Guest post: Video games and misogyny - should we be worried?

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As a game reviewer, I play a lot of video games: everything from First Person Shooters to gentle puzzles; from role-playing adventures to saving the princess. Games are the interactive stories of the 21st century, shaping our culture much as film did in the 20th Century. I've met countless kind, considerate, smart and genuine people through gaming who have gone out of their way to help me. I want to be proud to call myself a member of this community.

Alas: there is a snag. For every decent person in the gaming industry, there are at least a dozen others who seem committed to making us all look like misogynistic sociopaths.

In the last couple of weeks, the media's gaze has been focused on a new ‘mod’ – an alteration to a game’s code in order to make it operate in a different way from the original version - that's been added to the ever-controversial Grand Theft Auto 5. Usually, mods are pretty harmless - they can be anything from bug fixes to enabling flying limousines - but GTA's 'rape mod', a user-created addition to the online version of the game, allows players to ‘rape’ other characters. These avatars belong to other players, and once the ‘rapist’ begins, the ‘raped’ player is powerless to move or continue play until the act is completed. It is above and beyond even the graphic violence Rockstar include in the game, and it is humiliating – particularly as videos of the act are often posted on YouTube. Many players have complained to Rockstar's Reddit page, saying that they feel personally violated by the acts. These reports also indicate that the majority of players being targeted are - would you believe it? - female.

For the uninitiated, in GTA 5, the playable characters are exclusively male. After having sex with a prostitute, a player is able to either leave, or kill the prostitute and get their money back. Apart from these prostitutes, there are few female characters in the game's storyline.

The rape mod is only the most recent example of misogyny in gaming; it permeates most corners of the industry. Games developer Zoe Quinn received rave reviews for her game Depression Quest, which tackles the difficult issues surrounding depression and illustrates them in a way that can help both suffers and carers. Rather than celebrating her success, she has been fending off a torrent of ‘slut shaming’, after rumours that she had slept with reviewers flooded gaming forums. Her personal details have been made available on the internet, alleged nude photos of her were stolen from private servers, and her family have been the recipients of rude and abusive phone calls.

In the trailer for the , meanwhile, Lara Croft is taken captive by scavengers on a desert island – and appears to narrowly escape being sexual assaulted. In the game, this scene is interactive, with the players having to use both brute force and intelligence to escape from their captors. If the player does not succeed in escaping, then Lara is killed, and the player must start again.

Would this scene have attracted as much attention if it had been in a novel or TV series? Probably not. But maybe that's the problem. We're not talking about films, categorised as 18 because the viewer will sit in the cinema and see a bit of sex and violence. Instead, players of these games are interacting with the other characters; they are making choices in the real world that they can see reflected in their virtual one. Those GTA users are choosing to kill the prostitute, rather than passively watching it happen on a screen. It may only be the click of a button, but it’s a wilful act.

A recent Canadian study into the behaviour of 100 13- and 14-year-olds found that over-exposure to violent games weakened empathy for others. Of course, concerns over too much screen-time are old hat – and there’s even evidence to suggest that playing video games for an hour a day can be good for children - but surely, when that screen time is spent on interactive games that routinely feature sex and violence, it’s a whole lot more sinister.

There is some hope on the horizon. There are some amazing people out there trying to make a difference. Pixelles, a Canadian online community, runs free workshops and showcases to encourage women to develop more games. Her Interactive, Purple Moon and many other games development companies are openly courting female developers. We’ve also got Feminist Frequency, a popular YouTube channel dedicated to looking at gender equality across all platforms of the gaming industry.

And there are a growing number of people in gaming who don’t want to put up with this anymore. The people who made that rape mod aren't true gamers – gamers are people that want to build a community of friends where they can play and explore peacefully and equally. So I will reclaim the word gamer, because we’re not all misogynistic internet gremlins – some of us girls just wanna have fun.

I still cant believe Anita Sarkeesian raised over 150k to play a few video games

Not only are games showing women in vile positions, but male gamers are so invested in being able to view images of women being brutalised, they will happily issue death threats which are being taken seriously by law enforcement. People who openly support Sarkeesian are also attacked and threatened.

I'm a gamer and from the communities I frequent I have to say that 99% of us find this shit embarrassing in the extreme. These morons drag down a community which is one the whole, a good one, please don't let the Reddit MRA slut-shaming idiot be a synonym for 'gamer', the whole sorry episode makes my skin crawl. The general feeling I get is that some of Sarkeesian's arguments are a stretch, but the discussion must be had if gaming wants to be taken seriously.

Also, the whole Tomb Raider thing is a storm in a teacup, no sexual violence is in the game at all, it all stemmed from a horrendously poorly-phrased interview response from a publisher.

xena26 What a dishonest comment. You know that that's not all she is doing.

I'm a gamer, this kind of thing is infuriating. Gaming will never be taken seriously - in the way films are now taken seriously - while we have a very vocal minority who insist on behaving like immature, bigoted fools. Anyone who loves gaming should speak out against thing kind of thing, because for a lot of mainstream people this is all they know about gaming.

To put it in context: How seriously would anyone take the film industry if all they heard about was tentacle porn?

Exactly, Saskia the video nasty outcry was one thing, but everyone knew what a film was, they'd all watched Star Wars or Apocalypse Now. On the other hand, not everyone has played Half-Life or Portal or Braid. Mention computer games in an adult context and you've got about twenty posts tops before someone mentions killing prostitutes. As you say, frustrating to be a gamer in that context.

Your interpretation of Saskia's post is quite different to mine, JC.

I did go off on a tangent, but I do agree with Saskia.

Or have I horribly misinterpreted? It wouldn't be the first time.

BreakingDad77 PEGI became law in 2012, so all you "cool mums and dads" who bought black ops, ghosts etc have been breaking the law and your no different to supplying them with say a copy of Reservoir dogs.

Wrong, it's only illegal for retailers to serve under age persons. It's entirely at the discretion of the parents if they let their kids play higher rated video games or not. Unlike alcohol parents can buy higher rated games on behalf of their kids.

www.videostandards.org.uk/VSC/games_ratings.html

Fancy meeting you here on MN, claire

Increasingly antisocial behaviours such as murder, rape, and violence are now easier to find (than say 20 years ago) on any TV channel, movies, video games and other types of media. The question is - Are we comfortable with these indicators of the way society and humanity is developing? Should we as a society have a blanket acceptance of these things as 'part of human nature', or should we question our acceptance of them more deeply?

To those who are in support of the rape mod, please take some time to ponder these questions. Its not a matter of "If I play GTAV today and use the rape mod, will I go out and rape someone tomorrow?" The question is actually "If I play GTAV today and use the rape mod, will I abuse/shout at my wife/girlfriend/children in some way in the near future? Would I attempt to have sex with someone and 'ignore' their no? Would I shout a sexual slur at a stranger on the street?" These are behaviours which the average man is far more likely to engage in when exposed to antisocial actions deemed 'normal'.

"I still cant believe Anita Sarkeesian raised over 150k to play a few video games"

You and I both know that's not how it happened. She didn't ask for 150k, only 6k. The fact that she surpassed her goal so spectacularly is down to the level of concern over the issue as well as the outrage at the online abuse she suffered: rape threats, death threats, someone even developed a game where you can punch her in the face. Bunch of sickos.

So don't try to make out AS is some kind of gold digger. She cares passionately about this issue, else she wouldn't risk her safety to continue it would she?

And she didn't make her evidence up did she? All the game clips she shows actually exist don't they? I would love to get into gaming but this kind of stuff just puts me off. But maybe that's the intended effect.

GTA5 is an 18 rated game. So as a start it shouldn't be even seen by children, let alone played. There is also increasing evidence against any negative real world effects which violent gaming has on people.

To be clear though, I think this 'mod' takes things a bit far, but I'd much rather individuals got their kicks on a game rather than in real life.

"I'd much rather individuals got their kicks on a game rather than in real life."

Do you think that's how it works, so the games curb real life behaviour?

"The game allows players to kill each other too. Is there any evidence this has led to murder in real life?" It is a continuum. There is the gradual normalisation of violence. Gamers may not go out and kill someone but as Melissa says in her blog post there is evidence that suggests there is a gradual erosion of empathy for others. That is never going to be a good thing. And from a female perspective the fact that sexual violence keeps appearing is incredibly worrying and keeps feeding into the rape culture: Women are here to be sexual objects for men. Men are entitled to penetrate them when they like.

Anecdotally if you look at the Relationships board on MN there is plenty of evidence showing a correlation between abusive men and gaming and pornography. The lived experiences of women are real and matter whether those dismissing our concerns think so or not.

If I had a child or indeed any family member who 'got their kicks on a game' involving violence - especially sexual violence - I would be banging on the doors of psychiatrists, tbh. I pity people who view all this as a bit of fun.

Well exactly donnie. It would be incredibly worrying.

As a gamer I hate the argument that people play games so they don't do things in real life or that they're satisfying some morbid urges. Somebody arguing that would worry me. I play games, some of which are violent, because of the game play or the story or the choices given to the player.

Agree JCDenton - (I loved deus_ex)

You would think army recruitment would translate from the amount of COD, MW etc if it were that clear cut.

Twisted people will pursue and make use of any media that satisfies their desires. All those high school shooters played first person shooters, but they all had deep seated MH issues and possibly related to the medication of teens in US.

With pornography BDSM is between two people with trust, but from on here and in general it can get hi-jacked by awful sadists who just want to hurt people.

I think this article is a bit of a storm in a teacup, cherry picking a few bad examples and making out them to be a major problem in the world of gaming. As a hardcore gamer who used do a fair bit of on-line gaming, gender was rarely an issue and the majority of the time there was no way of knowing whether the random people you were playing with were male or female. (Unless they connected the headset which not many people did anyway). I used to mix it up and play as male and female characters and didn't think it made much odds to be honest. I don't bother with on-line gaming any more, the novelty has worn off and the bigger issue was the amount of cheaters and people who just quit on you if they weren't winning. Very annoying!

With regards to the concerns of the affect of violent video games on people, the studies are pretty ambiguous and all come to very different conclusions. However recent studies have shown that aggression is caused from games that are difficult to play, not the violent content of the game. This seems more logical to me. 'Candy Crush' make me far more annoyed than the 18 certificate, point and click game 'The Walking Dead' for example.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26921743

Do you think that's how it works, so the games curb real life behaviour?

Research repeatedly and consistently shows no link between video game violence and real life violence. More recently, some studies have actually showed the opposite, that gamers are actually more likely to be law abiding citizens, not necessarily because they can live out their fantasies in a game, but more because they have a channel for the release of built up tension, much like someone who unwinds and relaxes with exercise, for example.

It's easy to find violent people and show that they played violent video games, but this is a false cause/effect conclusion. It actually makes perfect sense that a naturally aggressive and anti-social individual would find violent games appealing, but that is the effect of their nature rather than a cause for it.

"ome studies have actually showed the opposite, that gamers are actually more likely to be law abiding citizens, not necessarily because they can live out their fantasies in a game, but more because they have a channel for the release of built up tension, much like someone who unwinds and relaxes with exercise, for example. "

Do the studies show this cause and effect then? I'm curious!

i'm actually not that bothered about whether violent games lead to violent behaviour directly (well, i am, but arguments about this go round and round in circles)

i am bothered by the fact that misogyny and violence against women are used in an entertainment context at all

"i am bothered by the fact that misogyny and violence against women are used in an entertainment context at all" This.