Sexism in Gaming: A list of links

At GenCon this year, Simon Rogers asked if I was interested in writing an article about sexism in gaming for a new issue of See Page XX. Sexism in gaming is a pretty huge topic, and I wound up taking a pretty narrow focus for the article. Initially, however, while I was trying to determine what direction to take the article, I amassed a pretty impressive list of links that I wanted to organize and make public.

So! Keep your eyes peeled for the new issue of See Page XX. But in the mean time, here's some food for thought:

Detailed Analysis of 300ish Covers of Dragon Magazine

Part One of Seven (links to subsequent posts)

Response from Editor of Dragon Magazine


The Infamous Quote By Jonathan Tweet About Evolutionary Psychology and Gaming

John Kim's LiveJournal entry with the offending paragraph (the original post has been removed)

A scientifically-minded response to Tweet that blows him out of the water: Gaming is Not a Genetic Trait, Part 1 and Part 2


Holy Shit, What the F*ck is Gamecrush.com??

GameCrush.com: Find a play date

Explanation of GameCrush.com's business model

Gallery of Porn-tacular GameCrush profile pics (now with horrid comments!)


Sexual Harassment in Gaming (I can't believe this needs sub-headings)

Jade Raymond (Assassin's Creed) v. Something Awful

Detailed explanation of chronology of harassment of Jade Raymond

Ubisoft's legal response and SA's response

Horrific "she had it coming" response

Another awful "she had it coming"

Another "she had it coming" with actual comic excerpt (NSFW)

The full comic (NSFW. Warning: It's pretty horrific.)

Completely remorseless response by the comic's creator

"Where's Jade?" forum thread afterward


StarCraft II forum harassment

Summary of harassment incident on Team Liquid's StarCraft II forum

The actual thread (you have to be logged in to view)


EA Fail: Sexual harassment as a promotion

EA puts a sexual bounty on its booth babes' heads

Good critique of dangers of this promotion

"She had it coming" and rebuttal

Guy who won a prize and declined it

EA's "apology" - since retracted

EA Fail link roundup


Sexism in World of Warcraft

Awesome, awesome, awesome article about sexism in WoW

WoW Lore breakdown

Claims of "reverse sexism" and forum comments by female anti-feminist

"Deal with it or don't play WoW"

Trying (and failing) to have a conversation about sexism in gaming


Sexism in Game Ads

Video games as women that beat you

Discover the luscious hills and valleys of Rappelz (and here, and here)(Maybe NSFW)

Awesome chronology of Evony ads

Evony sues blogger for defamation over criticism of ads

Amazing Evony ad spoofs

Most sexist game ads


Relevant Forum Threads

StoryGames: Is Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress sexist or not?

StoryGames: Sex with chainsaws? Not sexist? Really? (start with post #4)

StoryGames: Racism (and sexism to a lesser extent) in the 4E PHB (turns into a bit of a shoutfest)

StoryGames: Gender and gaming

StoryGames: Why don't women play roleplaying games? (actually quite positive)

StoryGames: What do you want to know about minorities in roleplaying games? (not all that useful)

StoryGames: Maid RPG (quickly devolves into uselessness)

D&D: Gender violence in gaming (absolutely horrific)


Statistics

Nick Yee: WoW demographics - 2005

Men v. women in app gaming

Women outnumber men in online games

EQII demographics

Numbers of women in gaming


Women in game development

Sexism in game development

Facebook gets women into game development

100 most influential women in game development


Miscellaneous Articles

BBC: Female Everquest avatars sell for less than male avatars

Female characters in video games are designed to appeal to men

Sexism at E3

Excellent Breakdown of the fiasco at the PAX East Women in Gaming panel

Collectible porn cards in The Witcher

Frag Dolls

How D&D started a forum FOR women in gaming, closed it, and started another one to talk ABOUT women in gaming.

Female apologist for sexism and rebuttal

Derailing for Dummies

The One Girl in RPG comics

Are D&D encounters sexist?

Sex scenes in games

Terrible article, but good photoset

Converting chainmail bikinis to fully-clothed avatars that are still sexy

Careers for girls

Not that you care, but...

I updated the links list on the side there, since half of them were either abandoned or defunct.

Also, I've started re-vamping Under The Sun - my Game Chef entry. Hopefully I'll have a more complete version to show off soon, though laying out Thou Art But A Warrior remains a priority.

Finished!

So I just squeaked in under the deadline, but I finished my Game Chef game! I'm feeling pretty good about myself, since this is the third time I've attempted to do Game Chef but only the first time I've finished anything.

Under the Sun
The good spirits have spoken. In order that the People are not entirely destroyed, your tribe must journey into the heart of the Deepest Desert to find the Promised Land – a land that until now was thought only to exist in myth and legend. Will you have the strength to survive?

It's a super-rough draft, but you can find it here. I'm going to give it a week or so of lying fallow and then I'm going to go back and start adding all the stuff that I didn't have time to add in for Game Chef.

Fiasco playset: GenCon

After I recovered from the sleep deprivation and mild insanity that always results from attending GenCon, it occured to me that GenCon would make a perfect playset. Think about it, tons of nerds with no sleep, lots of booze and/or caffeine, and easily-provoked nerd rage are just a fiasco waiting to happen. So here for your Fiasco enjoyment is GenCon: The Worst Four Days In Gaming.

Big thanks to Travis Farber and Nick Frankenhauser for helping me playtest it. And thanks to Jason Morningstar for giving me excellent advice that helped me make this as terrible and awful as it could possibly be.

Game Chef 2010: My entry

The ingredients this year instantly made me think of my time in Egypt. The Theme this year is Journey, and the 3 ingredients I'm working with are Edge, City, and Desert. This will be a game about a tribe of people on the edge of survival, trying to survive in the desert.

My Game Chef Thread can be found here if you're interested in following the contest.

Thou Art But A Warrior - now a PDF!

Hey folks! Thou Art But A Warrior is now for sale as a PDF! Check it out!

That is all.

More illustrations for the new edition:

While the first draft of the revised edition is being edited, I've been working on doing illustrations for the new edition so that when the edits are finished I can go directly into laying out the book. (That's the theory, anyway. We'll see how that works out.)

I've been pleased with the work I've done so far. I have to admit that I had put down the sketchbook several months ago because I was frustrated that I couldn't translate my knowledge of the human form to drawings that didn't look like cartoony shit. Six months or so seems to have broken down that particular block, for which I am very grateful. So far I have been very satisfied with the quality of what I have been producing. So without further ado...

A character that will be referenced in the examples of play, a secret Christian within the emir's court.:

(CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW)

I have to admit, the inherent sexism of the setting was killing me. So when I found a way in the examples to have a woman in armor, I didn't even think twice. What she's wearing is a mish-mash of Christian and Muslim armor, which I had fun doing.

(CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW)

Because there is an Islamic angel, there also needs to be a Christian angel. I'm quite happy with this illustration - especially with the reflections cast by the halo and with the fact that the wings don't look like total crap.

(CLICK FOR LARGER)

And, because Thou Art But A Warrior is, of course, a tragedy... (I showed it to Kit last night when I finished it. His response: "Well that's cheerful.") I actually really struggled with the composition/pose of this one.

So that's proceeding well, even if I've decided to re-do the very first one that I drew. (The faces were just... weird.) My plan is to have eight illustrations, so that means I'm five eighths done! If I knuckle down, I should be able to finish by the end of next week as long as the inspiration continues to flow.

I'm impatient for my software to get here. (It's now officially in the mail! Yippee!) I want to start laying out this thing!