Call of Duty: Black Ops

When I was younger I was a full-on pacifist. I've moderated a bit now. And I practice martial arts, and play MMO's where I'm constantly killing things, and people. I guess that might make me a hypocrite to some, but the distinction between game and life has a strong boundary, doesn't it?

Watch the ad for Call of Duty: Black Ops above. What's your reaction?

Anyway, there have been mixed reactions to the commercial above. For negative, see Sam Machovech's piece on the Atlantic Monthly website. Basically, he's anti-violence, and anti anything that might inspire violence.

For a different take, look at this by Margaret Hartmann on Jezebel.

UDATE: In comments Machovech has confessed that he was more or less concern trolling:

I wrote this piece because I think there's a clear difference between the game of Call of Duty and the real-life violence of this ad, and I feared that mainstream media would focus on the latter as a means of saying "video games are bad." That's their job -- to drum up interest via fear and trolling.

That's what I hoped to combat with my phrase "these aren't the games I play." I do play Call of Duty games alone or with friends; I don't senselessly mimic real war.

Machovech seems to think that the ad is too realistic. Is there anyone who can't figure out that it's fake, a game, a fantasy? In about the time it takes to walk two steps through rubble in high heels?

How To (NOT) Get Your Girlfriend Into Games

Show her this advertisement. That will be a real enticement.



Here's the advertising blurb for it:

Get Your Girlfriend Into Games! is a set of minigames designed specifically to engage any woman in video games entertainment. Best played in couples in versus mode. Suitable for children too!

I see this in a couple of ways. First, the man is fully clothed, the woman is, ahem, not. She is in a more comfortable, relaxed pose, and has a zombie stare at the screen. The text mentions that the game is "designed specifically to engage any woman". Basically, the ad seems to be a product of Objectifications R Us. With a surprise extra from the "women are equivalent to children" grab bag. I don't dispute that reading, but it isn't the only one.

To me, and I think to a lot of men who play video games, the woman sitting next to you on the couch playing video games with you is, at that moment, the most beautiful woman in the world. You might be a total shlub, but she is a goddess. Even in her curlers (do women wear curlers any more?) and bathrobe. I mean, you're breathing the same air, maybe almost touching each other. And she's joining you in one of your favorite activities, which, as far as you know, most women think of as a turn-off or competitor. Nerd Nirvana!

What this game and its ad says to me more than anything is that a lot of men would really, really like to have their partners join them in videogaming. And the company selling this game is bent on exploiting that desire. I seriously doubt that this game, even shorn of the offensive advertising, would do much toward enticing a spouse to play video games.

I happen to know several couples that play MMORPG's. For most of the women, they first got into the game through their husband/partner. So how did they do it? I'm not sure, because my spouse started MMO's the same time as me, and we both had tabletop RP background. She's special that way.

One of the qualities that MMO's have is that they almost all have a fairly gentle learning curve. And if you are playing together with a partner that has more experienced, most of the bumps can be navigated around. It can be tough to be a noob. But as the noob gains confidence, they start to strike out on their own a little, or more. It's a wonderful blooming, which I enjoy watching.

But there are a lot of videogames that don't have such a gentle learning curve. PvP games can be particularly brutal this way. You might have to go months before you experience any success. But there are other issues.

Tobi Beck is a woman who has served in the Army and has put on armor and done a considerable amount of fighting in the Society for Creative Anachronism. That's right, what we do with pixels, she does for real. She wrote a book about her experiences called The Armored Rose

At one point she lists five hurdles that she feels women need to overcome to be successful at fighting in SCA. I think that they have some relevance to playing PVP videogames. I'm just going to list a few of them. I personally believe that men face these hurdles as well. However, men have a lot of cultural support for overcoming them.

• It can be fun to hit someone Most women (and not a few men these days) are trained to never cause anyone discomfort or pain. But in a PVP game, you are trying to ruin the day of the person sitting next to you on the couch. That's kind of breaking a big taboo for you. But for the experienced player, busting each other up is a bonding experience, and fun. In Tobi Beck's world, it involves actually getting hit on the head with a stick (you're wearing a helmet and the stick is padded, but still.) This can be adapted to, but it's got to be understood.


• It can be fun to BE hit. In videogaming, this translates to losing, getting pwnd. This strikes at self worth. This may feel like punishment. This may feel like abandonment, like he(she) doesn't like you. It can be relearned though, and experienced as respect.


• You can have fun with new people Tobi writes of women that can spar with a few people and enjoy it, but don't expand their circle to new people. I see this happening a lot in video games. We all hate PUGs, right?

I don't know where to take this that doesn't sound offensive or condescending. What advice would you give to someone who would like their partner to play more videogames with them?

Sunday Musings

As he so often does, Psychochild has written a post that has started my wheels spinning. He looks at a few essays about videogames and MMOs and concludes that those essays say as much about the essayist as they do about the game.

What is really interesting is that this tends to hold a mirror up to the person looking at the game, whether they realize it or not. One's actions and perceptions in the game tend to reflect as much if not more about the person as they do about the game or even the game's creators.

Once a work of art (and I'm on record as thinking that videogames qualify as art, along with overpasses) is given to the public, the creator loses some ownership. It is not to be expected that every person will give some work of art the same meaning. This is just part of the process. Furthermore, art for which there can be only one meaning tends to be banal and trite. It feels forced and is kind of boring.


We all go looking for things that reinforce our world views and our choices. We look for symbols. We see things as symbols, and as children we draw them as symbols, as stick figures. One of the critical exercises when learning to draw is to stop looking at objects as symbols and start looking at patterns of light and dark instead. This is how one goes from drawing stick figures to painting "Girl With Broom".

So it is, I think with observations of the world. The ability to turn off those "meaning filters" is extraordinarily valuable, and somewhat rare. It can most certainly be learned.

I have little else to say about political interpretations of MMO's other than they are usually very, very superficial.

But what about gender presentation? I've written on this topic before. The posts the Psychochild cites are interesting. I'd like to highlight a few of the issues that I see with portraying females in MMOs.

The first is, human beings as we find them, primarily in the United States, prefer clearly disambiguated genders. This isn't destiny, there are many who navigate the world with a more ambiguously gendered stance, sometimes from necessity, and sometimes from artistic choice. Marilyn Manson, Boy George, David Bowie and Eddie Izzard leap to mind.

But speaking for myself, encountering an ambiguously gendered person creates some anxiety. I've had my gender mistaken over the phone. Unlike the reaction of someone who is trans, I was not happy about that, nor was the person I was talking to, when I informed them. These are mistakes we don't like to make.

In the course of my long-time tabletop RPG, I have collected and painted miniatures. Many of them were female. Portraying the gender of a pewter (they have no lead any more) figurine that is about 1.25 inches high is a big challenge for a sculptor.

Person to person there are many, many gender cues. Along with the differences in body shape, there are some facial tendencies, differences in skin, in voice, in hair, in gait, and in posture. We call a man effeminate for holding his wrists a certain way. The cues in the Rembrandt painting above are subtle but unambigious, it is a girl that is being portrayed, not a boy.

But in a 1.25 inch high miniature, we lose most of this gender coding. There's no voice, the skin texture or quality is lost, the figure is static, and hence has no gait. Faces are too small to really portray the subtle facial differences. Posture can do it, anatomy (re: larger breasts and hips) can do it, and sometimes hair can do it. Of course, if it's an armored figure, in a fighting pose, that eliminates posture and hair. So we are left with breasts and to a lesser extent, hips to portray gender.

So it's likely that they will be exaggerated. One can portray gender with dress and hairstyle, and on these figures, the body shapes tend, in fact, to be less exaggerated.

The problems with miniatures are not as severe when translated into 3D art in an MMO, but they still exist. Looking at pixels on your screen is still not the same as the real thing. MMO characters don't often talk. Differences in skin texture are difficult. They have their name banner, which can be helpful, but they might have fantasy names, not so helpful. You can portray gender by placing an NPC in a traditional gender role. But that ends up seeming pretty sexist. But the culture they live in might be one with highly rigid gender roles.

So there are still some problems. But we are talking about NPC's and I think the options available to artists and character designers are pretty good. As well as the options available to players for dress and hairstyles. Gone are the days of EQ1 where wood elf females were pretty much stuck with wearing a leotard or plate armor.

But what about mobs, the generic NPC's that you are meant to kill. Have you ever seen a gnoll? I mean, a female gnoll? I don't think I have. There are thousands upon thousands of gnolls in Antonica, Blackburrow and elsewhere. And every single one of them, with the possible exception of a few named, are male. I'm not sure I've ever seen a female orc in EQ2 either. Either that, or it was completely forgettable.

Why is this? Well, gnolls are sentient dogs. We all know how to tell a male dog from a female. But would that be acceptable on a figure that stands up right and talks along with barking? Would any parent let their child play that game?

However, SOE could put clothing on the gnolls, or maybe they already have. But let's press a little further. In our culture, we are equipped with some taboos about women and violence, and I think they are in play in MMO's.

First, there is a taboo against violence toward women and children. I can think of a few places where there are young versions of creatures that one is supposed to kill, but they aren't humanoid. Young drakelings, young wolves, that sort of thing. There aren't many quests where you are supposed to go kill the young hobbits.

There is more violence against females however. Many of the vampires in Mistmoore Castle are female. Many of the great dragons of Norrath are female. There are sirens. The sirens say things when you fight them that rub salt in the wound, as I recall, attempting to shame you for fighting them. Nasty, but they ARE trying to kill me, after all.

There's a corollary taboo that sometimes unfolds: that women do not, or can not, engage in violence.

I do martial arts. I've seen both of the above taboos play out in the dojo. I've seen men who were unwilling to use proper techniques or proper intent when their current partner was a woman. Ultimately, this deprives the woman of critical training, and ends up being a lack of respect. One of the first things most women must overcome when they come in the door is the idea that they are not capable of violence. (I consider that idea dangerous, by the way. I think it's better to know what's in the shadows than to ignore it).

I've seen this play out in MMO's as well. I've watched many women come into the game choosing first to be a healer. Then, it seems, they discover the joy of doing DPS. This arc ends with them becoming tanks.

In order to tank, anyone, woman or man, must be comfortable with being the center of attention, the initiator of action, and with the idea that they are going to have a bunch of NPC's trying to kill them constantly, and that this is something to be desired and fun. There are things in male culture (outside of gaming) that support this better than female culture, I think. But that's not hard-wired, it's clear that anyone with a will can learn it.

Getting back to the subject of gnolls, I have to wonder if there is a lack of female gnolls precisely because game designers (or players) were uncomfortable with the idea of making war on the women (and by extension, the children). Gnolls are mostly cardboard cutout, the sentient version of the fire beetles. They are there to be a punching bag.

Would you put a woman's face on a punching bag?

Transgender Positive Fail from 4Story

I'm transgender positive. In my 3000 years, I've known a few people who have made this epic transition. They are special people. I'm talking about life here, not just MMOs.

MMORPG has a press release, more or less from 4Story titled, "4Story News - Transgender Potion Giveaway". Transgender potions sound kind of neat (and my red hair is JUST as fabulous in female styles, I'll have you know), so I thought I'd read the story.

Here is the whole text:

To celebrate 4Story's release of Coliseum Update, 4Story Global Service team is giving away free gift codes here at MMORPG.com. Each keys will enable you to redeem brand new newbie package and additional 5 transgender potions which allows you to camouflage your character switching your sex.
There is nothing more important in MMORPG world than reaching higher level faster and hiding your real force against the others. In this way, you will slay all enemies in severe coliseum battles.

Wow, the level of gender assumptions in that one paragraph makes my head spin. The level of ignorance and idiocy it assumes on the part of players is astonishing. Looking at their website, 4Story is a free-to-play fantasy based MMO, which has a "WAR" feature, claiming that anyone at any level can join.

I couldn't tell if they gimped female toons or not. They certainly put them in non-functional cosmetic armor, based on their supporting artwork. But really, I suspect not. As usual, it's entirely an appearance thing.

The first question would be, if a female toon really levels faster than a male one, why don't you then simply play a female toon? Why bother with a transgender potion? I guess maybe you didn't think of that when you started the toon?

To be fair, there probably are a lot of players that will see a female avatar and think that they are no pvp threat. Men do pvp more than women as a statistical thing. But if they are in the war, one would assume that they are competent, wouldn't one? Doing otherwise will get you killed.

Now, if their are people playing 4Story dumb enough to make that assumption, I can see the temptation to play female and kick their ass. Repeatedly.

But if that happens enough, it kind of kills the advantage, doesn't it?

No, I suspect that demand for transgender potions comes some from the above "I'll get an advantage because gurlz have it so easy" foolishness, but more from other desires, like "What would it be like to play and be perceived as a girl/man?" It might also come from women who aren't really interested in unsolicited comments on body parts, or unwanted solicitations for cybersex. Or, it might come from a simple desire for fun.

The thesis that women are less hard-core than men is a lie based on a half-truth. By several metrics, on average women players are less "hard-core" than men. However, the top 10% of women players are, in fact, more hard-core than the top 10% of men. I personally know three women in my guild (one doesn't play any more) who are more hard-core than I am. And there's a few more that are neck and neck, or maybe have been more hard-core than me in the past.

But no, these idiots have to sell based on competetive advantage. Their website also is slow-loading, with lots of splashy, sexualized graphics, and exciting music that takes forever to load. In short, they think I'm stupid, led around by my hormones, and easily swayed by irrelevancies. Oh, and they assume I'm hetero male, since there are no hot looking men in the art.

And I'll bet these guys sit around in marketing meetings sometimes asking "How can we get more women to play this game?" I'd headdesk at this point, but I don't want to muss up my hair. They aren't worth it.

Cross Dressing FTW?

You've heard the idea the female toons get better treatment than male ones, right? You know, flutter your eyes and men will give you stuff?

Gender swapped online roleplaying was investigated in a recent article published in Cyberpsychology and Behavior. I ran across it at Shakespeare's Sister, who passed it on from Hoyden.

In short, the study looked at men who play women toons, and women who play men toons, why they did it, and what there experience was. If you read the study you will find, (and not to your great surprise, I'll bet)

• Women did it to avoid sexual harrassment.


• Both genders did it out of curiousity, and those switching to male toons discovered that they were treated differently.

One participant said he found that the female character "meant that male gamers treated him far better." One male (age 20) participant said,

If you play a chick and know what the usual nerd wants to read, you will get free items … which in turn I pass them to my other male characters … very simple. NerdBoobLoot.

Another participant, also male, said:

Because if you make your character a woman, men tend to treat you FAR better.

Of course, the women are saying, for example,

Mostly my characters are female, but I think I made my male character because I was tired of creepy guys hitting on my female characters. It's utterly ridiculous, very annoying, and not the reason why I play the game.

But what makes it into the abstract of the article? It says

and it is suggested that the online female persona has a number of positive social attributes in a male-oriented environment.

It doesn't mention the negative social aspects, or the notion that it wasn't just female appearance, but what they authors call "performativity". I think that refers to "If you know what [they] want to read..."

Kind of a disconnect there, don't you think?

Lauredhel, who wrote the post at Hoyden, goes on to say:

This brief, almost voyeuristic gender-swapping by virtual tourists seems to be hooking in to badly erroneous ideas of what it is like to be female online. What it is like to be constantly reminded of your status as a member of the sex class, to be evaluated, to be constantly subjected to covert and overt threats of sexual violence. I wonder how long the “better treatment” assessment would last if subjected to it all. the. time, in every aspect of life?
...
What happens to women online who don't make themselves sexually available, who don't conform to the patriarchal script? And to some who do, come to that; these experiences aren't constrained to only certain situations, and they aren't caused by women's behaviour. Women get shouted at—"Tits or GTFO!", they get mercilessly harassed, they get stalked, they receive rape and death threats. ...

One of the common responses is to say "put them on /ignore". There's a problem with that, though. Lauredhel, again:

One almost universal response to complaints about online harassment, threats, and simulated assaults? A simplistic, victim-blaming "I don't see the problem—just switch it off and get over it." Reactions to face-to-face harassment complaints and online complaints bear striking similarities. Are they different transgressions? Of course. Should women be forced to make a choice between withdrawing themselves from the online world or tolerating sexual harassment? That's just another way of saying "Tits or GTFO," and I strenuously disagree.

I'm with you on that. And I say that as someone with a longstanding interest in tits. In fact, I've made a thorough study of them. But I never got the idea that I owned them, or that their sole purpose for existence was my viewing enjoyment.

I'd like to consider the contempt of the one male respondent for the "typical nerd". I can't help it, I identify with nerds, I was one once. Ok, maybe that was 2500 of my 3000 years ago, but I was.

What the respondent did was play a female toon for phat giveaway l00t. I'll bet he initiated interactions with male toons, injected sexual overtones into the interaction , and begged for loot. Then he turns around and pours contempt on women AND the men (who he calls nerds) he's conned out of stuff. Just exactly who is deserving of contempt here? This is projection at its finest: "That's what I'd do if I had boobs, so obviously that's what women, the true owners of boobs do all the time."

This is what we call narcissism. The inappropriate behavior here is

• Unsolicited and unwelcome sexual advances


• Perpetrating a confidence game designed to shake loose in-game wealth.


• Begging for generic wealth, which has no place in an online game.

A couple of times I've run into this in-game. A female toon, unknown to me, will start talking to me and playing up to me. My reaction at the time was more or less, "WTF?" Because that stuff just doesn't happen to me.

So here's a word of advice to all nerds. If a complete stranger starts flirting with you heavily, the probability is very high that YOU ARE BEING PLAYED, probably by a cross dresser. It isn't your good looks, because in game, EVERYONE looks that good. And it isn't your charm, because THEY HAVEN'T met you. (My apologies for the shouting, but I'm trying to be heard above the hormones.)

If you really want to see a female toon dance, just make one and make a macro that alternates between /flirt, /dance, and /shimmy. It'll be a lot cheaper.

If you're interested, here's the original post, and some further discussion.

Women in Armor: Part 3

Further surfing on the subject of women in armor has taken me inevitably to more sites associated with SCA (The Society for Creative Anachronism). SwordMaiden.com is one such, and has among other interesting information, a page about women fighters in history. It contains these anecdotes, which I pass on to you:

In the 14th century, Sir Richard Shaw wrote of fighting and besting a Flemish knight who, when the armor was opened, turned out to be a woman whose identity was never discovered.

Agnes Hotot of House Dudley (born approximately 1378AD) took up arms in the place of her ailing father and bested her opponent in a mounted duel. The family coat of arms show a woman in a helmet, hair disheveled and breasts exposed (apparently she exposed them after the duel to humiliate her opponent).

Pierre Gentien, a French poet of the 13th century, wrote a rhymed epic in which he names some 50 women who, in order to prepare for the Crusades, held and participated in a tournament.

The songs and tales of the time are replete with tales of unknown knights who enter tournaments. Could some of them have been women in disguise?

Since I Mentioned Armor on Women

This seemed relevant. From a website run by members of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Even the Queen?

Yesterday's post of screenshots of my Antonia Bayle illusion got me thinking. I'm not really all that happy with the portrayal of the Queen of Qeynos.

I may be 3000 years old and a pansy high elf, but it turns out I'm straight. I don't mind a little cheescake, not at all. This is not about me being prudish. But it seems to me that the Queen, the Monarch of one of the two major cities in the game, should project some authority. That particular model not only had unrealistic proportions, but the animations included back-arching, hip jutting, and other sexually-charged movements.

I've seen a few other models that do this sort of thing in game. For example, barmaids and dancers in taverns. This seems in character. And the female /flirt emote does it. Which is fine, because it means players choose to do that.

Sexuality is part of life, and we all find it appealing. At a time and place of our choosing. The problem comes when it becomes a category killer. When the only thing of interest or value in a woman is her physical sexual appeal.

Yes, I know that skin sells the game. But there are so many other things that you could do. Let's consider an archetype fantasy female -- Xena, Warrior Princess. She could be my queen any day. Lucy Lawless, as Xena, most definitely projected authority. You wouldn't catch Xena mincing around like that, except maybe for the right person at the time of her choosing.

You wouldn't have to stop with Lucy Lawless' Xena. Another possibility is Galadriel, as portrayed by Cate Blanchett. Not as much skin, but unquestionably beautiful, and with a clear bearing of authority. Which said bearing Ms. Blanchett put to good use portraying another Queen, Elizabeth.

There are other actresses and celebrities who might serve as models, even though they haven't necessarily portrayed queens. Susan Sarandon successfully navigates sex appeal , independence and authority in many films, my favorite being Bull Durham. Ok, that was twenty years ago. I told you I was 3000 years old, what's 20 years among friends? Here's SS in Children of Dune as a princess, showing what I'm talking about.

Though not royal, Gwyneth Paltrow's title character in Emma carried a lot of authority, even while being a bit clueless about her own heart. The photo doesn't show it quite so much, but Emma was more than happy to run people's lives, especially their love lives.

Jane Fonda may be in my age range, but she still looks good, and definitely looks queenly.

And of course, the Everquest icon Firiona Vie may dress like a tramp, but leaves no doubt that she can kick your ass. But then, she's a high elf, we're like that. Blogger Amber says of Firiona Vie:

If there is a single iconic representation of MMORPG’s, she’s it. She’s also a great example of how evil never attacks your midriff, arms, legs, head, or cleavage.

Everquest 2 does pretty good on the "armor does its job score". Plate armor does not develop big holes in certain spots when female toons put it on. Nor does chain or leather. And leather is supposed to be tight fitting. I think that should a woman in the more mundane world put on plate armor, her gender would be less noticeable than it is in-game. However, I think that people like to be able the tell the difference, and have got a helping hand from the artists.

It can be noted that the "around town" clothing for female characters universally shows skin, whereas the male versions are more varied. I note that there is plenty of coverage available in the cloth armor line, now that it can be used as appearance gear, but it wouldn't hurt to have something that looks good but gives a little more range. You know, shoulder and arms, but not thighs? and so on.

Anyway, to sum up. Antonia Bayle's job is to rule Qeynos, command the military, bring order to the streets. Not to lead me around by the nether regions. She does not exist to give me pleasure. Not that she delivers on the promise implied by her behavior. Yes, she is also the sales icon for the game, but good grief, Your Majesty, have a little dignity. You wouldn't ever catch Lucan doing the Chippendale thing, would you?

Who's That Girl?

Hey, that woman looks familiar somehow. I've seen her around somewhere, you know, with a crown on. Oh yeah, it's Queen Toni, who reigns over Fish's Follies, in Fish's Ale House twice nightly except Mondays.

Eh, what's that? Oh, Your Majesty. I beg your pardon. Umm, yes, there IS an uncanny likeness, isn't there? Are you sure you've never been to Fish's? Er, of course not, no.

As it happens, Your Majesty, it was just my little joke about the new illusion I got while undertaking my epic weapon quest. I got to look like you for a few moments. Queen for a Day, as it were. And I must say, I look good as you. Especially the hair. I just love red hair, but you knew that didn't you? You didn't? Never mind.

I got this illusion from the Antonia Bayle statue nearby the mage tower in South Qeynos. I used it to pick up a book that was reserved for only the Queen's eyes, so shhh! I don't know if it will still work for me when I finish the quest or not, and it only lasts about 2-3 minutes. So I can't go adventuring as AB. Not just the models appearance, but her animation is, shall we say, not very Queenly.

Just to show my bonafides, here's a shot that shows my name tag.