I'd say threats are just that: threats.
If such threats are unjustified, they would be abuse.
If they become systemic they would be harassment.

It is of course possible to disagree whether a threat is justified: "If you touch that pie before dinner you'll be grounded til Xmas!", "If you invade Belgium we will declare war."
It is of course possible for threats to be acted upon, in which case they may be a whole number of things, from crimes to heroism.

You'll notice I made on purpose an example of threat of violence which most people, for sure many, would consider heroic. Let me say however that personally I consider threats of violence to be very extreme. For one a threat of violence by itself I consider to justify actions in self defense, maybe even preemptively, which may themselves be violent. Figuring out responsibility and blame when things get to such point is freaking difficult.

I see a difference between argument and debate. A debate would have you learning something new of the other side, would have you reaching a mutually accepted understanding through back and forth. An argument is just "I am right!", "No, I am right!", "No, I am right!" which is what I was seeing here.

Your initial statements lead me to believe you were saying it was equivalent to saying "media causes X", which I definitely disagreed with.

I wasn't aware that my opinion was somehow not understandable. I repeated it often enough. I don't believe video games cause sexism. Sexism already exists. I very much doubt that any developer ever set out with the goal of "I want to show the world how much beneath me the opposite sex is!"

What I'm saying (and what I was saying that Anita seems to be saying, from what I've seen of her videos) is that often out of lazy, unthought out writing, video games employ tropes that perpetuate sexism and sexual objectification. One game featuring a save-the-princess plot may not be sexist. 100 games featuring it is a sign of the perpetuation of sexism through the normalisation of a sexist trope.

The people who made those games may not be sexist, and the people who play them won't become sexist, but we are then at a new plateau of what is "normal" for games.

Argument isn't the same as contradiction.

That's called "idem per idem". You gave no further insight at all.

See - the problem is that you seem to see your argument as self-explanatory. Let me clue you in:
To the best of my knowledge, you agree that playing games will not make more people sexist.
It seems to follow that if there were NO GAMES AT ALL, it would still not reduce the number of sexist people.
A stronger, more general statement - games do not result in people outright becoming "evil" by playing them.

Well, in that case - what the fuck is the problem? Seems to me like your only refuge is to either take the subjective route and say "The problem is that I see things in games I don't like! I demand people change them to appease ME!", OR you could argue "My reasons are aesthetic in nature - I think that this form of art is objectively flawed". If you take the second route, you're arguing for things like "beauty" and "grandeur"; you're discussing art and matters of (good) taste. Let me tell you in advance - I doubt that's something you either can or want to do.
Otherwise, if you WANT to discuss this on ethical ground, and claim some instances of this form of art conducive to evil, you'll have a very tough road ahead of you, considering the fact that you openly admit that it doesn't cause a change in how people act in the real world.

The problems people have with your claim are simple, and could be summed up in a single question - "Why should things be any different?". You seem to obsess over this "perpetuating", even though it pretty much seems to mean "having no discernible effect".
You use the terms "sexism", "sexual objectification". You use them as if that should be the end of the story. I'm not the sort of person to tremble in fear at the sight of words. It may not occur to you, but you have yet to show how "sexism" and "sexual objectification" are... "bad". Fair warning - the moment you relate them to real-world events and stances, I *will* make fun of you. You need to show how the terms apply to games, how things could be different, how things need to be different. The moment we CAN dismiss this as purely your subjective stance is the moment you concede to not liking certain things, and insisting that people dislike them along with you.

Bonus level - [url=http://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_zoe_quinn_scandal_highlights_how_gaming_journalism_is_corrupt_and_has_turned_to/post293]people here like big breasts. Is that bad?

I gave a lot of insight into my view throughout this thread (and the earlier one?). At that point you quoted right there, I was responding to when Brasas said that he thought I was hiding my point of view. I wasn't aware that I was meant to give further insight in response to that.

People seem to be building up a lot of strawmen to burn down. Did I claim anywhere that I wanted games to stop existing, or specific games to stop existing or that I wanted to ban some games or something? I certainly don't remember anything like that. If you are looking for a clue into what my point of view is, and why I reached that point of view, it may be helpful to read my posts rather than creating hypotheses out of either-or trees you built yourself.

PS: I don't really feel there is a need to show how sexism and sexual objectification is bad. If you do not comprehend how they are so, I don't think I'm going to be able to help you, and it seems we're talking in 2 different languages.

Babark, do you understand what the word "perpetuate" means? So what you are outright saying is that:
a) Sexism exists
b) video games using certain tropes enforce the further existence of sexism

Sexism is the hatred and act of discrimination against someone based on their gender. So who exactly is discriminating against whom in what way? And further, how do video games contribute to the continuation of this discrimination? How does is hurt a women if a man plays one or one hundred of video games with these tropes?

Yes, there is, since in a video game everything is either an object or a background. So why is it such a bad thing?

This is gold.

I think the concept that some people seem to have difficulty grasping is that one can agree that video games don't cause violence/sexism/racism/liberalism, but at the same time recognise that people are influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

If you grow up in a family where everyone is anti-Semetic, there is a good chance that, for a part of your life at least, you will hold views that are more anti-Semitic than those around you and it will take some work to change them, see for example "Prussian Blue". People are, to varying degrees, influenced by the people they hang out with, the media they consume and their interactions with the world.

It is one thing to say movies/video games/music/family doesn't cause racism/violence/sexism, is it another thing to say, people are the product of their nature alone and their environment does not influence them whatsoever. The internet is not always a place for such subtleties.

Sorry for asking, but why is liberalism in such bad company? :)

Yes. Yes, it is, you insufferable douchebag. Here's why:
Words have an intellectual component and an emotional one. Words like "sexism", "misogyny", or "rape" have been thrown around so much recently, that their intensional relation to possible worlds (that is: the function which fishes out the objects / processes they signify) has been severely weakened. If I allow the argument "X is Y", where Y is "sexist" or "sexism", and where it implicitly follows that as soon as that distinction is made, the discussion needs to end, with everyone shouting in terror "Sexism! No! It's a horrible thing!" as soon as a claim of sexism is thrown and justified based on an arbitrarily weak definition. In other words - my OTHER request for clarification could've been "How do you define sexism?". I would immediately have to clarify that it needs to be defined within the context of a work of art, not of a person's propositional attitudes. Once any sort of definition got established, the claim "X is sexist" would CONTINUE to imply "and that's terrible!". Protip: it doesn't automatically follow. It's an emotional attitude that's widespread and can be manipulated through intellectual dishonesty.
The above is the reason I've decided to take a less obvious route. "OK", I say, "You claim that X is Y. So what?". I don't allow the argument to end based on fairly flimsy classification made by a single person, I demand an answer to further claims that remain implicit. I demand to know what the problem is. Saying something like "apples are fruit" doesn't mean I should eat them... without the implicit assumption that "It's good for you to eat fruit".

I've seen video games, believe. I know what they're like. The claims here rely on a set of assumptions, roughly this:
1* (some? most?) games are X.
2* There is a problem with anything being X.

I don't see the problem to be there. I don't think that's because I'm blind. So far I've only heard LABELS thrown around. With this level of generality, saying that "games are sexist" is like saying that "games are evil". That's why I've asked - why IS that wrong? What is the problem?
Spoiler alert: there is none.

In summary - I think a couple of steps ahead, and you have failed to follow me. That's aluminium: cheap, abundant, persistent, toxic.

Hi again,

I see others have replied, I'll try to be brief.

For me, debate is just a very formal and structured type of argument. Both arguments and debates can end in agreement, disagreement, enrichment, learning... or not. :)

On our main disagreement, I do see you are repeating your point. Like I am repeating what I think is wrong with your point. Let me try once more, as you are very right about some of what I'm saying.

First thing, I have never mentioned creator intent, whether there is sexist intent or not. What we are debating is effect. Whether there is sexist effect or not.

It seems you are saying better games would reduce sexism, the games we have today neither increase, nor decrease it. Well then you really should not say games today perpetuate sexism, because there are several hidden assumptions in that sentence. Please note, I'm not saying you are hiding anything...

Here are the assumptions in the sentence:
Games exist.
Sexism exists.
There is a relation between games and sexism.
This relation is called perpetuation.

Do you see the internal contradiction? When you say games don't cause sexism, you are invalidating the 3rd assumption. Your sentence then is neither true nor false, it's just meaningless.

So, is there or not a causal relation, an effect, between games and sexism?
I think there is, but disagree this effect is perpetuating. How about you?

Sarkesian points: Bioshock is SEXIST, because there are some "cabaret women" on it, this kind of simplistic and ignorant arguments are far beyond any intelligent person, man or woman, all over...

BUT, is even WORSE, when we should point that BIOSHOCK bring to a great part of its audience the personality of AYN RAND, a PHILOSOPHER, a WRITER, a THINKER, a WOMAN.

So she is more worried about "the way of dressing" a woman, that about the IDEAS a videogame is transmitting, this is how manipulative, ignorant, and uninformed are Sarkesian arguments, is something people should know already. And people should stopped time ago to fall in her "flaming" and really lucrative campaign arguments.

(and more amazing is that she never understands the asthethic "context", yeah maybe she would prefer TAXI DRIVER prostitute (Jodie Foster) to be a SCIENTIST, but hey! because we are talking about videogames and not "cinema" ... women in Red Dead Redemption should be Astronauts ... smart ones by the way, it is impossible to have dumb women on videogames, but hey! there is nothing wrong with "Grunts"

Ah, back to the motte... Are you making the ground-breaking claim that there is a correlation between what people think and what the world is like? That's sweet.
I guess you've grown up playing very different games, if the influence is strong enough... On the other hand - maybe it's simply not. I don't know, and neither do you, I'm afraid.
Also - it's important to note that we're not just discussing the effects on children, but on people at large. Not of video games alone, but of "everything". Is there a reason to single out video games, or are they merely one step on your quest to fix "everything"? Do you have any practical advice here?
Honestly - I'm glad that you've ran so far. From your position now there is no hope in sight. We will gladly agree that "things influence people". It doesn't follow that there is anything wrong with games that needs to be changed, especially via pressure from external forces. Hell - not much at all CAN follow from where you've retreated to.

If we keep you in the motte long enough, you will die of starvation. Good luck, man.

No no no... First of all - there are relations of other nature than "causal". Astrologists, for instance, adore the notion of "synchronisity"... It may even be relevant to the subject :3.
Also - he probably doesn't understand the subleties of "indirect causes" and the problems that follow. For instance - stroking a match isn't THE cause of it being on fire - we can't forget "oxygen existing in the atmosphere", etc...
Are you a fellow philosopher, or are you just smart, BTW?

Just an observation: neither Rand\Rayan's ultra-liberalism (with a little bit of Nietzsche, I guess) nor socialism represented by Atlas were presented as something good or even functional in the long term :)
Not to mention that Bioshock's Atlas was pretty much the opposite of John Galt :)

Worse, I graduated in physics... but thanks for the compliment.