(This post contains spoilers for the ending Fable II.)

I’m currently playing Bioshock and will be writing a lot about it in the coming weeks (and I know talking about how awesome Bioshock is at this point is kind of like saying “Hey, have you heard of this thing called ‘The Internet’? It’s super neat!” but bear with me!). To kick things off I’d like to address the hook of the game: the decision whether to “harvest” or rescue the Little Sisters.

A brief summary, for those who don’t know or have forgotten: In Bioshock’s game world of Rapture, the Little Sisters are essentially little girls that have been genetically altered to harvest a substance called Adam from dead people. Adam is used by the inhabitants of Rapture to modify their own genes to give them super powers. Because it is a very valuable substance, the Little Sisters are protected by the now-iconic Big Daddies from the people and creatures who want the Adam from the Little Sisters.

When you kill a Big Daddy you have the option of either rescuing or “harvesting” the Little Sister: harvesting takes all the Adam from her and kills her. Rescuing her takes only some of the Adam and frees her from the creepy enchantment-like state. Thus the game’s “tough moral decision” is set up: do you kill the Little Sister and get more Adam, allowing you to upgrade your powers more quickly and thus be more likely to survive Rapture? Or do you rescue the Little Sister, putting yourself more at risk but doing the Right Thing?

The thing is, during playtesting the Bioshock team found that because the “evil” path was more rewarding, players would almost exclusively choose that path, no moral agonizing. This led to a change in the final game: saving the Little Sisters actually ends up netting you more Adam and more powerful Plasmids (super powers) because in addition to the small amount of Adam gained from rescuing the Little Sister, you are given a gifts from one of the game’s characters as thanks for rescuing them.

So, ultimately, the “tough moral decision” was anything but, even with a charming Scotsman trying to convince me otherwise. For me, saving the Little Sisters was an easy choice: I did the Right Thing, and got better rewards for it.

The choice did, however, leave me to wonder what an actual agonizing moral choice would look like in a game, and how it could be implemented. There is one recent game that possibly does this, or comes close: Fable II.

Unfortunately I haven’t played Fable II, but this is what I know about the ending: during the course of the game your family, your dog, and thousands of people die; after the final boss is defeated you get three choices: 1. You can have 1 million gold (which is fairly meaningless because when playing the game you probably have more than that already), 2. Revive your dog and your family, or 3. Revive the thousands of other people that were killed.

Now just from reading about it, the choice between 2 and 3 seems like a truly difficult choice. Choice 3 nets you more “good” points, and is generally the right thing to do for the greater good, but because by this point the player really cares about her dog (and likely her family as well, depending on what she brings to the table) so doing the not-so-good thing is much more tempting.

Of course, because the townspeople aren’t real, it’s probably easy for a lot of players to simply do what is best for themselves (revive the family) because the game world truly revolves around their character. But I think the emotional connection to what is being lost is something that was missing from the Bioshock choice; so while the ending of Fable II might still be a fairly easy choice for most people, it’s definitely on the right track.

(Next I’ll be getting into some feminist analysis of Bioshock, which I’m really surprised hasn’t been done yet because there is a lot to talk about!)

From your Left 4 Dead review: “…you can’t choose which survivor you play as, so someone will be stuck playing the girl.”

Please explain this joke to me? How does one get “stuck” playing as “the girl”, and why is this a bad thing?

Seriously, I really want to see you explain how this is funny without just coming out and saying girls and women are inferior. Because that is the entire point of the joke… someone gets “stuck” playing as the female character because no one WANTS to play as the female character, because girls suck.

The “joke” makes especially no sense because you go on to say that the characters are entirely cosmetic since they all play exactly the same. So in this case the ONLY reason someone would feel that they were “stuck” playing as Zoey is because they are sexist assholes.

Clearly you didn’t take into account that some of your readers would actually WANT to play as “the girl”. But, you know, keep on keeping that boy’s club sealed up tight.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No, and here’s why.

Let’s start with a definition of what sexism actually is: prejudice + power. In this case, prejudice based on gender. The linked article explains that while individual women can discriminate based on gender against men, women simply don’t have the power as a group to be sexist against men. In other words, when feminists talk about sexism, they aren’t usually referring to individual acts of explicit gender-based discrimination, but to the greater societal system that conveys certain privileges upon men just for being born male.

I’m writing this post because a little while ago, I received a comment about Cerise that said by being labeled a gaming magazine for women, it “discriminates against 50% of the world’s population” and that “sexism goes both ways.” The comment was snarky and meant more as a personal attack than an actual concern, but I think it’s a point that should be addressed (if only for my own education at this point).

Because here’s the thing: sexism can’t go both ways, for the major reason briefly outlined above. Certainly not in the way meant by the comment, which is that a magazine aimed at female gamers is somehow sexist against men.

The reason that claim is ridiculous is that in the gaming world women have extremely little power, especially when it comes to online publications and communities. Go to any major “general” gaming site–GameSpot, Joystiq, Kotaku, IGN, 1UP, etc,–and count how many female editors or contributors there are. Most gaming sites have a token woman or two. Joystiq has zero. The only site I can think of that has more than a handful of female contributors is GamerTell, and even there all of the people in charge are male.

One reason for this I’ve been told is that more men play video games than women. This may have been true in the past, but it is rapidly becoming outdated. Regardless, men clearly have more say as a group in the world of video games. It is the male audience that is catered to (and specifically an assumed white, straight, young, cisgendered male audience). Women and girls are treated differently in gaming communities*: their opinions and concerns are dismissed, their gamer credentials are questioned, and they are targets of sexual harassment. Moreover, male-dominated communities are hostile to women even if most of the members believe there aren’t any women present at all: they make sexual and/or violent jokes that dehumanize women; they use “woman” as an insult and throw around gendered slurs; whenever a picture of a woman surfaces they talk about whether or not they would have sex with her, to the exclusion of all else. All of these things create a boy’s club environment that is actively hostile to women–on websites that are supposed to be for a “general” gaming audience that includes men and women.

Gaming sites and publications aimed at women such as Cerise were (and are) created as a reaction to the imbalance of power in gaming. They explicitly privilege female gamers’ opinions and experiences in order to counterbalance the way male gamers are privileged on gaming sites that are supposedly aimed at a “general” gaming audience. In addition, they create a space for female gamers so they don’t have to deal with the bullshit outlined above. Guys, female-oriented gaming spaces are created because every single other place is yours. Every single other place, places that claim to be for “all” gamers, are all about you. These places are so much about you, the men and boys, they drive women away. We can either put up with being marginalized, told we don’t exist, harassed, and dismissed, or we can create our own spaces.

Furthermore, while on IGN and other sites you’ll find plenty of articles that objectify and disrespect women (“Top 10 Boobs In Gaming” being a particularly egregious example), you will find nothing of the sort on most female-oriented gaming sites, and certainly not at Cerise. At these sites men are talked about as if they are actual human beings, not dolls that are only good for fucking.

So: prejudice? No. Power? Definitely no. Therefore: no sexism!

And then people come here and try to say this is where the real sexism is? It would be funny if it weren’t so prevalent and damaging.

*And the internet in general. I find this personal account of a man playing a female character to be continually interesting in that regard.