#Nerdsunite: Confessions of a Videogame Journalist
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JohnSollitto
Wow, what a crazy couple of weeks, right? I won’t talk about E3 so much but I will direct you to my site where you can see all the awesome stuff that my team has worked on! Let me just say that it was successful all around and absolutely a blast. I got to do some AWESOME stuff and feel what it’s like to finally be a professional, met some awesome people and even got to interview my hero in the industry, Adam Sessler! It was fantastic.
HOWEVER, not all was candy and roses. One of the most controversial things to happen at E3 was the backlash from the Tomb Raider game demo. Lara Croft was assaulted, physically and sexually in the, whom she promptly blows the head off of. I mean she takes a pistol to this guy’s forehead and knocks his skull open. Boom.
Now, in the demo, Lara is not raped, but she is indeed close to being raped and many people were upset about this. Rightly so, that’s a little intense for a video game, especially when it’s your character almost being raped. It was a little unsettling. I was surprised at the amount of times rape was bandied about in L.A. Noir but that’s a cop game and honestly that happens a lot so they went for realism and delivered.
Players and fans were upset because they felt it turned Lara into a hardened adventurer into a helpless girl. The aim was to make Lara someone you wanted to protect but they ended up alienating and offending a lot more people.
After E3 there was also some talk of eliminating the “booth babes.” I’m honestly not sure where the article was or where I saw it but I think it was somewhere on Twitter. Regardless, the idea behind doing this was to change the mentality behind E3. Instead of trying to use sex to sell games, some believe that the games themselves should be the main focus. Obviously, right? Also, it’s very male-centric to thinking that only men go to E3 and “booth babes” are all they need to get them interested in their product. When now more than like 40% of the market is female, obviously it would be better to make the expo less misogynistic.
Let’s take a look at girls who are “slutshamed” or badgered for just being women in the gaming world. How effed up is that? I mean, it’s so terrible to believe that only men can enjoy gaming and that a woman is lying if she has any interest in gaming. Honestly, this is why gamers are looked down on as narrow-minded fools.
The amount of women I’ve met who play games is rather large, and not just play but enjoy and are enthusiastic about gaming. I mean, if you were at E3 this year, good gosh there were so many people there of all races and gender it was amazing! It was so heartwarming to see that. I mean, look at how many women actually work in the industry and make games!
What with female characters in games so overly voluptuous and sexy and the male characters so manly and ripped, it’s no wonder that the community grew up the way it did. I’m ashamed to say that it makes sense. But this is a new time and a new generation. Games are better graphically and plot-wise. Sometimes they’re even better games. But looking around, games are still carrying the same social messages and stigmas. Only recently have they been showing same-gender relationships that aren’t hot girl-on-girl porn. I think it’s time to equally represent men and women in games and in the gaming community so that we can advance as a culture.
I’m not saying that if games and gaming society suddenly changed that society would drastically as well, but I definitely think that a lot of people would think differently and it would be a step in the right direction.
#nerdsunite
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