Over on Roosh V’s endearingly clueless gaming site Reaxxion, a self-described Red Piller named Mike Caputo is still mad at writer and experimental game developer Devin Wilson for suggesting, in a Gamasutra blog post last August, that video games aspire to be more than just “fun.”
This wouldn’t seem to be a particularly radical notion. I mean, “fun” is not the only thing that we humans expect to get out of art. Not every book I read is “fun.” Not every movie I watch is “fun.” Art is often challenging and even unpleasant. And aren’t #GamerGaters always telling us that video games are art? That they’re more meaningful than a game of Skee-ball?
Well, apparently not to Caputo, who thinks that trying to make video games anything other than fun is the equivalent of trying to bring back the Soviet Union.
Evidently unable to believe that gamers might be able to handle video games that are anything other than plain old fun, he warns readers that
video games will no longer exist as a medium in which to promote social good if they are not fun: no matter how well-designed for this purpose, their “healing” powers will go to waste because no one will play them.
And this makes him think of COMMUNISM. Because making video games that aspire to be more than “fun” is basically the same thing as making tractors that don’t work.
By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, it was littered with things like factories producing farm equipment that was worth less than its component parts, because not only did the end product not work, but the cost of salvaging the components was too high to be economical. This will be the result if we allow feminists and other peddlers of academic sanctimony to continue to interfere with the video game marketplace and turn it into a PC haven.
By “PC” I’m pretty sure he means “politically correct” and not “personal computer,” because all truly manly gamers know that PC Gamers are the “master race.”
Caputo warns his readers that the evil feminaziscommies are actually worse than the real commies. The Soviets, after all, weren’t deliberately trying to make tractors that didn’t work. But feminists are trying to bring down gaming on purpose.
[T]he feminist campaign to destroy gaming is just one piece of a larger strategy to eliminate or co-opt masculinity in all its forms. Video games are one of the few media that cater more to male than female entertainment preferences: they are dominated by games involving sports, war, and fighting, and often contain images of the female body that appeal to male sexuality.
It’s true. Outside of video games, images of sexy ladies are pretty much impossible to find. And sports? Just try to find that on television or in any of the gigantic stadiums and ball parks that dot virtually every largish city in America.
It’s time, Caputo cries, to “man the battlements.”
If you imagine the world of entertainment or leisure generally as a map, video games are one of the few geographic regions where boys are still allowed to be boys, and this is simply not tolerable to feminists. They look at that territory and see a dark black stain on the pink-tinted expanse of modern culture. Feminine sensibilities and political correctness dominate the traditional media, Hollywood, academia, and publishing, while video games serve a niche market that, though large in absolute numbers, impacts a far smaller percentage of the population than other media. In other words, they have us surrounded.
But all is not lost! The only reason the evil femmies seem to be winning now is because
we haven’t been fighting back. Men have spent 50 years meekly retreating, conceding cultural territory, and even defecting to the other side. It has taken a blatant, undisguised assault on some of the least-threatening members of the male population, people who mostly just want to enjoy their hobby in peace.
Apparently, enjoying a hobby in peace involves making lots of rape jokes and sending out death threats.
Caputo’s solution? Be a manly man and don’t listen to those devious wimmenz.
The answer is to become a man in the traditional sense: self-sufficient, productive, ambitious, knowledgeable about the world you live in, and resistant to female emotional manipulation.
La la la I can’t hear you, ladies!
Women who understand the benefits they get from living in a masculine environment will do what the majority of women do best: follow and support you, or get out of your way. The rest, alone, bitter, and without any offspring to indoctrinate as future feminists, will join their ideological fellow-travelers in the dustbin of history.
Huh. You know who else liked to talk about his opponents being tossed into the “dustbin of history?”
This dude.
H/T — Responds_to_Woosh on r/againstmensrights
I can think of a lot of parents who are very happy to find games that their children can play that are not just about fun. Most parents would like there to be at least a small educational component, even a little ‘moral guidance’ in some games, as gaming in itself is often not giving a child any skills, unlike traditional games or toys.
This man has a very narrow view of what gaming is and who it is for, as he does about the media – only gaming is male dominated?! Just about every area of journalism and film making is male dominated! ‘Celebrity’ gossip etc IS female dominated, but…1) Not feminist, and 2) is so lacking in skill, artistry, and creative or reporting integrity that I really do not think he needs to consider it some kind of threat!
Devin’s remark seems pretty innocuous to me, but then I am not a paranoid Manospherian. Communist game development?! LOL!
I should add I do not think that gaming is male dominated NOW – I believe it has been, but I know that is changing all the time.
Also – Tetris – one of the most famous and successful games ever produced, has a strong educational component, AND created by a RUSSIAN MAN! Was he a communist? – I think we need to be told.
“video games will no longer exist as a medium in which to promote social good if they are not fun”
Good thing they will continue to be fun, then. And being inclusive and respectful will only increase the audience.
Plus, if it’s true that inclusivity and lack of rape jokes sucks the fun out of videogames for these people, then that’s a bonus. I would enjoy League of Legends a lot more if I didn’t have to read shit like “Bend down and take it like a woman” when a someone kills an enemy.
Also, it is all about ethics in comics journalism…
http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/news/130951-dc-cancels-controversial-batgirl-variant-cites-threats-of-violence-against-people-who-criticized-cover.html
My comment is a bit of a mess.
Here, have a game to make up for it. It has a female protagonist with an unnatural hair color.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/625766
Damn it, there onto us! But we lasted 50 y without resistance, that’s not bad, ladies (yes, that include you too, male defectors. You know you’ve lost your virility)
Anyway, you’re obviously wrong about your prediction, Caputo, we will not be out-bread! Biology reminder: you really don’t need many men to reproduce, while a person with a uterus can only produce one or two (rarely more) baby every 9 months.
So you and the few submissive women that will “follow” you are in a terrible situation will lead to a rapid decrease of the population and inbreeding.
One the other side, our side, we will have no such problem since we have: the defectors, probably most queer people, including gay and bi men and trans women (unless you’re claiming them for your side? I don’t think so) and all the male fetuses, babies and toddlers we have hostages. Between that and SCIENCE (since we have everything but videogames, I assume we have science), we will easily able to inseminate new generations of hive-mind commie-feminazies.
Check-mate, men. (yes we own this game too. It’s totally a commie game)
@sparky:
As far as I can tell they genuinely believe they’re the same thing, or it’s just an insult word with no real meaning. Either way they don’t seem to understand the words. Or history.
I’d like to think that saying, “stop being a dick” to someone when they’re being a dick is basically what feminists are doing, which doesn’t seem terribly communist or nazi to me.
@Paradoxical:
And when you’re apparently completely unable to identify with at least 50% of the population in any way, to the extent that watching a film or playing a game starring someone that’s not in ‘your group’ is an alienating experience. Can someone explain Portal’s popularity to me please? Because I’m told it’s unplayable by all gamers due to having a female character, and as this guy says video games are still a mainly manly space.
‘Caputo’s solution? Be a manly man and don’t listen to those devious wimmenz.’
Why is there no love button on this site *despair*.
Women! the game is up as our plan is foiled at the first stage. World/male domination was one strong female game protagonist( with regular boobs and protective clothing away) from defeating the man! Foiled I tell you! Foiled! Commies away……
@Tyra:
Ignorant people too often are 🙁
Exactly. If it were already the case that we had loads of movies centred around female characters, I doubt the idea of making an all-women Ghostbusters would even have come up. It wouldn’t catch attention, it would just seem pointless. Like, no one takes a movie where the original characters worked in blue collar jobs and remake it with characters working in white collar jobs, because that would just seem utterly pointless.
If I remember correctly, there was this MRA quoted by David as saying that it’s comprehensible that some men opt out and become women instead (referring to trans women) since women’s lives are so much easier. Because yeah, being a trans woman is totally easy in today’s society.
Tōru Iwatani, the designer of Pac-Man has stated that one of his goals in developing that game was to make something that appealed to both male and female players. I guess that makes him a big ol’ mangina. No wonder Pac-Man disappeared into obscurity… oh, wait…
Randomavatar-
That was pretty much my first thought. “Fun” is not the be all/end all of gaming now, much less in the past. Heck, whole genres like horror games are predicated on the game sacrificing elements that would make it more “fun” in order to make the game more frightening, unsettling, or invoking a feeling of vilnerability.
Hell, talking about how every game shouldn’t focus only on fun is not new either. I remember reading a number of articles years ago about how we shouldn’t focus on just fun, but rather should talk about engagement in games. But then those weren’t written at a time when a bunch of terrorists needed an excuse to feel aggrieved and justify their conspiracy theories.
Lith-
I think this part is extra ironic seeing as how their main backlash was started over women and other minorities feeling alienated from the majority of stories in gaming and trying to create their own works or advocate for alternatives.
But I guess that’s entitlement in a nutshell, being so used to utterly dominating a medium that the existence of single works outside that feels like a personal slight.
GGers seem to only accomplish 1 out of 5. Two if you count sending rape threats and death threats as “ambitious”.
@KSRay:
I dunno, they seem pretty “resistant to female emotional manipulation,” if by that you mean “incapable of empathy towards their female targets despite those targets speaking out about how awful the abuse they receive is.”
@Cerberus:
The irony increases when you realize one of the big defenses of the glut of male protagonists, apart from “only men really play those games silly,” is that the gender shouldn’t matter to anyone if the game is good, so non-white-men shouldn’t complain about all the stories having white male protagonists.
@KSRay:
Aaaand I can read, so my previous comment doesn’t actually exist. Isn’t rewriting the past fun?
@kirby
They sure love having straight white male be the default and then arguing that a protagonist shouldn’t be black unless the story is about being black, or a character shouldn’t be gay unless it matters to the plot. Non-straightwhitemales aren’t allowed to simply exist outside of their relation to straight white males or the tiny box that is “stories about thing/s that make/s them non-straightwhitemale”. Not without them whining about it, anyway.
But emotional manipulation by dudes, that’s peachy keen.
Emotional manipulation = having emotions. Empathy is misandry!
@Lea Spot on. Would also like to second the notion that emotional manipulation = civilly expressing disapproval at something they’ve done that’s seriously wrong.
“My girlfriend told me to stop joking about her weight in front of her! That harpy is trying to control me! MISANDRY!”
Forgot to add “I’m not hurting anyone, they’re just jokes!” in that bit above.
I remember seeing some stuff about some MRA’s (the more left-wing variety) starting out in the Trotskyist movement. I forgot where the material was, but there’s stuff like this (defending hebephiles): http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wh/209/Polanski.html
@Paradoxical Intention
Good Gravy, that blog made me simultaneously snicker and SMH! The effort being put into gendering products is absurd. I guess I didn’t realize just how much this was being done until I saw that. Just…wow.
As for the OP, is this guy really having a hissy fit over his precious man-space being invaded (and by feminazicommies, no less)? Dude, if you want to live in a straight, white, male dominated world you are in luck…because patriarchy and white privilege and stuff.