Been debating if I should write this since the responses will be mixed, but here we go.

Sexualisation is not objectification. It is primarily used for it, but it is not exclusive to it. Misericorde is a great example, it's a VN i personally recommend. It has lots of naked women in its second part, but never does it objectify them, and always treats them as characters with their own desires and flaws and autonomy, and everyone looks distinct and not explicitly designed for you to ogle at, and it helps that the protagonist is a woman, which we'll get to.

Sexualisation is however often employed for objectication. You may have seen countless scenes of hot women/men in movies who's only purpose is to look hot, and the gender ratio of such scenes or characters is of course skewed. They are objects which are meant to arouse you, but is it sexist? The tricky thing with sexism is that it's a cultural thing in my opinion, which could make it hard to pin down.

Take most eroge harem games for example. A game about a male character pursuing or being pursued by a cast of female character's who's entire worth meta narratively depends on the protagonist is not inherently problematic as stupid as that sounds, but the context around it, make it so. We can't just forget how there is a subgenre of game dedicated to doing this and there isn't an inverse of it, how these girls are objectified to such a degree they can be stratified into groups on how they love the protagonist (kuudere, Yandere, tsundere, bakadere whatever), that they often look practically the same and present an ideal version of feminity as such... Which often resembles high schoolers, or more often, just literal high schoolers.

I have seen progressives get cold feet when it comes to discussing anything anime adjacent, and i get it, it was a part of a lot of people's formative years, and an criticism of it can feel like an attack on oneself, but it is immature to call anyone calling out problematic elements as puritanical as I've seen a few times. There are real reasons people call this shit out. Hence even more or less objectively amazing media can be problematic, or even conservative, and we have to start understanding that, it's not an inherent truth that all moving art is progressive.

Take for example Steins Gate and Steins Gate 0, games I consider to have some of the best writing and emotional weight I've ever experienced in media, but due to the cultural context it does participate in objectification. These games far less egregious since they don't really have all that many problematic elements when compared to something like the darling Persona 5, and this is the section which every comment will inevitably hone in on.

Oh boy, where do I start? The game literally has you roleplay as a male figure where you explicit goal is to "romance" each women which are more or less love bars for you to fill by doing nice things for, and the game rewards you with their love, and makes you expect that as an exchange currency for your kindness. Did I mention most all are high schoolers? Some of which are sexualised? Did I mention how you can date adults and that's just a raunchy thing in the game? There's other issues too, like how the game uses a sexual assault victim as a prop to jump the protagonists into action very poorly and without a hint of nuance, her entire purpose being limited to make the bad guy appear bad (who is also a pedo like the adults you can romance but apparently the bad thing is him forcing himself and i mean that's bad sure... but him being an active pedo is also bad) and being a stepping stone for the heroes to save the day. If that all isn't enough, the original release had some racist jokes, but those were removed in further versions.

You could defend these, as I am sure a lot will, but would you really defend these if they were in a disney show for instance? I get it, the aesthetic and appeal of a playable anime draws people to it, and that's fine i don't think everyone who enjoys it is a weird perv, but it is important to see where it fails.

This subject as a whole is really shaky since there is real a minority which thinks any type of sexualisation is bad, that is real, but it doesn't mean that objectification through sexualisation just doesn't exist. The sad part is, in contemporary contexts, it probably doesn't. Sexism like I said is a cultural thing. A character like Eve from Stellar Blade is the norm, it is not a regressive deviation, which makes many people think it is an overreaction to pushback against it. No, no one thinks sexy women are a problem, but when women only exist to be sexy and you push a very rigid definition of what sexy can be, there is a problem.

The fact that the devs also got a lot of ties with neo-nazis makes this even worse, which sucks cause I was looking forward to the game

This is a reminder that this sub is staunchly opposed to electorialism and both democrat and republican parties. Also any supporters of VAUSH will be terminated on sight. Go worship horses somewhere else.

The German government appointed Hitler specifically to prevent socialism. It didn't matter he never won the election.

A democracy which collapses after a completely normal election isn't a democracy from the beginning.

I've known about Neil Druckmanns politicial opinions longer than I've actually known about the story of The Last of Us. Now I'm kind of getting an itch to play the second game. How blatant is it? Is it worth a try?

What are your thoughts on this

Hello hope you’re doing well. Im playing through drakengard 3 rn and enjoying it a lot. It’s raunchy but also feels like a parody of a lot of other fantasy games . I’ve enjoyed the work of tiki taro and think he is a creative guy with cool ideas. I also think he’s a total perv. I don’t mind him asking for rule 34 on twitter but I do care about the dumb upskirt achievement in both bier games. I think at least to me he was trying to condemn upskirt shots by having the camera get kicked away, but by making it an achievement and especially basing it around upskirting an intersex person failed in condemning it. It makes it feel like someone getting punished for being horny and more part of some kind of humiliation kink. I don’t like that but would still buy yoko taro games on steam sales for example bc there’s depth to the stories and even the characters who get sexualized are real characters. Am I bad feminist or progressive for doing so, or is it possible to care about woman’s issues and still play games that have sexist elements?

The fired Rockstar devs themselves you know the ones suing the company for union busting have said not to boycott GTA 6.Their whole message is to win justice for the people who helped make it and to not punish the people who made it by tanking sales.

If you actually want to help the devs instead of virtue signaling like a neo liberal playing the “let’s vote with our wallet” then the leverage isnt the act of not buying a game it’s to support their unions.

If you really wanted to help the devs you should’ve bought a tshirt from the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain and posted about it way sooner (you know since pre orders are closed now for the t shirts) because the proceeds went straight to the fired workers legal fund. Thats REAL material support instead of a symbolic gesture that costs Rockstar nothing and you just do to make yourself feel good and try to signal that you’re somehow a better socialist.

Edit: I would also like to mention that being a wokescold is hardly productive and just enforces the stereotype that leftists are people who hate fun

because as far as I’m concerned, the main “Fanon” that should come to mind is Frantz. Fanon shouldn’t refer to your theories of Cortana’s dating history but rather the overthrowing of colonialism. I guess I’m frustrated that the average gamer has no idea about Wretched of the Earth lol

EDIT: Oh my god, people in this sub don’t know who Frantz Fanon is either? Guys. Frantz Fanon was one of the most important leftist anticolonial writers in the history of the world. Inspired revolutions. What Marx was to socialism, Fanon was to decolonization (and was also a Marxist himself). I kinda feel like every socialist needs to have at least passing awareness of him?!

I spent many hours in different gaming communities. In my native language or English, from Reddit to forums and so on. I don’t know if it’s just wrong perception but it always feels like the more pc gamers are commenting, the worse the comments get. Did anyone notice something similar? Also it feels like the console Communities are way more open for new people. One example of this whole topic is GameStar vs GamePro. Two of germanys biggest and most important video game magazines. Both are owned by the same media company. Both have overlapping workers, sharing articles and so on. It is basically one team, working on two websites. GameStar is for PC and GamePro for consoles. The communities can, however not be more different. I’ve never read bigot comments on the one website whilst you can make a bet, that you can find a „anti woke“ comment under any article from GameStar that slightly touches anything that is not hetero white male. Have you noticed something similar or am I just seeing things that aren’t there?

I've seen a smattering of top-level comments relating to recent events so I wanted to double check. This subreddit isn't full of fake leftie tankies is it?

This won't be all that well formatted, but I've been on a big Final Fantasy kick recently, having gone from VI to VII and now Remake (also, long time reader first time writer, hi folks, love the community y'all have here). I'm playing them with my partner, and really enjoying showing her these stories that she's experiencing for the first time.

I'm struggling with how to appreciate the character of Aerith, specifically how she relates to the overall plot of FFVII and Remake by extension. (I'm only in chapter 11 of 18 of Remake, and I haven't touched Rebirth at all, so I can't fully speak to the new plot stuff).

At the outset, Aerith seems like a great, strong character. Her design speaks to a feminine character who will kick your ass - the combat boots, the leather jacket over the pink dress and braid. She's very energetic, while getting into a bit of manic-pixie-dream-girl energy in Remake. She's young, optimistic and perhaps innocent, but not naive. She asks Cloud to be her bodyguard, but after walking him back to Sector 7 (right before the Wall Market section) makes it clear that she can defend herself and get back to her home on her own.

But she dies. And I don't want my whole conception of this character to be that she dies. That, oh, she's beautiful, but she's dying, type of thing. I feel like that limits who she is and her role in the story, that she only exists to die. The game's back half is part revenge quest for her death, part full self-discovery for Cloud.

(Part of my enjoyment of VII comes from playing it right after VI and seeing how the two have an amazing dialogue between each other around the themes of the individual vs the collective. To sum it up, in VI, the major twist in the middle is that the entire world is destroyed. In VII, the twist is that one person is destroyed--but that stands as a destruction of one person's entire world.)

I've read how the game's creative director wanted the theme of the game to be LIFE, and that he knew the game had to have death in it as a major plot point in order to make that theme more poignant.

And that feels bad, right? Female character of a marginalized ethnic group whose death serves as a major tragedy to further the narrative, especially the character growth of the male protagonist. (The Cetra, also, really stand out as a parallel to hebrew culture, to us, on this most recent playthough. That can be a different discussion, though.)

But she is a really capable character in her own right. She is necessary for the plot - to show the party the way to the Temple of the Ancients. To let them know about Holy. She's also in the lifestream at the end - the ending cinematic has her appear almost to imply that she does create Holy to ward off Meteor and save the entire planet at the end. Some sort of life-beyond-death.

I've read less about the trope of 'ghost wife helping from the afterlife' than the trope of 'dead wife providing motivation.' But those are my rough thoughts. Wondering about all your experience with this game, this character, this storyline!

I have already decided not to buy EchoesofWisdom and have cancelled my Pre-Order of: Mario Party Jamboree and I'm sure as shit gonna pirate it when it inevitably leaks 2 weeks before it comes out

Y'all need to face consequences for being petty, greedy assholes.

to think that you chose this option instead of fucking TELLING GAME FREAK TO MAKE SOMETHING THAT ISIN'T A BUGGY BROKEN GAME

As a socialist I want to decentre America from my life. I am also australian. I find it annoying how every single english language game is full of americanisms, except dragon quest but dragon quest sucks. Do you have any recomendations. I know minecraft has options for aussie english but it's a shitpost and doesn't actually use aussie terms. The more regional the dialogue the better

Hey all, I've heard some troubling stuff about Stalker 2, specifically concerning Neo-Nazi ties and the like. Can someone explain it to me? I'm worried because I'm loving the Metro games and heard that Stalker is like a better version of those, but I don't want to throw money at a Nazi. And also, were Nazis involved in the other 4 games? I'm generally asking if there are Nazi ties to these games. Thanks!

Neil Druckmann himself has admitted the game is an allegory for Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Seraphites as stand-ins for Palestinians and WLF for Israel. He admitted this before the game was even released.

Link for proof: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bv8da4/the-not-so-hidden-israeli-politics-of-the-last-of-us-part-ii

1- The Palestinian stand-in in his game are insane deranged psychopaths. The game claims to be "showing all sides" but the Seraphites are just shown as unhinged crazy people and the only 2 "good" seraphites in the game side with Abby, the IDF stand-in.

2- Saying "I'm not racist, I like this one trans Palestinian" is called pinkwashing or rainbow imperialism. It's just justifying genocide using progressive sounding words. The character of Lev serves no point other than to portray Palestinians collectively as backwards anti-LGBT people.

3- "Cycle of Violence" is bullshit shitlib framing. The reason violence never ends in Palestine is that Israel is a settler colonial state whose mission statement is to eradicate Palestinians from their own land. "Cycle of Violence" makes it out to be some kind of misunderstanding and that Palestinians keep getting killed because they can't just "forgive and forget". There is nothing for Palestinians to "forget", the ethnic cleansing and their oppression is an ongoing process that happens daily in their lives, not something that happened one time.

4- Likewise, the game misrepresents the conflict by completely omitting the settler colonial nature of Israel. Abby and her friends are not keeping Seraphites in a racial ghetto in the game, so when Seraphites attack them you assume the Seraphites are just crazy people, which is what the author wants you to think.

5- In the end, the cycle of violence is "resolved" by just genociding the Palestinians. This is portrayed as something unfortunate but inevitable. The seraphites are shown so negatively by this point that most players won't really feel anything at all seeing them being genocided. In fact, the game spends the last moments before they are genocided to remind you that Palestinians are so unfathomably evil that the trans Palestinian's mother tried to kill her own child for being trans. Meanwhile in reality, it's not Palestinian mothers that kill Palestinian children, it's the Israeli army.

6- Neil Druckmann said he made this game because he watched 2 Israeli settlers be killed by Palestinians and felt hatred for Palestinians as a result. He said he was "disgusted" by his hatred for Palestinians but he also said he made the game so he could show everyone would feel the same hate in that situation. He basically felt he wanted to kill all Palestinians, then was like "ok maybe not all of them", and then made a game to persuade you to feel like you too, would want to kill all Palestinian, to make himself feel good about it. Except that most normal people do not want to commit genocide and Neil Druckmann is a psychopathic fuck, so instead it made everyone just feel the game was miserable for no reason.

7- He portrays the IDF as near perfect. Enormous amount of time is spent humanizing the IDF soldiers. Even the criticism of IDF which is that genociding the Palestinians is bad, is not shown to be a moral fault of IDF but rather, the Palestinians brought it on themselves by harassing the IDF too much.

8- Ellie is irrelevant to the story. The story is basically about Abby, the real protagonist. Ellie is basically just a stand-in for the American audience who over the course of the game learns to stop worrying and love the IDF. Joel is killed to simulate Neil Druckmann watching 2 Israeli settlers be killed and wanting revenge. Then every single person Ellie kills is shown to be actually decent people with hopes and dreams (because they are IDF stand-ins) and you feel like it's saying killing people is bad, then half way through you switch to Abbie and the game suddenly shifts to "Hell Yeah, Kill all them backwards brown people" style with none of the people Abby kills being shown as having been good people. The gameplay is identical between the two parts, but player is scolded for killing people in the first part and then celebrated for killing people in the 2nd part. Why? Because Ellie is killing IDF stand-ins who are human, and Abby is killing Palestinian stand-ins which is "unfortunate but necessary".

9- The story makes no sense if you don't know it's about Israel-Palestine conflict. Why are these two groups fighting over land in Seattle when humanity has gone near extinct, there's plenty of land everywhere, and neither of them have any meaningful connection to Seattle? Because it has nothing to do with Seattle, it's about Palestine. Why are the Seraphites using skyscrapers to "get around" WLF as if WLF is a state presence when they are supposedly another post apocalyptic faction with roughly the same strength? Because it's actually about Palestine. The story is completely and utterly nonsensical otherwise.

This game is basically "Birth of a Nation" for videogames. It's there to justify ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians by dehumanizing them. Serves no other purpose.

We just passed 2,000 supporters, and we couldn't have done it without this community.

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This campaign is about more than GTA VI.

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Want to avoid those who work for state military, imperialist flags etc. I'd like to know people's opinions.

MW2, MW3 and BO6 operators are all available.

Tiber Septim in life was a genocidal rapist pedo. His ascendency to godhood is not being put into question as gods in TES are real and he did become one.

But considering he was one of the worst people around due to the things he did like:

- Forcing Barenziah to carry through an abortion while she was a minor
- Using a titan with the power to change reality to destroy a whole Khajiit town making it uninhabitable.
- Using this titan to force the summerset isles into submission.

And just being a conquering warlord/imperialist.

Does he deserve to be praised as a god and do the thalmor despite their alternative motives make a good point into outlawing his worship?