wait wait wait, so you guys really believe men are objectified in video games? Aren't you guys the same crowd always moaning about white privilege being everywhere, but you make fun of a guy for saying the whole gaming industry is sexist?

also, the 'lynchpin' of any argument is semantics, and he's right: men are not objectified in video games, and the definition of the word matters. Words mean things, you know, and if you want to talk about things using words, you need to know what the words mean.

What am words? Me am video games. Shoot mans now!

Well said, NancyDrew

He's using his semantics to illustrate his argument, not as the basis for it.

What he's saying is that the portrayal of male and female characters in video games serves a male fantasy, but in different ways. Women portrayed as objects to be desired, and owned by the male audience. Male characters as the idealized model for the way the male audience would like to see themselves. Either way, the core problem is the same: video games overwhelmingly are made to appeal to young men only, disenfranchising the female audience.

Men aren't objectified in video games. They're presented as idealized versions of masculinity. Women are presented as idealized versions of female sexuality. The problem here isn't that the depictions aren't realistic. It's that men are defining them both. There is no male equivalent to Dead or Alive.

Rape culture, patriarchy, bla bla bla. I know nobody wants to hear it, but it's real and it matters.

The meanings of objectification and idealization are not even close to mutually exclusive, so that was a little dumb. But aside from the semantics his lynchpin was that hey, women are treated worse and objectified worse that men in vidya games, and anybody who tries to claim equality is deluded. And you know he's right.

I don't know why the video had to be 7 minutes though.

Full of himself? He's full of something (ribs) am I right?

I'm kind of new to this argument so I could be totally behind the times, and have no idea what that waterski game is, but it seems to me that Mario, Link, umm.. Samus, were all portrayed as perfectly balanced. Yes, Mario had to resuce the Princess. But you got to play her in the second one and she was actually way better as Mario, at least until the last level. There was never a code to strip Mario down to his underwear but there have been plenty of mods to the game where he's fully nude. In the real world, "Mike Tyson's Punch Out" was changed to "Regular Punch Out" because Mike Tyson actually raped people.

I think the problem is getting "bodytype" and "archetype" confused.

Show me a dude that thinks video games aren't sexist and I'll show you a dude who has never talked to a girl about video games.

Also? Who is more deserving a derisive 'fat nerd' title: someone calling out the most tired, rote and childish tropes in a major entertainment industry that in 2013 should know better, or someone who is okay with literally all of the female characters in a medium with an enormous audience never being presented as actual human females who you, know actually exist? You'd have to have never actually gotten to know a woman, or even be aware of what women are or want to hold that position: it's an adolescent attitude to not have any cognitive dissonance here.

And I'm not even coming at this from a feminist, politically correct cumbaya perspective: I'm coming at this from the perspective of a writer.

Video games in general, and ESPECIALLY japanese videogames have been stuck in a terrible, boring rut, and depending on dumb sexism like this is a huge part of why ( the same thing is happening with kid's programming and animation). When you are ONLY writing for one demographic, and playing into tropes like this you limit ALL your characters, and end up giving your audience the same material over and over and over. It's disrespectful to your audience to think they couldn't be challenged with something new.

Yes, historically there is a market there, but as women begin to write and produce more and more of this content I think and hope that market will be seen as an unfashionable anachronism.

The producers and writers making this stuff forget that there are millions of girls and women who want to participate and engage this stuff through characters they can relate to. And guess what?
more and more women are getting involved as writers and show runners, and making fun, new, interesting things.

Cartoon Network is actually really good about this. Check out Rebecca Sugar's pilot for her new show on Cartoon Network: Steven Universe. It's one of a kind, awesome, fun and you'd never get to a place like that through sticking to the same old boring tropes.

Well said buns

Real and important gender issues aside, nobody is bringing up the fact that sexually objectifying ANY videogame character is worthy of criticism because they're fucking cartoons, and anyone who's been on here for any length of time should know the horrible effects of sexualizing cartoons.

If you're sexually aroused by a videogame character you should seriously consider therapy.

Nobody has ever heard of that.

Equating big tits with big muscles defeats whatever claim that this is "work" rather than wankery.

His entire "body of work" as a video game "journalist" is pure absolute garbage, and further proof why video game "journalism" is a fucking joke.

SteamPoweredKleenex, did you watch the video? He's saying the opposite thing.

You're going to die disappointed.

When you're being given advice about women from Caminante, it's really time to re-think your life.

"The Big Bang Theory" does an interesting reversal of this, though. The original cast consisted of four guys with careers and lives and backstories, plus the hot chick that three of the guys were vying to obtain. To this day, by the way, we don't even know the chick's last name.

What they have done since then is introduce two more women, and many of the episodes consist of the guys being buddies with each other while the women are being buddies with each other. And while we still don't know the original hot chick's last name, she is no longer a prize for the guys to fight over. The show is much more gender-balanced now and is much better for it.

I believe her last name is either Lane or Gadget.

I like the premise of the video, but Jim Sterling is a pretty huge jerk. I think he had a meltdown shouting match with game designer Anna Anthropy's girlfriend and called her a feminazi slut? Not a shinning moment.