All you said here is cultural problems, not economic ones :).

Well, then WTF is a culture anyway? Are all the game developers living in some sort of tribal clan on an island?

which is a very good question, indeed.

i think its on a petri dish

Culture is what I like to call a political word: a word that doesn't really mean anything because it can mean pretty much anything. Like for example "art". What is art? Art is anything we want to declare universally good an immune to criticism. No, you can't criticise 2001 for being boring, it's art. Even war can be considered art.

Same thing with culture. Anything can be a culture. Gaming culture, vegetarian culture, knitting culture... who is even part of gaming culture? Am I part of gaming culture? Community is such a term as well.

That's why I'm saying it's an economic issue. Those companies are leaving money on the table by serving a market that's already being served instead of serving the gaping wide hole that has been left. That's stupid, but it's also easy to solve: start making products.

This Vainamoinem guy is hilarious.
Wait, let me see if i got it right: having stripers in a level that takes place in a strip club is sexist? How is portraying a profession that exists in real life (striper) being sexist?

You know what, you talk about feminism, inclusion and all that, yet you are showing that you have a very strong prejudice against stripers. What's the problem with stripers?

And even worse, what's wrong with the game treating the striper NPCs like every NPC in the game (letting the player kill them)? How is that sexist?

Are you saying that Nintendo is stuck worshipping models and neglecting potential audiences or that other companies should develop the same philosophy that Nintendo has and look for new audiences? Because Nintendo is very much known for the latter (discovering and successfully targeting the casual gamer before he was on any other big company's radar).

Either way, I'm under the impression that on average Japanese games are far more suitable for women than ones developed in the West and that it is indeed largely a cultural phenomenon. That the average Japanese gamer's preferences and the average Japanese creative guy's mentality just happen to be comparably compatible with the preferences of western female gamers. As are many other parts of Japanese pop culture.

That is an interesting comment and I would have thought the same, yet, strangely enough, the groups calling many of these games misogynistic, call out Japanese games more than the games from the West. Anita Saarkesian allegedly claimed at a conference in August of 2013:

When asked by a member of the audience if she did not think it was a bit unbalanced that the majority of the games she listed came from Japan, and if indeed western developers were not getting better at portraying women in games, she did acknowledge that was the case but also stated “The US bombed them back to traditional values – feminism does not exist in Japan. While I don’t like judging an entire culture… that does not excuse them.”

I've always thought of those games with so many more female protagonists as a sign of female liberation in their culture. But these Western feminists seem more concerned with the way characters are dressed and in calling it sexist and refuse to view it as female empowerment.

One of these games which became controversial due to the inclusion of same sex relationships is Mass Effect. An interesting detail about Mass Effect is that, despite Shepard being an empty shell of a human being (practically just a template for the player to write upon), in discussions people usually seem to refer to him as if he were a character, not their avatar. Far more often have I seen the use of "(my) Shepard did xyz" than "I did xyz", at least when discussing the plot, dialogue and social interactions (rather than combat). More so in other games where the protagonist has more character traits and makes more decisions the player has no control over.

And the "I did / the character did" thing is far more complicated than you make it seem. That some journalists and spokespeople of publishers/developers used the expression "felt forced" to describe the players' sentiments does not have absolute value that once and for all defines the relationship between a player and his avatar. And I bet that if Bruce Willis suddenly developed a romantic relationship and had sex with another man in a Die Hard movie reactions by both the viewers and spokespeople of the production company of the film would be practically identical to the ones these games have spawned minus the use of "felt forced" (or maybe just with an "to watch" added to it?).

You're being painfully ignorant here. Let me use a cliché example to illustrate why you're simply wrong: The "No Russian" mission in Modern Warfare 2. It was one of the most controversial events in gaming history because the same mechanics which are all about "entertainment value" were suddenly used to gun down civilians. Discussions ensued which keep popping up to this day because this very thing which is so simple to you turned out to be an incredibly complicated matter. It turned out that players could be anything but entertained if they were forced to use the "fun" combat mechanics against unarmed civilians begging for their lives. Many people, both journalists and regular players, wished the scene hadn't been there (ironically like in case of the homosexual stuff you mentioned above :P), and arguably the developers successfully delivered the message that violence against innocent people is a terrible thing by forcing the player to "do it himself". So no, not everything a player does while using "fun" mechanics can be considered entertainment, even if it's part of a video game which is an entertainment product.

Not to mention that not all mechanics in any game are purely about entertainment. Heck, there are entire experimental games which aren't meant to be fun. You may have (for example) heard about a little game called Depression Quest. :P

Well, I already mentioned yesterday in this thread (but not specifically to you) why I believe she really picks Japanese games so often. I think she picks them because Japanese games focus more on story and characters and often use simpler methods of story telling (very linear, tons of cutscenes, simple repetitive gameplay). It's much easier for her to "successfully analyze" these games. She can practically just watch some cutscenes and already ends up with tons of material for her videos and has actually seen everything important, there are few traps she can fall into with these games. Ancient Japanese arcade games are even easier to "analyze" for her (due to their obvious simplicity) and I think that's the reason she ends up covering so many games which aren't even actually of any relevance to her "cause" due to their age. But well, there's of course also the thing with the even larger sexualization of characters (male ones as well, actually) in Japanese games than western ones which also makes them perfect cannon fodder.

And frankly I believe Anita was talking out of her ass there. Lots of feminist accomplishments in Japan happened after World War 2. The society built in cooperation with the US was very beneficial to Japanese women, lifting some of their rights to western standards in the first place, and also the economic situation over the next decades resulted in a generation of independent working women. I can't imagine that after these developments there was some big cultural impact from the US that suddenly shattered all this progress. As far as I'm concerned American cultural influence was the best thing that has ever happened for Japanese women. (correct me if I'm wrong, though)

Yeah, me too. And so do probably most sex-positive feminists who usually oppose Anita's work.

Yes, there is more than gamergate to be concerned about, much more, but this is the #gamergate thread on GOG and it gets trolled by neo-fem crazies with tedious irregularity and personally, for this Gogger :-), ignoring these seems to be the best policy - not saying that's for every individual. (Which is a point by itself, ie people sympatico with #gamergate tend to be [url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/methodological-individualism/]individualistic, freedom loving, supportive of human rights etc. Whereas the neo-feminists attacking people who enjoy gaming tend to be , hive mentality, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7KqkhPrTpo]hate oriented and so on - altho at this point in time they're still [barely] clinging to an "old school liberal" facade so as not to scare the couch potatoes).

However, I digress. The big picture is, on the surface, looking bleak. And it can lead to anger and frustration. But these events unfolding right now are helping to wake up men & women around the planet to the destructive nature of neofems and other pseudo-progressives. It's important to remember to speak truth to power - and yes, they have the power, legislative backing and msm support, they are the grim, grey grafters coming for your games, coming for your children. I won't go into details here but the afore mentioned campaign by neofem lawyers in Canada to essentially legalize the murder of husbands by wives is a reality, as are the horrors of the epidemic of
false rape allegations which have time and again been ignored by msm. And these are just two examples there is so much more oppression on its way. Fortunately there are good women & men with real integrety taking a stand right now. (On a personal note, I actually find some of the dedication of people to be quite moving and inspiring, yes inspiring! Nothing wrong with that.)

Even at the level of #gamergate (which is significant), people have put their careers and personal lives on hold to stand up to this onslaught - what many are now calling the world of social justice warriors. People standing tall such as Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini. Their purpose, to make a [url=http://www.patreon.com/thesarkeesianeffect]feature length documentary film (both of these individuals are prolific writers and have each penned novels, Aurini maintains a thought provoking and substantial blog blog [love it or hate it!], they are and have previously been involved in professional film making - in addition Aurini served in the Canadian military(!) and Owen is a professional rock musician of some repute and both are frequent Youtubers). This is one example of people using their talent to do what they can to stand up for not just gamers but men & women everywhere. But now the pseudo-progressive neofem leviathan has msm behind it, everyone realizes how difficult it can be with the constant repeating of the now exhausted old lie of harrasment allegations leveled at people who play video games - let alone the absurd portrayal of gamers in msm. But in contrast more and more people understand the truth about what is happenning.

So, you ask, how can people not yet contributing at this scale to the events unfolding help? You can speak truth to power! Do podcasts if you have the talent. There's always Youtube if you enjoy the attention/love/hate of the people. Blog. Make and distribute flyers (if it's still legal where you reside). You can always donate a few sheckels to those dedicated women & men out there putting their careers, families and yes, sometimes their lives on the line - neofem's frequent harrasment, doxxing and swatting of people who enjoy video games (or other aspects of life they're opposed to) is a disgusting and proven reality that has been happenning for some years and remember, they are now pushing their vile legislation that will lead to government sanctioned mass murder. And of course, keep on posting on your favorite forums - every bit counts and that's right, you guessed it ... do NOT feed the trolls ... who turn up like a bad penny as soon as any individual speaks truth to power! (Yes. Jaded, cynical, degenerate miscreants incapable of human feeling, thought or emotion are rolling their bloodshot eyes, no doubt.)

Yeah! Speak truth to power! I like it! Speak truth to power!! Go on, do it! ;-)

Gaming history did not start with the PlayStation era. Let me tell you a story: once upon a time a very intelligent and university-educated man made an arcade machine. The game on the machine was a huge hit with engineers, programmers and other nerd-type people at the university. The game failed hard. Then he made another machine, a machine with a game as simple as three moving rectangles, put it in a bar and the same evening he was called because the machine was supposedly broken. When he came to have a look it turned out the coin box was too full.

The man was Nolan Bushnell, the first game was Computer Space and the second game was Pong. Computer Space was very popular on campuses, but for the average person it was too complicated and abstract. That's the point where I am sure most people would have turned their nose at the stupid and unsophisticated working class, but Bushnell realised that a different, more simple and less abstract game was needed. Pong was the answer to that, it was based on real sports people would understand (tennis), the controls used just a slider and the rules were simple: hit ball with paddle, miss ball and your opponent gets a point.

Pong was the first "casual game" as you call it. Nintendo did nothing but repeat history. Every time video games shifted too much into one direction a clever person would see the opportunity and correct it. When arcade games started becoming all space ships and shooters Pac Man was intentionally created to get girls into the arcades. When all PC games were shooters and strategy The Sims was made. When all consoles focused on HD graphics the Wii was made.

That's why I say it's an economic issue. We have seen successful games be made in any region, as long as there have been clever people who could recognise the opportunity instead of just swimming with the current.

I bet he is a pseudo-progressive neofem leviathan. And a SJW!

That's quite simple : most of western games are geared towards geek/nerd culture. SF, heroic-fantasy and war are really three areas that most of women don't care about (yeah there are geeky girls but they're a minority).

You can also add the fact that AAA games are overly complicated or demands hours of gameplay because you have to unlock levels or skills. I remember owning Splinter Cell on Xbox and each time I had to go through it, I had to follow the tutorial just because it had so many commands.

I would even say that at its core, arcade culture (at least in western europe) was heavily casual. In cafes (because dedicated arcade halls were rare), it was just an entertainment along darts, flippers, snookers or even video strip poker ^o^.