{"id":320,"date":"2014-10-21T13:26:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T21:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/?p=320"},"modified":"2014-10-21T13:26:56","modified_gmt":"2014-10-21T21:26:56","slug":"sonys-continued-failure-now-with-heroines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/?p=320","title":{"rendered":"Sony’s Continued Failure (now with Heroines)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I’m in the middle of finishing a chapter that links gender hacks to localization\u00c2\u00a0(using the\u00c2\u00a0term Feminist Localization) I’ve been interested in, but completely not\u00c2\u00a0desiring\u00c2\u00a0to post about, GamerGate. It’s completely related, and it’s a part of the chapter, but there has been no reason to add to the whole kerfluffle\u00c2\u00a0that is the current discourse around GamerGate. That ended when I checked out the recently ended Sony Flash Sale.<\/p>\n

\"Heroine<\/a>
Playstation Networks’s Flash Sale for\u00c2\u00a0games with “heroines”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Sony’s blog named\u00c2\u00a0the sale “October Flash Sale: More than 20 Games, 30 Movies Discounted<\/a>,”\u00c2\u00a0its graphic advertisement called it\u00c2\u00a0a Heroine Sale. While most sites didn’t pick up a connection \u00e2\u20ac\u201c unsurprising given the 3 day length of the sale \u00e2\u20ac\u201c some did. The site PlayerAttack posts that “PlayStation flash sale celebrates women (quietly)<\/a>,” then goes on to explain\u00c2\u00a0that\u00c2\u00a0“the company’s\u00c2\u00a0not drawing attention to it, but every single game and movie included on the seemingly-random list features strong female characters.” However, it’s not quite that simple.<\/p>\n

Leaving off the films, the games read as a haphazard list of recent games with semi-problematic gender issues. Yes, they all feature at least one female character, but that’s about all they do:\u00c2\u00a0they don’t pass the Bechdel test and several of the games have been vigorously protested as sexist!<\/p>\n

To be clear, yes, some of the games are great as both\u00c2\u00a0games and cultural narratives: Portal 2<\/em>, Beyond Good and Evil<\/em>,\u00c2\u00a0Knytt Underground<\/em>, Remember Me<\/em>, and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World<\/em> (if you take Ramona as the hero)\u00c2\u00a0are all decent inclusions. Not perfect, some better than others, but definitely inclusions that demonstrate that women can be heroines, protagonists, and role models for\u00c2\u00a0players of games.<\/p>\n

As for Bayonetta<\/em>, it\u00c2\u00a0has been called both ludicrously sexist<\/a>, but also empowering<\/a>, so I’ll settle for saying that it’s complicated and has spawned<\/a> quite<\/a> a bit of discussion<\/a>, which, ultimately, is a good thing. Sadly, I don’t think Sony really understands the complication though. I think somebody got an email saying, “hey, there’s this GamerGate thing going on and we need to show that we care: go through the\u00c2\u00a0playstation network digital games and pick out some games with female protagonists for us to include in a sale.”I mean, how else could Fat Princess<\/em> have possibly been included otherwise?<\/p>\n

Fat Princess. Take a Damsel in Distress<\/a>, feed her to imprison her, then try to steal the other team (of men)’s imprisoned obese woman. Proving that gameplay is not equal to narrative, and\u00c2\u00a0that sometimes narrative is actually really important, Fat Princess<\/em> has been lauded for its gameplay, but to do so the reviewer had to work really hard to not look at what was happening on the\u00c2\u00a0screen, thereby missing the violence imbued in his own words\u00c2\u00a0“it’s in your best interests to force feed that lady as much cake as you can.”\u00c2\u00a0On the other hand, by most\u00c2\u00a0looking at the narrative beyond the gameplay\u00c2\u00a0the game has\u00c2\u00a0been panned<\/a> for both its sexist\u00c2\u00a0core as well as its anti-fat elements. Yes, some support<\/a> it, but said really simply, it would be hard to pick a worse game for representing Sony’s support for strong female heroines.<\/p>\n

Sony, like much of the game industry, is struggling right now. They showed both failure and ignorance when there were no women on stage<\/a> in last year’s 2013 PS4 presentation, and they’re showing they don’t quite get it now. Yes, it’s a step, but the problem is that it’s not necessarily in the\u00c2\u00a0right direction. It’s probably not a step backward, but it’s a shaky half\u00c2\u00a0hobble forward at best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I’m in the middle of finishing a chapter that links gender hacks to localization\u00c2\u00a0(using the\u00c2\u00a0term Feminist Localization) I’ve been interested in, but completely not\u00c2\u00a0desiring\u00c2\u00a0to post about, GamerGate. It’s completely related, and it’s a part of the chapter, but there has been no reason to add to the whole kerfluffle\u00c2\u00a0that is the current discourse around … Continue reading “Sony’s Continued Failure (now with Heroines)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[96,97,25,98,95],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-feminist","tag-gamergate","tag-gaming","tag-psn","tag-sony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenmandiberg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}