Tag: feminism
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The Weirdness of the Ellie Controversy
If you’ve been on the internet in the past week, you may have heard talk about “Ellie.” Ellie started out being the first female player on Second Wind, an Overwatch Contenders team. Contenders is essentially the Minor League of Overwatch esports, and to add a woman to Second Wind was a pretty big deal. The…
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Zero Suit Samus: From Sexist to Strong
Zero Suit Samus is as old as Metroid itself. Since her introduction, she has become a character in her own right. Originally, she was an unlockable ‘reward’ in the first Metroid game. The closing sequence would see Samus remove her suit to reveal more skin the faster your time. The 1980s clearly have not aged…
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Creating Meaning in Heaven Will Be Mine
Heaven Will Be Mine is a 2018 visual novel by Mia Schwartz and Aevee Bee. It is the spiritual sequel to 2016’s We Know the Devil, taking with it many of the first game’s naming conventions and decidedly queer romances while shifting the story to space in an alternate universe’s 1981. It’s a gorgeous masterpiece, and you…
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Butterfly Soup: The Bisexual Visual Novel We’ve Been Waiting For
There are three main things you have to know about Butterfly Soup, 1) It’s very, very gay, 2) It’s also very, very bi, and 3) it knows how to do representation very, very well. The creator of the visual novel, Brianna Lei, describes the game as “A game about gay Asian girls playing baseball and…
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Is There a Link Between Intelligence and Playing Video Games?
The stereotype that gamers are lazy slobs has been floating around ever since video games were first invented. Although I don’t see anything wrong with leading a chill life, there’s now scientific research to prove the haters wrong. A recent study was conducted by the University of York (United Kingdom), on the link between video…
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10 Gifs That Perfectly Describe Gamers on Live Chat
Let’s face it, almost all of the bigotry that comes from online gaming comes straight from the live chat. Whether it’s via text form or over voice chat, you always get a slew of gamers who just do not know when to stop talking. Sometimes you’ll find feminist-friendly servers, or at least a match full…
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Horror Games That Don’t Rely On the ‘Mental Illness is Scary’ Trope
If I asked you to think about the average horror game setting, then chances are that your mind probably wandered to an abandoned mental hospital, or a spooky forest inhabited by “crazy people.” I know mine does. The horror game market is so overly saturated in games about mentally ill villains, that it’s clear many…
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The Hypocrisy of our Love of Sheik: A Character to be Seen and Not Heard
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, wasn’t a very popular game in my social group. The Scottish kids I grew up with were more interested in soccer, boy-girl pop groups, and Furbys. As such, I never really heard the name ‘Zelda’ being thrown around. [SPOILERS For Breath of the Wild, Ocarina of Time, and…
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Why We Need a Bigger Feminist Let’s Play Community
If there’s one thing that I wish there was more of on YouTube, it’d be more feminism, specifically within the Let’s Play community. There are many Let’s Players out there who have called themselves feminists, or at least hold some feminist values, but imagine a video game channel that was dedicated purely to feminist discourse…
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Sheri Graner Ray: 25 Years of Improving the Industry
The conversation about encouraging, supporting, and catering to women who play and make games is old. Really, it’s as old as games themselves. And women like Sheri Graner Ray have been working towards making the industry fairer for over 25 years. Graner Ray joined the industry as a writer in 1989 and has gone on…
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Games Need To Provide Escapism for Women, Too
Horizon Zero Dawn starts with such promise. It seems to give a breath of fresh air for those of us dealing with sexism every day. In the starting area, women and men are considered equally able to fight or sew. They wear similar clothing. There are female military leaders, traders, and explorers. Ladies are allowed…
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Maternity Leave and Democracy 3
I purchased Democracy 3 on Steam in June 2014 after watching Sips play the game on YouTube and feeling incredibly frustrated with how he played the game. Everything was dandy. My first seven hours into the game were fantastic. During hour eight, however, I noticed the connections below when hovering over the “Maternity Leave” bubble in…
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Gender Representation at the Game Developers Choice & IGF Awards
Diversity can’t just be a numbers game, and certainly isn’t limited to gender, but having facts and figures can be crucial to addressing further examinations. How, then, has gender representation in the games nominated for the Game Developers Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival awards changed numerically since their inception – and how do they…
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Let’s Talk About Nudity
Ever noticed how tits ‘n ass are all we ever see in sex scenes? The Witcher has hundreds of sex scenes throughout the series, and yet, have you ever seen Geralt’s penis? It seems like every sex scene in any 18+ rated game is filled with boobs and naked females aplenty, but men’s genitals are almost too sacred to…