An NYU security guard stood in front of the audience, watchful, as she spoke. But now I’m veering into negativity, and this article isn’t about that. She has certainly been critical of the interactivity that leads players to rescuing damsels in distress, but if, say, developers changed many of the Eight Things she requested in her talk, it wouldn’t make games play differently, if at all. I had attended Sarkeesian’s NYU talk because I wanted to hear her outside of the pre-recorded Tropes Vs. Women In Video Games that she’s been making for the last couple of years. She ran clips of how male and female characters sit in Destiny, a game that imbues its heroes of either gender with the same capabilities. That might explain why her criticisms of gaming occupy a different spot than other people’s criticisms about, say, free-to-play game design, game length, or downloadable content. I heard a few attendees mutter about this being necessary or finding it absurd that a talk about women in gaming, of all things, required this kind of presence. But screw all that; here was another woman who enjoyed gaming enough to analyse it, and demand better from it. She wanted to reach “fence-sitters,” people “who are like, ‘I’m interested, and I don’t know if I agree with you, and I’m curious.’”, As little as Sarkeesian mentioned her critics, I sensed that a lot of the start of her talk was designed to address their criticisms. She also kept talking, surprisingly, about how easy change in gaming could be. Sarkeesian recommended that designers of fantasy and sci-fi games put female characters in similar armor and uniforms as their male counterparts and praised Dark Souls, Natural Selection 2 and XCOM for having more practical outfits. “If you asked me at the time, I would probably have said I wasn’t a gamer,” she said. If you agree with her worldview, you’re likely with her on many or all of these eight things. Emily celebrates the positive impact feminist game critic Anita Sarkeesian has had on her life. She recounted her efforts to get her parents to buy her a Game Boy. Sarkeesian’s list of eight things included several straightforward requests. In 2014, she appeared on an episode of Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report discussing GamerGate and gender inclusivity in video games. ), Have female characters of various body types. Anita Sarkeesian brings Tropes vs. Women in Video Games to a close "This is one of the most emotionally complicated projects I've ever created." One: avoid violence in which women are framed as weak or helpless. Talk of gameplay brought Sarkeesian to her final point. Russian Oligarchs And An American Invasion: Stories Of The Transfer…, The Story Of Notts County’s Season So Far, Nottingham Forest 1-0 Derby County: Spoils Shared In East Midlands…. “I’m happy if she cared at all and wanted to come,” Sarkeesian said, “but I seriously doubt people from Gamergate’s intentions of coming to an event where I am speaking...I think if anyone in this audience is here for Gamergate they are not here because they genuinely care and want to learn. Anita Sarkeesian, 30, was raised on computers. Anita Sarkeesian released a new video in her Tropes vs Women in Video Games series on August 31, this time taking on the “women as reward” trope. Is she perfect? In her intro video she’s worried about her makeup. Nine playable classes, none of them women. It’s a tricky argument, right? The series’ thumbnails made no attempt to hide that they were presented by a woman- Anita Sarkeesian’s face was prominent and proud. I’d seen most of her Tropes gaming videos, of course, and, frankly, not had much issue with them. (Update - 2:26pm: As a reader pointed out, a second is playable in the game’s DLC.) Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist cultural critic, has for months received death and rape threats from opponents of her recent work challenging the stereotypes of women in video games. “Yeah,” she replied, and rolled the character intro for Wonder-Pink. Anita Sarkeesian is a pundit, videoblogger and media critic best known as the host of Feminist Frequency, a web series in which Sarkeesian reviews and analyses common tropes in popular culture from a feminist viewpoint. Anita Sarkeesian is braver than any man that will ever put up content that attempts to destroy her, and I will defend her until my dying breath. “The male characters get to be short and stocky or heft gorillas or equipped with a massive power suit. 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