I tend not to do a lot of blogging.  But the latest Anita Sarkeesian bullshit has left me with a lot of stuff to say, and I'm beginning to feel like I'm spamming Twitter with it.

Honestly, I feel like I'm about sick of it to the back teeth.

I think what bothers me most to start with, is that I've seen not one iota of criticism for the critic.  Mostly it's a lot of white noise of posturing assholes all going "ooh, isn't what happened to Anita bad?" and for starters, yes, it IS bad.  It's abhorrent, it's ugly and it's stupid.  Unfortunately there are humans on the planet who exhibit all three of those traits in equal measure, but short of BEING them right back at them, we get to grin and bear it.

As to the latest FemFreq.  Well, it's the same old utter codswallop disguised as something clever or insightful, and something anyone with eyes can see.  The problem is the same as the last three videos:  Pointing to depictions of women in videogaming and saying "this is the problem".  It's not the problem.  It's never been the problem.  It is a SYMPTOM of the problem, of many problems, that blight the entire medium of videogames.

The problem is audience,  The problem is artist.  And the problem is publisher, and they're all cyclical, and they all feed into each other.  It is, as they say, a vicious circle.

Developer makes game, publisher sells game, audience buys game.  Rinse and repeat, only next time, the game has to sell more, so everyone cuts at the corners a bit more.

Here's the thing:  The people publishing videogames?  They think that "a broader audience" means "lowest common denominator".  You appeal to the audience by being like other popular things, and you make your money - infact, you make ALL the money - by being the only option for being the biggest game in town.  This is why Call of Duty is big business, and none of the other publishers counterparts come close:  Because the secret that they have yet to acknowledge is that, people playing Call of Duty, don't WANT another Call of Duty.

But COD is where the big money is.  So that's what they all make.  And I use COD as shorthand here, for all the lazy, cookie cutter sequels year after year.

And the budgets get bigger, and the teams get smaller (and sometimes bigger, and almost always unstable), and the cost cutting continues, and everyone cuts at the corners a bit more.

And the developers try to do more with less.  and THAT is where stuff like the shorthand abuse of women in video games come in.  Because they want to create a mood, and there's no time or budget to do anything beyond the bare minimum.  So there's no option to call EMTs for stabbed victims, because it would cost time, money and budget, and they've got a whole damn world to create.  There's little or no time for "big picture" stuff, such as how this all comes when dispassionately catalogued, snipped and taken out of context by someone with a specific agenda.

...aaaand the audience.  Jesus.  Don't get me started on the audience.  Abhorrent, ugly and stupid, as I said earlier.

Here's the thing though:  This is an economic reality, a industry grinding hopes and dreams into more fodder for the shareholders.  As a system which is in place, there are few realistic alternatives to make a difference.  So many jobs, so many lives, are dependant on this system.  And making shitty youtube videos about these games make jack shit of a difference, especially when they're as badly misaimed as Miss Sarkeesian.

If you want to make a difference, you need to attack the publishers in the wallets.  To this end, you gotta do two things.  Not buy their shit (and which, presumably, you already don't because you're obviously not the target audience for it). And you need to offer a realistic alternative.  Otherwise, all you're doing is standing in front of capitalism and shouting "stop making money!", and that's never got anyone anyplace.

You need to make your own games. You need to find your own audience.  And bit by bit, you need to change this industry from the inside out.  And you know what?  If you do, they'll thank you for it, because you will make it more money by bringing in the disenfranchised audiences that it refuses to re enfranchise itself.

...and that is, I think, about everything I have to say about that.