Mighty No. 9

[ragnorok64]

It's a robot and girls can be bulky too. No need to make it feminine just because it's a girl. Beck looks cool regardless, that's the main goal here.



I'm not saying to change Beck to a female, never said that. I don't really care what gender Beck is, I just don't see why Beck would look any different. While this is based on Megaman legacy, I don't think every key detail is the same.

I don't want to start a war, I just never saw this Becks gender thing as a big deal since I see Beck looking and acting exactly the same. It's the same robot who would either identify as male or female, nothing else would really have to change.

Either way, i'm looking forward to the game, i'm just surprised how much drama came from this whole thing.

I'm not alleging that you're saying that they should make Beck female. What I mean is that if they make the character female, but don't actually make it look female there wasn't much point in changing his gender to begin with.

Also, since this project is clearly drawing from the same design sensibilities as Megaman, female robots will more than likely be designed to look decidedly feminine. I mean just look at all the Call concepts.

 

[Kristoph]

I think you don't need an activist group to create a good female character. You just need a good writer. And it hasn't been until just the past decade (or less) since "video game writer" even barely started to become a thing.

this problem doesn't just exist in the nascent gaming industry, it exists across art forms. films have this issue, television has this issue, novels have this issue.

it's a disservice to all the writers/artists who have created cool female characters to imply that the only reason they did it was because they had someone standing over their shoulder poking them to do it.

you're right. that's because many of the people who write cool female characters are, in fact, the people doing the poking to begin with.

"Given the art style he'd probably be a reverse trap if they didn't change the costume."

what the fuck

 

[PaperBag_Sniper]

there is a reason that the public narrative surrounding video game culture is maturing. the reason is that there are activist groups "forcing their ideologies" on people. who else do you think is responsible for that, lol

(of course by "forcing their ideologies i mean "expressing their opinions." not sure why you continue to choose to frame it as an "intrusion")

Piggybacking off of what Squire Grooktook has said, their is more to the change in the gaming community than just activist groups voicing their opinions. You seem to be operating under the idea that there is no introspection on behalf of the gaming audience. The relationship between a particular social phenomenon and what factors influence it isn't so cut and dry that you can present a single component as more significant as another without representing that relationship. Public activist groups have been a part of the solution, but they have also been a part of the problem.

You also have media perceptions influencing how games get received by the rest of the world. This affects potential new members to the hobby as well as those who are already inside it. Broad cultural shifts can also affect gaming narratives. Gaming is as much a business as it is an art so if a new audience has different tastes developers and publishers will branch out to try to accommodate some of them. And with the rise of the independent market you have a larger number of niche markets having content made that suites them.

 

[Squire Grooktook]

this problem doesn't just exist in the nascent gaming industry, it exists across art forms. films have this issue, television has this issue, novels have this issue.

Yes, but video games have it worse. Most people don't see them as on the same level as films, television and novels as an art form. And gaming narrative is still finding its way and experimenting.

you're right. that's because many of the people who write cool female characters are, in fact, the people doing the poking to begin with.

Not really. I'm not exactly seeing the people who created Alisa Landale, Chie Satonaka, Peacock, Samus (ok, maybe bad example given Other M. But that's not canon and she's still awesome), or Jade (beyond good and evil) doing much poking. I see them as just artists who had a cool idea for a female character and went with it, not doing it for any other reason besides the art and wanting to do it.

"Given the art style he'd probably be a reverse trap if they didn't change the costume."

what the fuck

What? When you're dealing with a super cartoony, simplistic art style, you have to take measures to avoid same face syndrome. Like I said, if they made Beck female but didn't change anything (as Calyp suggested), there's just not enough facial detail to be able to tell if Beck is a girl or not. And that's all you really have to go by considering he's wearing a helmet and a suit of armor.

I mean heck, look at some random Mega Man Zx artwork and try and figure out (assuming you don't already know) which artwork is for Vent and which is for Aile. They look almost identical in a lot of shots. I'm not saying they'd have to put "Becky" in a dress or anything, but I think they'd have to do something to make the character design more distinguishably female (unless androgyny was the goal). Than again I'm just speculating.

Did I unintentionally say something offensive? Trap/Reverse Trap is just a meme title for characters who you mistake for the opposite gender for the first few hours of gameplay (ie Naoto in Persona 4, Bridget in Guilty Gear, etc.)

 

[Kristoph]

Yes, but video games have it worse. Most people don't see them as on the same level as films, television and novels as an art form. And gaming narrative is still finding its way and experimenting.

you're saying that we don't need feminism in the gaming community because the gaming community will find its way, 'just like other art forms have.' what i'm saying is, other art forms haven't found their way. they're probably doing better than games are, but to suggest that they just naturally became inclusive, and didn't need feminism at all to do that, when they're still really not very inclusive in the first place, is silly.

Not really. I'm not exactly seeing the people who created Alisa Landale, Chie Satonaka, Peacock, Samus (ok, maybe bad example given Other M. But that's not canon and she's still awesome), or Jade (beyond good and evil) doing much poking. I see them as just artists who had a cool idea for a female character and went with it, not doing it for any other reason besides the art and wanting to do it.

of course you can come up with examples of good female characters that weren't created by people with some sort of knowing underlying agenda; no one is saying you can't.

(that being said, jade is not an example of such a character [she was most obviously intended to be a feminist character, whether or not the term itself has been used]. but whatever)

anyway, nowhere do people suggest that it is impossible for an individual creator to make a good female character without being actively, explicitly pushed to make her a feminist character. but right now we are in an environment where feminism is rejected as an unwanted, antagonistic force with no place poking its nose in 'our' community. that's very much the environment we're in right now, and if you disagree that that's the case then i guess this is just an intractable discussion.

you're trying to take a 'neutral' stance here by saying that you aren't taking sides, that you're not interested in letting 'political' forces entering the realm of gaming. but what's 'neutral' about that? it's just a reinforcement of the bad, unfair status quo. it's extremely political to say that group X or group Y shouldn't be able to be allowed to have their say or influence.

Trap/Reverse Trap is just a meme title for characters who you mistake for the opposite gender for the first few hours of gameplay (ie Naoto in Persona 4, Bridget in Guilty Gear, etc.)

don't use it

 

[Squire Grooktook]

you're saying that we don't need feminism in the gaming community because the gaming community will find its way, 'just like other art forms have.' what i'm saying is, other art forms haven't found their way. they're probably doing better than games are, but to suggest that they just naturally became inclusive, and didn't need feminism at all to do that, when they're still really not very inclusive in the first place, is silly.

Never said gaming didn't need feminism, or that other art forms were perfect. All I said is that I can understand why people might get upset if a character design is redesigned based on issues other than the merit of the character design. I don't have a problem with working to make all mediums more inclusive.

anyway, nowhere do people suggest that it is impossible for an individual creator to make a good female character without being actively, explicitly pushed to make her a feminist character. but right now we are in an environment where feminism is rejected as an unwanted, antagonistic force with no place poking its nose in 'our' community. that's very much the environment we're in right now, and if you disagree that that's the case then i guess this is just an intractable discussion.

"there is a reason that the public narrative surrounding video game culture is maturing. the reason is that there are activist groups "forcing their ideologies" on people. who else do you think is responsible for that, lol"

I'm sure you didn't intend it that way, but you did sort of imply that being "pushed" was the main reason for such characters to be created. You than stated that "most of the people creating those characters are doing the pushing", which may be true for some of them (I guess you're right about Jade ) but is still a very broad blanket statement that is unfair to many creators considering they probably had a wealth of inspirations and motivations (again, not saying you meant it that way, but it kind of came off that way when I was reading it).

Again, I believe I said somewhere in one of my previous posts on this line of though that "I'm not saying feminism hasn't helped", I just think it's unfair to credit it as the sole factor, which is what your original post could have been inadvertantly read as (especially with the italisized "who ELSE", implying it could be no one else).

*EDIT* Reading that quote about Jade again, actually that sounds exactly like what I was saying. They just wanted to make a unique female character with her own personality who wasn't a total fantasy or stereotype.

but right now we are in an environment where feminism is rejected as an unwanted, antagonistic force with no place poking its nose in 'our' community. that's very much the environment we're in right now, and if you disagree that that's the case then i guess this is just an intractable discussion.

I have no problem with feminism. I don't see it as an antagonistic force. I don't disagree.

don't use it

I think the two monikers are kinda cute actually, and I like a lot of the characters to which they are most often applied. I think I'll keep using it.

I try to avoid terms that I consider offensive or offensive to others ("fag" autism jokes, really ugly words, etc.). But I don't consider using an Admiral Ackbar reference to describe an androgynous cartoon boy from a game about walking heavy metal references to be either.

I mean, it's not like it's a genital reference or anything gross (which is maybe what you're thinking based on your revulsion???). The old joke is just that the character designer deliberately designed the character so that people of the same gender would get a crush on him/her and than get their hearts broken when they found out said character was the same gender, hence the whole thing was a trap. It's a dumb anime joke for anime characters, nothing to be offended by tbh.

you're trying to take a 'neutral' stance here by saying that you aren't taking sides, that you're not interested in letting 'political' forces entering the realm of gaming. but what's 'neutral' about that? it's just a reinforcement of the bad, unfair status quo. it's extremely political to say that group X or group Y shouldn't be able to be allowed to have their say or influence.

I'm not saying that at all. I merely said a game being tampered with for political correctness or whatever by someone other than the creator was what some people are afraid of. I did not say that it was a justified fear. I am merely trying to be empathetic and fair to both sides, I don't think feminism is bad for games, and I don't like to see people smeared as "sexists" or "feminazi's" because they didn't get their thoughts across properly despite having good intentions.

I think this discussion has grown far too combative, and didn't deserve more than a page to begin with.

All that really happened with Mighty No.9 was some fools panicked because they thought Beck was going to be changed into some deviantart rule 63 version of himself, when anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together could have told you that Keiji Inafune isn't going to redesign any of his characters and scrap a shit ton of sprites and animation because of one community manager in the usa.

Like I said, I have no problem with feminists, feminists in the gaming industry, or the thought of having more diversity in female video game characters (which would be awesome).

 

[Lunerstep]

...oh man every time I come back here we get a new wall-o-text....oi ^^;

 

[Horseman]

I'll tackle that in order.

1. She is a community manager and actually posts on the M no. 9 forums. She voiced her opinion there. And again, it's HOW she did it that was bad. Some things need to be handled differently when you're a public figure. There's a reason politicians do their best to be politically correct and make formal apologies when they fail instead of just saying "go **** yourself" like many would do. In the words of Spielburg: "there's a time to be a human being and have an opinion, and there's a time to sell cars." She is no longer just speaking for herself; she is now the face of the company she works for.

2. Aside from the Rokko chan thing (couldnt get into it and I'm not a fan of the design, but I may watch a play through just because), that is almost the same as what I said.
You :"[we] raised 4 million dollars with the game while beck was the protagonist. Heavily editing beck's design at this point would feel a little bit like a bait and switch to a lot of people, and it's not hard to see why."

ME: "I personally dont agree with Beck being a girl because he wasn't presented to the world as a girl"

You really have to cut this girl some slack. This is essentially the worst possible case scenario in this particular job happening like the day after she got it. That's tough as hell. That would be like if your first day as an official fireman someone set the entire city on fire. Either way, this is straying away from the issue here; she didn't bring her personal life into her proffessional life, some random people brought it in for her and start mocking her based on things that never had to do with her job performance. She's not bringing any bias to them, people are pointing out her bias and insulting her based off of it. Is she responding to them perfectly? No. Not by a long shot. But she still didn't come into the forum saying "I'm a feminist", other people pointed it out.
The second bit wasn't directed at you, that was just me stating my opinion on the matter. Congratulations, we agree on something.

Public activist groups have been a part of the solution, but they have also been a part of the problem.

I agreed with you riiiiiight up to here.
Since when has feminism been a problem for the maturing of gaming as an artform? I can think of times where it opposed pop culture or mainstream gaming, but never any times when gaming was somehow stunted by feminism. Assuming, of course, you're talking about feminism and not getting off topic with a discussion of anti-violence activist groups or other activists who see gaming as an enemy like Jack Thompson.

Yes, but video games have it worse. Most people don't see them as on the same level as films, television and novels as an art form. And gaming narrative is still finding its way and experimenting.

That's not exactly the reason video games are worse than other mediums here, but it's kind of where it stems from. Video games have it worse because there are so few good analyses of games today. That's why when people like Sarkeesian begin to challenge whether these games are sexist, it's a big deal. For films, television and literature, there's someone critically and academically analyzing everything, while the best you've got in gaming for something like that is a youtube video (if anything) for the vast majority of games. And so few of these analyze with a feminist lens. So games were, for a long time, able to be incredibly sexist and essentially get away with it. Of course, they're losing that with their transition to being accepted as high art, and many gamers don't quite get what that means. They've played games for a long time, and they want people to accept them as cultured for playing so many highly regarded games, but they don't understand that that also means gaming can't be something innocent or dismissible with the phrase "it's just a game" anymore. So they fight against anyone who wants to "bring feminism to gaming" (which would be proposing that something about a game is sexist.) That's where we get this backlash; the people who attacked Anita Sarkeesian, the people who whined about the Gamespot GTA5 review, and now the people who are attacking Dina simply for being a feminist.

I think this discussion has grown far too combative, and didn't deserve more than a page to begin with.

All that really happened with Mighty No.9 was some fools panicked because they thought Beck was going to be changed into some deviantart rule 63 version of himself, when anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together could have told you that Keiji Inafune isn't going to redesign any of his characters and scrap a shit ton of sprites and animation because of one community manager in the usa.

Like I said, I have no problem with feminists, feminists in the gaming industry, or the thought of having more diversity in female video game characters (which would be awesome).

Why do you keep saying that the discussion didn't deserve more than a page? It's a pretty heavy thing to discuss, and it's not limited by just what happened in this incident, it's just the latest in a series of anti-feminist stuff. And it's not exactly like this is a bad thread to do it in, it's the MN9 thread, it was pretty much entirely dead until the whole Dina scandal popped up.

 

[Squire Grooktook]

Why do you keep saying that the discussion didn't deserve more than a page? It's a pretty heavy thing to discuss, and it's not limited by just what happened in this incident, it's just the latest in a series of anti-feminist stuff. And it's not exactly like this is a bad thread to do it in, it's the MN9 thread, it was pretty much entirely dead until the whole Dina scandal popped up.

Because I think it deserves it's own topic/thread tbh. I don't think every MN9 discussion should be derailed into a sexism discussion when it's limiting both to the topic and distracting from the game, not to mention it'll go on for months because you can never really "win" an argument like this or come to a real conclusion.

Besides, the individual "incident" was so small, there's almost nothing about it to discuss. If you wanna talk about sexism, fine, but there's not much more to the whole community manager thing than "Some idiots panicked based on a lack of information". The topic of sexism in games is better served by its own discussion as its either being extremely limited (going around in circles) or being used to derail MN9 discussion (your inevitably going to have to branch off into other games to talk about sexism in games, sooner or later the convo will be a million miles away from MN9).

Also I don't mean to be the fun police, but I don't think a topic being inactive is a good excuse to derail it into something that will inevitably go waaay off topic. Just make a "sexism and gender representation in video games" thread if you want to have a debate

So games were, for a long time, able to be incredibly sexist and essentially get away with it

Okay, I don't wanna get into a discussion about this, but I don't think games have been "incredibly" sexist. Or at least not more than other mediums. THAN AGAIN, I only play games within my niche where most female characters tend to be pretty competant (and all anyone really does anyway is kill things or explore dungeons), so I can't speak for all the fucking grand theft autos and spees mahrine bullshit games out there. So whatever, I dunno.

(it's also a touchy thing to say because it really depends on how you define "sexism". Is Skullgirls sexist because of the fan service? Is Mario sexist because he rescues a princess? Is a game sexist just because it has only one named character who happens to be male? etc. if your looking for games that are outright chauvinistic in their implications or explicitly downplay females, you're going to have a harder time finding examples, Other M is really the only one that comes to mind and that was probably an unintentional result of how fucking rushed the story and whole damn game felt. Not to mention everyone hated it anyway.)

 

[KaboomKid]

Heh, now we know what she must have been reading about...

 

[Kristoph]

*EDIT* Reading that quote about Jade again, actually that sounds exactly like what I was saying. They just wanted to make a unique female character with her own personality who wasn't a total fantasy or stereotype.

yeah that's feminism dude. that's like the very definition of a feminist agenda

I think the two monikers are kinda cute actually

it's not important what you think, it's a deeply upsetting term to marginalized groups

i really am not sure how to even express just how much you should stop using that term

I did not say that it was a justified fear. I am merely trying to be empathetic and fair to both sides

great, so am i. i choose to point out that it is an unjustified fear that causes damage to marginalized groups, is worthy of criticism and needs to stop. hopefully you'll choose to point that out too, one day. right now, though, you continue to say things like "[this discussion] didn't deserve more than a page to begin with." that's the opposite of fairness, to me, because instead of treating unjustified, harmful mentalities as what they are, you are advocating that we, i guess, not criticize or talk about them? for some reason?

you can never really "win" an argument like this or come to a real conclusion.

yes you can

 

[ragnorok64]

Man, I really don't want to get sucked up into these horrific gender politics discussions. I will say, though, that whenever I think about these subjects I feel that more meaningful and lasting changes will occur if people take more of a Motown or Dwayne McDuffie approach. Actually getting hands on and making good content that you want seems far more effective than people making 30 minute videos or walls of text on the internet.

 

[Covenant]

You really have to cut this girl some slack. This is essentially the worst possible case scenario in this particular job happening like the day after she got it. That's tough as hell. That would be like if your first day as an official fireman someone set the entire city on fire. Either way, this is straying away from the issue here; she didn't bring her personal life into her proffessional life, some random people brought it in for her and start mocking her based on things that never had to do with her job performance. She's not bringing any bias to them, people are pointing out her bias and insulting her based off of it. Is she responding to them perfectly? No. Not by a long shot. But she still didn't come into the forum saying "I'm a feminist", other people pointed it out.
The second bit wasn't directed at you, that was just me stating my opinion on the matter. Congratulations, we agree on something.

I dont need to cut her any slack because I was never really bothered in the first place lol. I said it myself that people blew things way out of proportions. And I'm actually a member of the forums where she has made some of her personal life/view public in addition to the twitter thing which is also public information; she has made and edited posts concerning the subject so it just takes a little common sense to see that she's a feminist. The community did dig way more than they had to just to nit pick about things that mostly dont matter.

I personally think the whole issue would be solved if the did a Lets Play of a MM game or two. It'd be a good way to bond with the community.....barring the trolls.

 

[Kristoph]

Man, I really don't want to get sucked up into these horrific gender politics discussions. I will say, though, that whenever I think about these subjects I feel that more meaningful and lasting changes will occur if people take more of a Motown or Dwayne McDuffie approach. Actually getting hands on and making good content that you want seems far more effective than people making 30 minute videos or walls of text on the internet.

yeah it's great for people to contribute their own content, that should definitely happen. in fact, it's that kind of forward-thinking that probably motivated the MN9 community manager to do the things she did, wouldn't you say

 

[DukeMagus]

Suddenly I feel bad for lconsideringmyself a mega man fan and not giving a Damn about all this "community manager wants a becky" thing. I'll come back when we get new development info to talk about... Sorry

 

[Dohnut V.2]

Eh, this whole thing sounds like an overreaction honestly. It's not like anything tangible has occurred expect her goofy gender-bend Beck picture. When will the internet realize that freaking out waaaay more than you should because of a pretty insignificant thing like a "feminist community manager for a videogame" makes you look straight-up insane. She really should play some MM tho.

Also, not falling into the gender war thing, but I will point out that I think feminism is weird term to use. Like, it's suppose to be about gender-equality and all that jazz, but that's like calling yourself a whiteist or blackist and saying you're for all races. Just sounds strange.

 

[ragnorok64]

yeah it's great for people to contribute their own content, that should definitely happen. in fact, it's that kind of forward-thinking that probably motivated the MN9 community manager to do the things she did, wouldn't you say

No.

McDuffie didn't role up and say we should make Superman and Iron Man black. When he got fed up he struck out on his own, made Milestone comics, and created characters like Icon, Hardware, and Static. The important thing is that Milestone's characters weren't just Black Superman, Iron Man, or Spider-man. They are good characters in good stories. Also McDuffie didn't pigeonhole himself into only being that guy that writes minority characters. By the time he died he had written for numerous mainstream cartoons, Justice League, and scripted DC animated movies. He made good original content that he wanted to see and that others were interested in. He also wrote good stories for existing franchises.

I would not compare him and this community manager in the least.

 

[Kristoph]

she got hired by the company making one of the most anticipated indie games ever. she quite possibly has the ability to influence the project in some way, which is exactly why people were and are angry to begin with. to suggest that that doesn't have the potential to affect 'meaningful, lasting change' is pretty funny to me.

maybe it makes people angrier to try and make changes to 'existing characters,' rather than making new ones altogether. i'll give you that one-- there was plenty of drama when people wanted donald glover to play as the new spiderman, for example. but just because it makes people angry doesn't make it less meaningful.

 

[POS Industries]

It's also kind of silly to say that people who want change like this in any given medium should just create their own material in that medium, because most people don't have the talents and resources to do that. And I really doubt that McDuffie would have agreed that anyone who isn't creating material themselves should shut up about representation in media. Audience input is super important in the entertainment industry, it's not to be disregarded by content developers simply because the audience is not composed entirely of other content developers working on the very same project.

 

[Professor Icepick]

I've tried to stay neutral on this whole "Dina" thing, honestly. She really hasn't done anything yet, so I feel like it's too early to judge.

But on the other hand, I've generally been fairly anti-feminist when it's come to the larger debate, probably due to the way the larger debate due to the staggering difference in how it's framed at large: enlightened, pure-hearted scholars fighting for true justice and representation among all demographics in the media vs. the evil, vile, hideous, permavirgin neckbeard fedoras who "probably wouldn't be so pissed off if they could get laid"; and how I (and likely the others on the "wrong side") see it: just another extension of the video game censorship wars, only this time over "sexual imagery" instead of violence. I'm not saying my view is right, I'm just saying that a lot of these appeals to the inherent morality of the pro-feminist arguments look staggeringly similar to those of such despised figureheads of old as Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton and Jack Thompson during the previous two decades, at least from where I'm sitting.

I think the thing that left the worst taste in my mouth is the way the feminists and their allies have been going about this. Instead of creating new games, especially at this time, during what may end up becoming the indie game renaissance, a majority of the effort has been put into changing existing projects. I mean sure, a lot of times, you're fighting a big faceless corporation, and defying the publishers is usually a good thing. But frankly, I hate it when anything compromises a creator's original vision, be it the bean-counting numbnuts currently running most major video game publishers today or some "social justice" movement who's effectively trying to censor or distort the original intent of their idea.

 

[PaperBag_Sniper]

I agreed with you riiiiiight up to here.
Since when has feminism been a problem for the maturing of gaming as an artform? I can think of times where it opposed pop culture or mainstream gaming, but never any times when gaming was somehow stunted by feminism. Assuming, of course, you're talking about feminism and not getting off topic with a discussion of anti-violence activist groups or other activists who see gaming as an enemy like Jack Thompson.

I was referring more to public activist groups in general and the negative effect they can and have had on gaming culture by imposing arbitrary restrictions. If I were to refer to feminism, one of the things I would probably say is that feminism has presented an incredibly narrow range of "acceptable" female portrayals that they deem progressive or inoffensive. While on the surface wanting characters to challenge the established market is fine, devaluing games that have more traditional characters isn't going to help the medium grow. What I see from modern feminism is a call for the removal and suppression of ideas that they find "problematic". When that label extends over games like Pandora's Tower for featuring a damsel in distress story despite it's rich story, or the new Tomb Raider game for having a trailer that showed Laura Croft in a compromising position (that got conflated to a rape scene far too quickly for my taste) than I have a problem with the type of shallow analysis that feminism brings to the table.

 

[CapnWTF]

...I really want to stay silent here. I truly do.
So I will.

 

[Shockdingo]

I really don't know what else to say on this subject at this point, personally I feel that this whole thing exploded out of overreaction, bad pr, and general mistakes from people on all sides. Personally I'd like to go back to discussing the game, but all this is an issue that can't be ignored due to the huge fuss it's brought up.

Here's the thing that some people forget. Feminism isn't a monolith, it's gone through many waves (I think we're on wave 3 now? Entering into 4?) and it's been represented by different groups to different degrees. I think it's unfair to vilify the entire idea when individuals do things to rub you the wrong way. Again, things aren't a monolith. Heck, look at sexuality and how divisive that can be within the movement. Some feminists have an issue with a presentation of overt sexuality, some feel an expression of sexuality is freeing and a beautiful thing.

I'm a straight, black dude from Canada, and yet I consider myself a feminist. I'm for respect and better representation, women having agency over themselves and the like. Yet there have been many times I've disagreed with some feminist views. Again, I held the disagreement to the individual not the movement. There are different views in different extremes, it's one thing to look for equity, it's another thing to seek equality. Also another point of discussion within feminism is how modern feminism is a bit skewed in representation for women who don't fall into being white, upper middle class +, straight. I'll leave that issue for another time.


It's one thing to want to see better representation and better crafted characters, but imposing a quota never helps things. Whether it's for gender, race, or sexuality. I would like to see better female characters in media, but if you just start shoving a female character in a project with no soul, purpose or point, it could veer into tokenism. It becomes arbitrary "Well, there. She's Female! Next..."

I'd rather see the time taken to focus and deliberately make a great character, make her gender tie into the character aesthetic, motivation and just come together to make something great. The audience can tell if something is just thrown in for the sake of thrown in.

Someone mentioned the great, late Dwayne McDuffie and how he made his own characters instead of radically changing existing ones. It's easier said than done, but oh does it pay off. Changing an established character can work, but its bundled with a risk that you just make everyone mad. Working from the start of development with the motivation to make a great character, as I said before, can avoid the tokenism, and make something great! Plus, you're less restrains can be on the pure developmental process if you start fresh.

My favorite example is Ellen Ripley (tied with Sarah Connor). They wanted to make a multidemiensional character, went forward with that, but decided at a point to make Ripley into a female character. With that change came new depths in the later movies, they didn't just change her for the sake of changing her. Later movies saw the protective mother angle make an appearance in Aliens.

I'm making a wall o' text and losing my point but I guess my main tl;dr point is this.

Feminism is not a monolith. Different people get different representation in the movement, and have different motivations going forward. It's application in media should be done carefully and thoughtfully to achieve greatness. Changing established characters arbitrarily bothers their fans, and it tends to be better to create a new character from the ground up by putting 110% into their development.

Changing Beck for the sake of changing Beck serves no point at this stage of the game. Having a sequel with a female protagonist, or even having a crazy, badass, dynamically designed female character(s), or even expanding Call's role would be, in my opinion, a better idea.

 

[Professor Icepick]

Here's the thing that some people forget. Feminism isn't a monolith, it's gone through many waves (I think we're on wave 3 now? Entering into 4?) and it's been represented by different groups to different degrees. I think it's unfair to vilify the entire idea when individuals do things to rub you the wrong way. Again, things aren't a monolith. Heck, look at sexuality and how divisive that can be within the movement. Some feminists have an issue with a presentation of overt sexuality, some feel an expression of sexuality is freeing and a beautiful thing.

Feminism may not be a monolith, but it's also been simultaneously held as inherently good. That's what rubs me the wrong way about the whole thing. You can't claim that your movement has the moral high ground, and then wave off any controversial members of your groups by saying "feminism is not a monolith" or "not all feminists are like that". It doesn't work both ways. The movement should either own up to some of the horrible things it's done (or in some cases, is currently doing) and try to reform their own movement, or stop pretending they are absolute morality on their subject.

I believe in womens' rights, but I prefer the term "egalitarian".

 

[Lunerstep]

Guess I'll wait a few months for this to blow over....otherwise I'd just talk about the game and not this debate game related or not...

 

[Shockdingo]

I think (and it's my hope) that once new game footage/a trailer comes out, that'll be what brings things back to the game. Hopefully it's not too long

 

[Professor Icepick]

I think that maybe the second phase of the Call design vote might kill off this subject, hopefully.

 

[DDB]

But what about Call E

When's an E winning

 

[Professor Icepick]

LOL, is that really the only reason you like Call E, because stupid pun? Despite the fact that she's clearly the best design, just by the virtue of having enough of Call F's design without being a total knockoff of Roll?

 

[PaperBag_Sniper]

So out of all the Mighty Numbers we have seen so far I think I have a clear favorite

Spoiler

I'm not sure how they will be designing boss encounters or levels, but I would love to see this guy taking pot shots at you as you make your way towards him. Having cross hairs suddenly blink on screen and track Beck's position would be awesome.

Edit: Also, maybe it's just because I've seen Beatrix's design for so long, but does Mighty no. 8 have knives in his leg? Because that would be awesome to have him use some cloak and dagger attacks with his active camouflage.

 

[DDB]

Nah I actually like E best. H is dull and F is too expected.

 

[Professor Icepick]

Good man.

I'm just wondering what the color scheme options are going to be. I don't know why but I picture Call E with sea-foam green hair, a blue and white uniform and maybe red eyes. And then I realize that was a lot like Pandora's color scheme, so I feel kind of ashamed for being so unoriginal.

Spoiler

 

[DDB]

I was definitely thinking a sort of blue and white for the uniform.

 

[Balder]

Ah! We're back on track.

So out of all the Mighty Numbers we have seen so far I think I have a clear favorite

I can see why given your username.
I didn't think much of #8 at first but once I connected the dots, he quickly became a favorite. The dots being:

So, and at the risk of bringing that argument back, whoever wanted to make #8 a chick well, in the veritable wisdom of EventHubs' comments section: FUGG YO' FEELINGS :P

Alas, #3 (Girl Raijin Man) is still my favorite. in b4 MightyWars

Btw, #7 hasn't been shown yet, as it?

I'm just wondering what the color scheme options are going to be.

I picture Call E with a blue and white uniform and blond hair so ganbare! Professor, my idea is a lot less unoriginal than yours.
I've seen a red and white one fan coloring but I don't think it suits her.
I think a turquoise costume and platinum blond hair would look pretty good though.

 

[Squire Grooktook]

yeah that's feminism dude. that's like the very definition of a feminist agenda

If feminism is simply good writing on a female character, than sure, I'm all for that.

right now, though, you continue to say things like "[this discussion] didn't deserve more than a page to begin with." that's the opposite of fairness, to me, because instead of treating unjustified, harmful mentalities as what they are, you are advocating that we, i guess, not criticize or talk about them? for some reason?

Again, that's not what I meant. If you want to discuss or criticize sexism in the gaming industry/player base, that's fine. But there's no reason to latch onto MN9 as a vehicle for these discussions when the topic would be better served by its own thread and a much broader topic. The particular incident here is a very cut and dry example of internet idiocy, lack of communication, and over-reaction, and there's not much to talk about without going way off topic. You won't be able to dive into the topic of sexism in video games if you're focusing on staying on topic with Mighty No.9. I suggest giving it its own thread and using what happened here as one of the many examples you could use to prove your point.

it's not important what you think, it's a deeply upsetting term to marginalized groups

i really am not sure how to even express just how much you should stop using that term

Anime characters are a marginalized group in society?

I would never use such a term to refer to transvestites, transexuals, homosexuals, etc. And the term doesn't even refer to any of the above.

Like I said, it's a joke about the character design process in anime (it doesn't even refer to transvestites or any of the above. It just refers to androgynous character designs who might only be that way because of the art style), it has nothing to do with any real people or real life style. Attempting to apply it to a real life person wouldn't even work or make sense because, well, real life people don't have character designers. As far as my understanding of this meme goes, there is no reason why anybody should be offended by it. Does the term have some history with real people prior to being an Admiral Ackbar reference for anime character design? If so I'll stop using it.

And it does matter what I think because you are trying to convince me. I try to be pretty open minded and understanding, so I'd be welcome to any reasonable attempt to explain why it might be offensive to someone, but like I said right now I'm not seeing it.

 

[PaperBag_Sniper]

I can see why given your username.

It's not just the sniper theme of MNo. 8 that I like, It's like he stepped out of a western or something. A one armed lone gunman whose body is painted red with his victims. Total badass there.

I didn't think much of #8 at first but once I connected the dots, he quickly became a favorite. The dots being:

Spoiler

Huh, I never made this connection before. It fits though; the hat, cigarette/dart in the mouth, the beard.

 

[Horseman]

I wrote a wall of text but now the debate is dying down...
Fuck it, I spent time on this shit, you're all gonna read it. Sit down children, we're going to read a story about feminism and video games and it's 1000 pages long.

Okay, I don't wanna get into a discussion about this, but I don't think games have been "incredibly" sexist. Or at least not more than other mediums. THAN AGAIN, I only play games within my niche where most female characters tend to be pretty competant (and all anyone really does anyway is kill things or explore dungeons), so I can't speak for all the fucking grand theft autos and spees mahrine bullshit games out there. So whatever, I dunno.

(it's also a touchy thing to say because it really depends on how you define "sexism". Is Skullgirls sexist because of the fan service? Is Mario sexist because he rescues a princess? Is a game sexist just because it has only one named character who happens to be male? etc. if your looking for games that are outright chauvinistic in their implications or explicitly downplay females, you're going to have a harder time finding examples, Other M is really the only one that comes to mind and that was probably an unintentional result of how fucking rushed the story and whole damn game felt. Not to mention everyone hated it anyway.)

Those aren't what I mean here. I would mean something along the older GTA games. They were always incredibly sexist but no one really brought it up, the people outside the medium focused on the violence, and no one reviewing it brought it up... But they still have a scene where a woman is murdered for talking too much. I don't mean the sexism stuff where the author wasn't really trying to be offensive but the end result was still biased towards men, I'm talking about the blatant stuff that no other medium could get away with. We have a lot of the male bias stuff but the fact that we still have any of the latter is awful and something that definitely needs to be addressed before we can fully mature. And it is being addressed, there's just a massive resistance to losing it.

maybe it makes people angrier to try and make changes to 'existing characters,' rather than making new ones altogether. i'll give you that one-- there was plenty of drama when people wanted donald glover to play as the new spiderman, for example. but just because it makes people angry doesn't make it less meaningful.

That's not a very good example, considering african american spiderman already exists. He's just not Peter Parker. He's just an alternate universe spiderman, and if that's how Becky would work out that would be cool. But going back on already completely designed characters and saying "wow I don't have enough strong female characters, beck is a girl now everyone!" is just sloppy character design. If you're genderbending a character just because you didn't meet your minority quota then you're doing things for the wrong reasons. Yes it's always cool to have well done female characters, but if your first priority is simply having a female character and not bettering the work as a whole, you really need to think about it for a moment. Because
Not to say that quality storytelling and feminism are always at odds, but you should never retcon a character's gender just because you want to defy female stereotypes. There are tons of better ways of doing that than potentially damaging a character people already liked.

Feminism may not be a monolith, but it's also been simultaneously held as inherently good. That's what rubs me the wrong way about the whole thing. You can't claim that your movement has the moral high ground, and then wave off any controversial members of your groups by saying "feminism is not a monolith" or "not all feminists are like that". It doesn't work both ways. The movement should either own up to some of the horrible things it's done (or in some cases, is currently doing) and try to reform their own movement, or stop pretending they are absolute morality on their subject.

I believe in womens' rights, but I prefer the term "egalitarian".

But there are crazy and immoral parts of practically every movement in history. Should Martin Luther King jr. have publicly apologized on the Black Panther's behalf and said "we really should rethink this whole civil rights thing, I mean look at these guys, they're shooting people for it. That's not good. I guess we're just not very moral people."
You also don't just bring up "horrible acts of feminism" without any clarification. They aren't terrorists, it's not like we all immediately understand what you're talking about when you say "the horrible things feminism has done."

Anime characters are a marginalized group in society?

I would never use such a term to refer to transvestites, transexuals, homosexuals, etc. that's not even what it's about. Like I said, it's a joke about character design in anime, it has nothing to do with any real people or real life style. Attempting to apply it to a real life person would be stupid because, well, real life people don't have character designers.

I try to be politically correct, but I draw the line at something like this.

The problem here is that it's used by other people to refer to transexuals. For example, Poison is definitely transexual and not just a girly looking man, but she's practically where the term originated. If I remember correctly, one of the revealed win quotes against her in USF4 actually called her a trap, or at least came close.

 

[Shockdingo]

Even though I love all the designs so far, I think number 3 and number 8 are my favorites so far. I'm really hoping we defeat them in game and don't kill them.

 

[Squire Grooktook]

Those aren't what I mean here. I would mean something along the older GTA games. They were always incredibly sexist but no one really brought it up, the people outside the medium focused on the violence, and no one reviewing it brought it up... But they still have a scene where a woman is murdered for talking too much. I don't mean the sexism stuff where the author wasn't really trying to be offensive but the end result was still biased towards men, I'm talking about the blatant stuff that no other medium could get away with. We have a lot of the male bias stuff but the fact that we still have any of the latter is awful and something that definitely needs to be addressed before we can fully mature. And it is being addressed, there's just a massive resistance to losing it.

Okay, I can get behind that. Like I said I don't have much experience with that kind of thing within the genres that I specialize in, but that GTA example is just gross.

The problem here is that it's used by other people to refer to transexuals. For example, Poison is definitely transexual and not just a girly looking man, but she's practically where the term originated. If I remember correctly, one of the revealed win quotes against her in USF4 actually called her a trap, or at least came close.

I thought it originated with Bridget? Well anyway, if some people have hijacked the phrase into something bad, than I have no problem not using it then. Like I said, when I use or think of the phrase it's more a reference to something deliberate in the character design (maybe not even sexual. I've often seen it used to refer to characters who disguise themselves as the opposite gender for practical purposes like Shiek, Mulan, Naoto, etc.), and I don't see anything wrong with that, but if that's not how the phrase can be taken, than I don't mind not using it.

 

[Professor Icepick]

Even though I love all the designs so far, I think number 3 and number 8 are my favorites so far. I'm really hoping we defeat them in game and don't kill them.

3's my overall favorite thus far, but I also dig #8 and #6 as well. Can't wait until we get a closer look at Nos. 4 & 7. No. 7 looks especially interesting from what little we've seen.