

Depending on your particular game it may or may not be correct, but there's a pretty huge range of different kinds of games made by indie developers, often reaching entire different target markets.

Shutting down CoH is especially sucky considering the huge amount of player-created content that was in that world. Are there any other MMORPGs that have let people write their own quests and zones like that?

We are now into the discussion phase, so if you want to unload your meaningful critiques and otherwise take part in the decision of who gets the money, turn your eyeballs over this way.

What worries me, is that when I turn 30, I'm no longer a mobile developer ... what am I then?!

Well, you've seen/read Logan's Run, right?

I'm wondering if perhaps indie gamers are too computer-literate to even bother clicking on ads. My concern is that an irrelevant, more casual/mainstream userbase might congregate around your game if you decide to advertise through banners.

Heaven forbid that people who actually buy games cluster around your game!

Worrying that you won't be able to attract the sort of people who are into your game through banner ads can be a valid complaint if you're targeting a certain kind of geek. However, 'indie gamers' are not limited to people who built their own linux distribution. There are many people who play games, including indie games, who are not necessarily all that computer-savvy and don't have all the ads disabled. It can be the users who leave themselves vulnerable to marketing who are the easiest ones to sell to - but not always, it really depends on your game.

Don't ask for rules, here, run your own tests. Do some advertising in different ways. See what results you turn up. Do you get engaged customers, or visitors who look briefly and pass on by to the next shiny thing? Your results are not going to be the same as mine or anyone else's because your game is not the same as mine.

Are you worrying that the "wrong people" might actually play and enjoy your game, or that they might be put off by your game because it's too hard and badmouth it around the internet, or what? You can always tune your advertising to try and make it more clear what you're offering.

[plenty]

I always find it interesting how violence and murder and even male on male prison rape can be considered funny but male on female rape is totally and utterly out of the question.

While many people *think* this, it isn't actually so - check out any sufficiently detailed listing of rape as comedy / black comedy and there are *plenty* of male on female examples. Not the least being the stuff we've just mentioned that started this reaction in the first place.

There are some people for whom it is the case that male-on-male rape is funny and male-on-female rape is not ever. There are some people for whom it is the case that BOTH are funny. There are some people who will never ever find EITHER funny and will get just as angry. There are many people for whom it depends on context and portrayal.

Ok, Rance doesn't exactly Rape, it's more like forced consensual sex

Also, the guy in Monster Girl Quest actually just succumbs to the pleasure, so in a sense, it's also consensual

Not sure if you were serious, but - physical pleasure != consent. (And this confusion is one of the reasons that some people DO think that it's not possible to rape a man, because he has to enjoy it because guys are horny all the time, and if he enjoys it it's not rape!... So many wrong ideas there.)

Anyway, it's sort of sad that a visual novel thread has yet again devolved into discussion of porn rather than discussion of games.

Yes, of course the medium is chock full of porn. There are a bazillion porn VNs. There are also a  bazillion porn movies and porn websites, that doesn't mean nothing but porn exists, Avenue Q songs aside.

Of course there are also a number of japanese-made VNs which would in my opinion be greatly improved by removing the sex scenes!

Personally I feel weird about games priced at $5 or less because I find it hard to imagine they're worth anything at all

Good to know you think that way. A friend of mine suggested I should put a higher price-tag on my upcoming game so that people don't get the impression they are going to get low quality. But I am not sure how many people are thinking this way. If you look around it seems inappropriate to judge a game's value by its price-tag, not sure how many people feel responsible enough to pay for quality.

It would be interesting to know if there's a generational effect. I'm 30-something and remember how much I had to beg my parents for a single new video game on my earliest consoles; These Kids Today with their iphones are likely more inclined to think nothing of quick and cheap games... or are they? I don't know.