NK is an exceptional case. Trade is great, capitalism has given us great prosperity and freedom. I won't argue that. I think it's great that the black market allows unlocked mobile phones to pass into NK (mostly through China, somewhat ironically) to give the people there a window into the outside world. The suggestion that trade should be completely free from restriction because North Korea restricts trade to keep it's population ignorant and servile is obviously ridiculous. Nuance plz...

Interestingly Kim Jong Il was said to be a big film fan. He even kidnapped people to create a NK film industry.

@Asmo

Except my daughter doesn't want to play other games--she wants to play Mario Brothers games. They have excellent game and level design. Why should she have to go elsewhere? Are you trying to say Mario Brothers games not for girls?

All my daughter is asking is to be allowed to play as the Princess--maybe after you free her from Bowser. That doesn't seem like much to ask, as it would have exactly zero effect on gameplay.

Personally, I'd go much farther and say when a game series continuously sends the message that women are helpless victims who need to be defended by men, when they're continuously objectified as trophies to be passed from player to villain and back to player again, then something is very wrong with that game and things need to change. Yeah, other games may be great, but why should that prevent people like Sarkeesian or myself from pointing out the games that aren't? Why should the trend itself not be pointed out when we can find examples of it outside of the Mario series?

No, it's not required that every game have a male/female playable character. It is, however, good business sense not to insult potential female customers of a product by portraying females (playable characters or NPCS) in sexist ways (or homosexual characters in bigoted ways, or ethnic minority characters in racist ways, while we're on the topic). This doesn't seem very difficult to understand and clearly game companies DO understand it because most are making great efforts to be diverse and more realistic in their portrayals of characters. However, just because some are trying doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the bullshit in those that don't. Games like the Mario platformer series, for instance.

You disagree with the way Sarkeesian presents her message... okay. I don't have a problem with that. I think everything you wrote grossly misrepresents what she's saying about games and gamers, but you're entitled to your opinion there.

Moving on... sorry you felt insulted. That was never my intent. But your comments on this issue are written in an extremely emotional manner as if you've somehow been personally wronged. If you don't want people to take it in that manner, you might want to think carefully about the tone your posts on this topic take. I have no idea what that link you provided was supposed to prove, so I'll just leave it alone.

On "Damsel in Distress," it's "your trope" because you've been--throughout this thread--defending it as if it is some bastion of literature that must be preserved. You are quite literally the only person I've ever seen actually try to defend it. And as I said, if it is that dear to you, you can have it. Games will still get made using it.

Other media,though, have long since moved on from it. Take the movie Die Hard as an example. Yeah, the main character's wife gets taken hostage by terrorists and that provides a nice emotional hook to move the plot forward--damsel in distress, right? If it were a game, though, we never would have heard from Holly Gennarro McClane again until Bruce Willis killed all the terrorists. Or maybe a video recording of her would show up after every "boss fight" where she tells John McClane, "Sorry honey, but I'm being kept in another part of the building."

But that's not what happens is it? The character of Holly is central to the plot of the movie and she appears nearly as much as John McClane does. She tries actively to subvert the terrorists by hiding her true identity and by taking responsibility to make sure the hostages are treated well during their captivity.

In other words she's portrayed as a real human being with personal agency throughout the movie.

And that's the point that you seem to be missing. That doesn't happen often in games despite the fact that it does happen in every other form of media (or at least in the examples from media that we generally consider "good"). When we are talking about the "Damsel in Distress" trope in games, THAT is what is being critiqued. Not the fact that someone was kidnapped to provide an emotional hook, but that one particular gender is always targeted and--to add insult to injury--is presented as weak, helpless, and without any agency of their own. They exist for the sole purpose of being rescued.

Thanks for the pro tip, BTW. Had no idea you were a pro at being a patronizing git but I'll take your word for it.

These two ideas go hand-in-hand. It's very nice for us to sit around and swap stories of our experiences with psychedelics, but we have to recognise that we have enemies who want to steal these experiences from us. You can't on the one hand believe that drugs are fine and people should take them if they want to and on the other say, "oh hey, here's this guy who thinks everyone who uses drugs should be kidnapped and locked in a box for years; that cool - live and let live." Is that thinking really something we can even recognise as human? I don't, and we have a right to defend ourselves from it, by say, stringing its advocates up from the nearest tree. So what do we call something subhuman that deserves to be lynched?

You're notice I'm not so much of a one for universal love and brotherhood.

I thought the solution was rather obvious, actually.

You fix things by making games where people are portrayed as... people. Not trophies to be acquired, not sexual objects to be drooled over, and not stereotypes.

You couple that with continued criticism of games that continue to rely on sexist, racist, or homophobic tropes.

And guess what? That's already happening. People have been saying that games need to change for a while before Sarkeesian showed up. Bioware acknowledged the issues and started trying to include more realistic characters in its RPGs years ago--and caught flak for it even back then.

To address your other... points?

My daughter asked me the other day why she can't play as the princess in Super Mario Galaxy 2 (or any of the other Mario games we own). And I had to tell her it's because the Princess got kidnapped. Her response was to ask if she could play as the Princess once we freed her from Bowser. And I had to tell her no.

There is something wrong with that!

After having that conversation with my daughter I fired up Torchlight, where I'm currently playing as a Vanquisher. Vanquisher's are rogue-like ranged characters and can only be female. If you want to be a warrior ("Destroyer" in game terms) or magic user ("Alchemist" in game terms), sorry--it's a men's only club. And not only that, but Vanquisher's--regardless of the armor they wear, must bare their midriff and wearing a mini-skirt showing lots of leg and cleavage (do a google image search for Torchlight Vanquisher to see what I'm talking about). Apparently you can't be a Vanquisher without being a sex pot too.

There is something wrong with that! (To be fair, they got better with Torchlight II and allowed any class to be any gender and allowed the women to cover up with armor OR choose to be sexy).

Society doesn't just change by itself. You're right, society is becoming more accepting of diversity--because people are fighting very hard for it.

Take America's attitude towards homosexuality. Look at the strides made in the last 20 years. That didn't just magically happen. There were TV shows that portrayed homosexuals as human beings worthy of respect. There were lawsuits. There were marches and protests. There were speeches. There were YouTube campaigns like "It gets better." A lot of people worked fucking hard to get the message out that bigotry is not okay.

Look, I'm sorry people pointing out to you how fucked up it is how women are sometimes portrayed in games is somehow ruining your ability to enjoy games. But there are serious problems here. Maybe not problems for you, but problems for people like my daughter.

The solution to these problems is not to lambast the people pointing them out. Nor is the solution to sit back and do nothing and hope it all works out for the best. One solution, as I've already stated, is to be openly critical of the messages contained in ALL media (including games). Another solution is to be vocal about the need for more realistic and diverse portrayals of people in ALL media (including games).

You can still have your Damsel/Dude in Distress trope, by the way. I have no doubt lazy developers will continue to use it as a substitute for meaningful story. Just don't expect people not to call out the utter absurdity of it, is all I'm saying.

His whole point at the end about how you should criticize the Filipinos doing the kidnapping needed to be rebutted with the following: "Ok, but if 70% of Filipinos agreed that the kidnapping of white children for slavery was acceptable, then you would have to admit that the issue was systemic and the Philippines should be condemned as a country."

The one's that are sitting silently allowing those violent criminal cops to terrorize the community need to go too. Yesterday.

I certainly hope all involved here, from the officer, the other arresting officers, the chief, and the camera monitor all lost their jobs and are prosecuted for filing a false police report, assault and battery, hindering prosecution, kidnapping, false imprisonment, etc. Each and every one of them were complicit here and just happened to get caught this time by their own tools.

How about if a Fed made some shit up, accosted you, manhandled you, and arrested you for contempt of fed with no original charge? ...or better, how about a citizen group making a citizens arrest on you...for a lie, lets say they saw you walk past a park and arrest you for exposing yourself to children and trying to kidnap one...even though you just walked past, the entire group beating you into submission (even after you submit to arrest) and solidifying their planned lie in front of you. From your previous comments here, I can't fathom that now you would simply allow yourself to be railroaded by liars who are arresting you without cause.
Now about 'fight it in court', lets assume you're fired and ostracized for the arrest, and no longer hold 'clout' with the court as an officer, so the feds/citizens lies are believed and you just go to jail for ....well, who knows?
That's what you're suggesting people do, just let yourself be abused and put in jail based on a lie you can't contradict (after you get out of the hospital, perhaps for months or years before court, it's not fast, and maybe jail for life afterwards) because insisting a cop actually follow the law is stupid and dangerous.
Once again you don't think things through.
Thanks for being so predictable.
Oh, and to make you feel better, I'll paint nearly all cops in the world with 'liar' colored paint, it's part of your training to lie to 'suspects'.

You missed a few parts there...3 teens killed, Israel CLAIMS by Hamas, but Hamas never takes credit (and they love to take credit). Israel immediately bombs Palestine mercilessly AND 1 Palestinian teen kidnapped and burned alive by Israeli soldiers (there's no such thing as an Israeli civilian), AND another Palestinian teen is ACCUSED BY ISRAEL of throwing gas bombs only AFTER they are caught on tape beating and stomping the hell out of him while he's handcuffed and completely subdued. Hamas then retaliates with 1/1000 the force returned by Israel. Egypt, an enemy of Palestine, and Israel make a show of calling for a 'ceasefire' on 100% their terms without even talking to Hamas, then claims it's Hamas that won't cease. Israel continues launching more guided missiles at beaches, hospitals, and old folks homes, killing hundreds of civilians and then invades in full force, killing hundreds more, while Hamas shoots hundreds of essentially fireworks causing extremely minor damage and 1 eventual death....yet you think Hamas is the big bad guy and Israel is the poor innocent whipping boy.....Um.....just DUH.
Hamas started it IF AND ONLY IF YOU BELIEVE ONLY ISRAELI PROPAGANDA, but if you look dispassionately at the known facts, that's simply BS, Israel invaded first, shot first and continues to shoot more and more disastrously at civilians while whining 'we have to defend ourselves' (from the useless fireworks the Palestinian devils are shooting at us), which should really mean turning on the missile defense system.
What they are doing it offensive, not defensive....and I'm offended!

I keep waiting for him to tell me he's kidnapped my children or something

Not impressed. If they have this special drug that literally turns people into a super human, why put it in some random, kidnapped person rather than someone they trust, or more likely, bought? Why put it in a container made out something with similar structural integrity to that of tissue paper, so that when she doubles over (like say to take a shit) it doesn't burst, thus creating a super human out to seek revenge? Why aren't there heaps of other super humans? It seemed like there was a LOT of this drug. Wouldn't she be encountering a lot of others with the same powers as her?

And then of course the 10% brain thing *rolls eyes strenuously*. Does anyone seriously believe this anymore? Who makes a movie around this premise in 2014?

Now those points aside, this still looks generic and dull as hell. The concept of a human rapidly evolving beyond the capabilities of the normal to super power territory is nothing new but still can be interesting and entertaining, I doubt this will be

That's worse than I thought, even the CGI looks just horrible. Also how much plastic surgery does Megan Fox have because she looks about as real as those Turtles.

This just looks horrendous...I wonder if (when) Raph will get kidnapped or be incapacitated.

Presumably this guy has some authority over the car. So her telling him to get out if he doesn't like it is some pretty ballsy shit. I'd argue that if at any point he said "pull over you're not a safe driver", it's either theft when he gets out or kidnapping when she doesn't stop.

Hell I've seen people come into car lots dead of winter, car has snow all over it and obviously hasn't been started recently, they start it and red line the engine. Car lot employees tell em to stop, and they end up getting removed from the car lot for doing it again. There are things most people wouldn't do to their own vehicles, so doing it to other people's property is just asinine.

Oh and stories of people who've "test drove" big vehicles so they could make a big grocery run and/or move furniture. Which is why they put the car lot employee in the car to stop them from taking it to do whatever with it....and can revoke permission if needed.

Guy may be pushing her buttons, but obviously she has some sort of issue with having limitations put on her use of other people's property.

Not sure what I would do in a situation like that, I'd be highly reluctant to just let someone drive off with a vehicle because they were being unsafe. Calling the cops might make her lose her shit, she ain't acting right IMO.

My guess is she doesn't know she's being filmed.

GTA5 skips the prison/ass rape part, which I hope is coming for this douchebag. I have to guess that he's dirt poor and has no assets to take to pay for all the damage he did, I hope they all had good insurance.
That white guy that kidnapped a 4 year old will likely be 'treated nicely' soon enough by his new roommates.

Um, have you been reading the news lately? Arizona wants businesses to have the ability to discriminate. Uganda wants to imprison gay and gay friendly people for decades. In Russia gay people are kidnapped, tortured, beat in the streets.

He's still brave, my friend, when this is the environment he in which he lives.

I think he was silly to be concerned about this sister -- she gave him an opportunity to come out years before, and he didn't take it. And. He was scared and he finally did it. That is brave.

Shes a narc and a kidnapper, she copped a plea and narced on everyone to get out of the kidnappings charge. She also recently narced giving feds IP addresses/usernames/emails of contacts regarding the drug/incense "Spice" which was legal. Her videos are a dea honeypot to lure people in to contacting her she then narcs and you get busted.

She deserves a snitches necklace