E3 happened, and like all years that E3 happens in, we should be reminded of what a horrible embarrassing hobby we have. I say this not out of any sense of personal shame, because fuck it, it’s my hobby and I will probably never fully stop doing it, but out of this desire that maybe, someday, it will get better.
Judging by this year’s E3, we have a LONG FUCKING WAY TO GO. So let’s dive in, shall we?
Tomb Raider
Sweet jimminy Christmas, did e3 get off to a hell of a start this year. This little gem showed up during the Microsoft press conference and, well, see for yourself:
Wow, someone heard the phrase “torture porn” and just thought that what was out there wasn’t quite porn-y enough, so they got together with some other dudes and made this game. Or maybe they noticed the videos on youtube of Lara Croft dieing? Either way, somebody saw some dollar signs, and we get this.
Now, Lara Croft has always been an embarrassingly over-sexualized woman, no doubt, but at the very least she was always portrayed as strong and capable in any situation, so that while she met stupid gamer expectations of female physical sexuality, she at least maybe challenged a little bit of the stupid gamer bias against strong women.
Would’ve helped if she’d been in some better games, but hey, what can you do?
But now, she is getting the famed “Other M treatment” or what may come in the future to be known as “the Anya“, in which a previously strong female game character is made weaker and more palatable to the gamers. Why is this? Oh, there are probably a shitload of reasons (fear of strong women being the obvious one) that plenty of people with far better understandings of feminism and fucked up male sexuality can explain, but let’s just note it and move on.
Gamification
Hey, remember Jane McGonigal? Or this guy?
Yeah, apparently so did most of the companies showing things at E3 this year. Games that reward us for just existing seemed to be par for the course. Someone took it to a new level and decided turning actual real life things into silly games seemed like a good idea too. Gamification goes both ways, I guess.
On the first point, look at just about any game shown to see the achievement mentality taking over. EA’s press conference was itself wrought with this kind of bullshit it mind. And boy was it ugly.
As for the gaming of real-life activities, look no further than Disneyland.
This might be the saddest image I have seen all day.
Yes, now you (yes, you!) can use your hundreds of dollars to buy a video game system and the proper accessories to simulate for your kids the experience of going to a place that will cost you thousands to visit (and I am sure the game will completely satisfy any urge they might have to visit it). Let your kids give virtual air hugs to the virtual person dressed up as Snow White.
There are so many fucking layers here. Of course, the various people who have written on Disneyland as a Mecca of Hyperreality will probably have a fucking field day with this game.
And the show goes on…
I’m sure there will be more to come, and feel free to share links to things in the comments. I don’t have time to keep up with all the “news”.
gamers are embarrassing 
pmsrhino
June 7, 2011
Oh god, Laura, what have they done to you? 😦 I’m half expecting them to put in a good crying cut scene after all that too. You know, just so we can see just how truly “vulnerable” and “fragile” and “desperate” she is. Ugh, and I thought the redesign comments were gonna be the worst of it. Seriously, COULD THEY MAKE HER SOUND ANY MORE PATHETIC IN THE GAME? Every second was just “uh!” “ah!” “uuugh!” “unf!” I was about to just turn the video off, it was getting so annoying. Can she not be fragile AND quiet at the same time? D:
No doubt if I do actually buy it (now I’m kind of doubting it) my boyfriend will come in quite a few times and ask if I’m watching porn and then go, “Oh, you’re just playing a game… just so you know it sounds like porn.” He has done this before with other games that use the same type of female pleasure grunting as pain sounds, and it makes me sad that games insist on making women in pain sound like their having an orgasm.
inklesspen
June 8, 2011
Hi, Jon from FUoS here. One of my cohosts, gtz, pointed me at your blog, and I think we both appreciate what you do on this site.
That is a bit embarrassing, what with all the soprano grunting-in-pain and the recurring Scary Man. But I’m not convinced it’s the same thing as Other M.
Here’s the thing: Uncharted 2 starts very similar to this. Nathan Drake has been shot — he’s beat up and covered in his own blood — and he wakes up in a train that’s dangling off a cliff. The first 10-20 minutes of the game are of Nathan climbing his way up to the top of the cliff and making his way through the burning wreckage. He’s clearly in pain — he grunts almost as much as Lara does in that gameplay video — and he staggers when he walks. He does have time for a few snarky quips, and instead of “frantically kicking at the Scary Man” we have “shooting the Johnny Foreigner mercenaries who nearly killed you”, but I think it’s very comparable.
I have a hard time explaining why it’s okay to show Nathan like that, but not to show Lara in this situation. The key thing, in my view, is where in the game that footage comes from. If it’s at the very beginning (as it looked like to me), that’s one thing; if it’s at the end of the game, as Lara is supposed to be triumphant over the forces arrayed against her, it’s quite another. I’ve always figured that Lara started out as basically a sheltered young woman who was forced to adapt to a terrible situation and decided she liked getting into danger, so I think a prequel game that shows that growth in a realistic way is acceptable. It’s sort of like Sarah Connor in Terminator; she starts off as just this waitress, right? The important part is that she doesn’t end there.
The furor over Other M, on the other hand, is that it took a female character who was already at badass levels and stripped her down. (As I understand it, anyway; I didn’t play that game.) It’s possible that that’s what’s happening in this Tomb Raider game, but I don’t think I’m seeing it yet.
gamersareembarrassing
June 9, 2011
Here’s the problem: Nathan Drake is never threatened with rape (in the very obvious QTE from the Tomb Raider demo, Lara is), and there is a long history of portraying women as weaker than men. This about how these are combined in that demo to create some truly disturbing shit.
Sidenote: Nathan grunts, yes, but his grunts are nowhere near as sexual as Lara’s (seriously, the live blog of the demo over at Kotaku called it, exact quote, “orgasmic”).
This game is taking a female who has existed in games as a badass already and stripping her down to be weak and victimized. Yes, this is an origin story, but there are plenty of ways to do origin stories without turning the character into this. This isn’t “growth in a realistic way”, this is the portrayal of a woman as a victim for the edification of the audience, which is sick. Yes, in the end she may triumph, but that doesn’t mean she had to moan orgasmically along the way.
POP3D
June 9, 2011
Well, that’s the case for this part of the game, doesn’t mean it will be the case for the rest of the game, it could be just the very first moments and then things will develop faster, i think it’s still early to judge.
Though, i believe it’s healthy to bring it out at this time so they make sure to tune it down, rather than to just wait and end up with this all along the way.
gtz
June 9, 2011
“Yes, in the end she may triumph, but that doesn’t mean she had to moan orgasmically along the way.”
Hmm. If that’s all this is about then I think I COULD be convinced. That audio is pretty bad. But if I’ve interpreted this post correctly, I’m just not sure the overall objection is strong enough to make the claim that this is an example of specifically taking away a woman’s power and turning her into a victim. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have someone overcome obstacles to build strength of character. I don’t think it’s unreasonable storytelling, and moreover, I wonder what would make a strong origin story that doesn’t include the character — male or female — struggling and eventually overcoming those struggles.
That said, I definitely appreciate your analysis of the questionable aspects of the demo — and yes, I agree they’re questionable. I’ve been reading your blog for a while now and have been using your insights as a basis to flesh out my own opinions of the various aspects of gaming culture. Thanks for this site, and I’m looking forward to reading more. 🙂
gamersareembarrassing
June 9, 2011
Oh, there is a chance for this game improving, of course, but judging on the demo we saw, it looks pretty freaking dismal so far.
gamersareembarrassing
June 9, 2011
Well yes, they could (and hopefully do) improve it. Unfortunately, at this point, this is all we have to judge based on, and what we have is a load of torture porn with very clear sexual undertones.
It’s not really the kind of first impression that leaves one eager for more.
Marie
June 9, 2011
Oh look a woman that doesn’t need to be saved and isn’t a love interest and you’re still complaining. You don’t want women to succeed in anything, you’re a fauxgressive that tries to get cookies but you really want them from a woman in the kitchen.
Go fuck yourself loser.
gamersareembarrassing
June 9, 2011
Haha, what? Please tell me you don’t think this game is somehow giving off the vibes of a strong/capable woman? Really? With the “don’t get raped’ (in the words of one dev at the press conference for it) QTE? And the orgasmic moaning during torture?
Yes, I would love it if a game gave us a strong female character who did succeed at something without being a love interest or needing to be saved. And what made you think this wasn’t the case? Pretty sure a trailer for what is basically torture porn is not that game though.
Plenty of games have done that (Metroid before Other M being a good example, and actually Tomb Raider prior to this often enough), but nothing shown in this game so far indicates it is anything other than shitty player controlled victimization of a formerly strong female character.
Thanks for the anger, I guess? Seems a little misdirected/poorly thought out, but alright.
EDIT: Of course, judging by a Google search of your e-mail (thanks for that by the way), you are a sad little troll who wants pics of video game characters from playboy scanned for you, so I doubt you genuinely care about this at all.
fodun
June 20, 2011
You might want to read about the rest of the demo.
http://www.1up.com/previews/tomb-raider-reinvention-lara-croft has a pretty good write-up on it.
gamersareembarrassing
June 20, 2011
I will say that article gives some hope for the development of this game, but it would’ve been nice if, in trying to show Lara Croft before she got stronger, they didn’t rely on such cheap “torture porn”-ish tactics. There are plenty of ways to show that a person isn’t strong and fully capable as an adventure that don’t involve invoking bizarre rape tropes.
Sulla
February 23, 2012
“Now, Lara Croft has always been an embarrassingly over-sexualized woman, no doubt, but at the very least she was always portrayed as strong and capable in any situation, so that while she met stupid gamer expectations of female physical sexuality, she at least maybe challenged a little bit of the stupid gamer bias against strong women.”
Typical you go girl shit. Woman are not as strong as men, yet you imply that guys don’t respect them for it? Due to the pussy pass, woman get worshiped no matter what. Look at the performaces of woman in the milltary, woman are not as strong as men full stop.
gamersareembarrassing
February 24, 2012
Again, so much wrong here. You can find women who are stronger than some men, and men who are stronger than some women. But then, that would mean you would have to think about people in more complex terms than “woman are not as strong as men full stop” which is clearly too difficult for you.
Also note: “Look at the performaces of woman in the milltary” is a pretty amazing thing to cite as proof, since women still aren’t allowed to perform the same functions as men in the military.
Also, jesus, dude, typos out the ass there.
Sulla
February 23, 2012
“Here’s the problem: Nathan Drake is never threatened with rape (in the very obvious QTE from the Tomb Raider demo, Lara is), and there is a long history of portraying women as weaker than men. This about how these are combined in that demo to create some truly disturbing shit”
Yes having bad guys threating rape, means you endorse rape! Also woman are weaker than men! It is PC bullshit to deny this.
gamersareembarrassing
February 24, 2012
Holy shit, I don’t even know where to start with you, so I am not going to bother, since clearly (as invoking the “PC” accusation usually indicates), you have made up your mind about me/this site. It’s not for you, we get it.