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General discussion (archive)Dan Bunten(12 posts)(12 posts)
(12 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 28, 2012
One of the most fascinating people of video game history is Danielle Bunten Berry. The Wikipedia article is full of semantical errors, sadly (for example saying "she" while Bunten still was a "he"), but can give an overview.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danielle_Bunten_Berry

Outstanding accomplishments of course are M.U.L.E. and The Seven Cities Of Gold - a game that very much looks like a predecessor of Colonization. And indeed: Bunten's idea to a game similar to the later Civilization was rejected by Electronic Arts before.

Dan Bunten died from lung cancer, aged 49, in 1998. The influence on the video game industry still lives on.
Posted April 28, 2012
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Protoss: One of the most fascinating people of video game history is Danielle Bunten Berry. The Wikipedia article is full of semantical errors, sadly (for example saying "she" while Bunten still was a "he"), but can give an overview.
It's not an error, she had a sex change, which you probably know, I assume that you did read the article you linked to. You may argue that a sex change doesn't qualify for the use of the female pronoun, but the truth is that our language(s) don't really have a good way to deal with such situations, and in the end it might not be the worst of of choices to choose the pronoun of the gender she identified with.

In any case, that's sad news. Her creative and audacious spirit will be missed.
Posted April 28, 2012
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Protoss: One of the most fascinating people of video game history is Danielle Bunten Berry. The Wikipedia article is full of semantical errors, sadly (for example saying "she" while Bunten still was a "he"), but can give an overview.
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Psyringe: It's not an error, she had a sex change, which you probably know, I assume that you did read the article you linked to. You may argue that a sex change doesn't qualify for the use of the female pronoun, but the truth is that our language(s) don't really have a good way to deal with such situations, and in the end it might not be the worst of of choices to choose the pronoun of the gender she identified with.

In any case, that's sad news. Her creative and audacious spirit will be missed.
Well, I think before the sex change it should be "he" and afterwards "she". Easy as that.

Now back to topic.
Posted April 28, 2012
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Protoss: Well, I think before the sex change it should be "he" and afterwards "she". Easy as that.

Now back to topic.
She definitely _felt_ (and identified herself) as female before. It's a situation where neither version of wording it is totally right or wrong. Notice, however, that our language allows for clauses like "Professor Smith lost his mother when he was five". Clearly, he hasn't been a professor when he lost his mother, but the sentence is still semantically and grammatically correct. The same goes for sentences like "She (Dani Bunten) was born in 1949".

Which other errors did you spot in the article?

And how did you come across the article? Since it's old news ... hough Bunten can certainly be remembered at any time.
Post edited April 28, 2012 by Psyringe
Posted April 28, 2012
DBB programmed some incredible games.

I played Cartels & Cutthroats back on the Apple ][. Fantastic game, as were Seven cities of gold and Heart of Africa.
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Protoss: The Wikipedia article is full of semantical errors, sadly (for example saying "she" while Bunten still was a "he"),
Convention is to refer to a person according to his/her current (or final) sex, regardless of the date of gender reassignment surgery.
Posted April 28, 2012
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Psyringe: It's not an error, she had a sex change, which you probably know, I assume that you did read the article you linked to. You may argue that a sex change doesn't qualify for the use of the female pronoun, but the truth is that our language(s) don't really have a good way to deal with such situations, and in the end it might not be the worst of of choices to choose the pronoun of the gender she identified with.

In any case, that's sad news. Her creative and audacious spirit will be missed.
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Protoss: Well, I think before the sex change it should be "he" and afterwards "she". Easy as that.

Now back to topic.
I refer to all transgendered people as their prefered gender regardless of if they have had the surgery or not. Thats the way you should do it, it's disresopectful to call someone by the wrong gender.
She was always a female. But she used to have a male body.

On topic, I don't think I've played any of the games she worked on.
Posted April 28, 2012
Read an article about Dan Bunten in a magazine a few years ago. Interesting facts stick to me and come out to the consciousness every now and then again.
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Kezardin: Convention is to refer to a person according to his/her current (or final) sex, regardless of the date of gender reassignment surgery.
Convention is to state facts as they were at that time. Or we can call John Lennon by the name "skeleton number XXXXX on cemetery Y that once was John Lennon".
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Psyringe: She definitely _felt_ (and identified herself) as female before.
And afterwards we got this statement:

"Being my 'real self' could have included having a penis and including more femininity in whatever forms made sense. I didn't know that until too late and now I have to make the best of the life I've stumbled into. I just wish I would have tried more options before I jumped off the precipice."

So what now, calling her a man but only after the operation?
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Psyringe: Which other errors did you spot in the article?
This one contains TWO errors:
Bunten followed with The Seven Cities of Gold, which proved popular because of its simplicity. By the time the continent data were stored in memory, there was little memory left for fancy graphics or complex gameplay.
It gives relative things ("simplicity", "little", "fancy", "complex") without defining what those things mean or to what they are compared.
So what is "little" memory? Do today's computers have "big" memory? Surely not, compared to the universe. What is "simplicity"? What is "complexity"? Are five resources simplicity? Is Go simple because it has only two kinds of pieces?
Post edited April 28, 2012 by Protoss
Posted April 28, 2012
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Protoss: Convention is to state facts as they were at that time. Or we can call John Lennon by the name "skeleton number XXXXX on cemetery Y that once was John Lennon".
Did you bother to read either tribute page ? Both referred to DBB as 'she'.

I won''t comment further on the pros and cons, since this is *supposed* to be about recognizing DBBs contribution.

Congratulations on derailing your own thread with your pedantry.
Post edited April 28, 2012 by Kezardin
Posted April 28, 2012
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Toast_burner: I refer to all transgendered people as their prefered gender regardless of if they have had the surgery or not. Thats the way you should do it, it's disresopectful to call someone by the wrong gender.
She was always a female. But she used to have a male body.

On topic, I don't think I've played any of the games she worked on.
People who transition from one gender to another are a confusing lot, some days they wake up feeling male, some days they feel female, and some days they don't feel like either gender. Have you seen Hedwig and the Angry inch? There's a song in there about love, that's pretty exciting and might help my point.

Anyway, regardless of whether or not you've played the games they worked on (grammatically correct use of they, as it is not know what gender the subject may have been identifying as at the time), it's more about their influence on the gaming industry. I've never played wasteland, but I have played a shit ton of fallout. I highly respect the makers of wasteland and backed their kickstarter project for the sequel.
Posted April 28, 2012
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Protoss: So what now, calling her a man but only after the operation?
Why would you want to do that? Are you assuming that her regretting the surgery automatically means that she self-identified as male afterwards? That's not the case.

But, again, my point is not that using "he" would be wrong. My point is that in such cases the reality of the situation is more complex than our language was designed to handle, hence I disagree with your assessment that the article is "semantically wrong" by using the female pronoun.

Anyway. While this issue often comes up when Dani Bunten is discussed, it doesn't really honor her achievements as a game designer. Arguably, her gender identity problems kept her from becoming an even more influential designer, since she more or less retreated from the business during her transition, and never quite found a way back. Which is sad, because with her focus on multiplayer, she was probably one or two decades ahead of her time, and it would have been interesting to see what she could have achieved after the time finally caught up with her vision.
Posted April 28, 2012
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Toast_burner: I refer to all transgendered people as their prefered gender regardless of if they have had the surgery or not. Thats the way you should do it, it's disresopectful to call someone by the wrong gender.
She was always a female. But she used to have a male body.

On topic, I don't think I've played any of the games she worked on.
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Weclock: People who transition from one gender to another are a confusing lot, some days they wake up feeling male, some days they feel female, and some days they don't feel like either gender. Have you seen Hedwig and the Angry inch? There's a song in there about love, that's pretty exciting and might help my point.

Anyway, regardless of whether or not you've played the games they worked on (grammatically correct use of they, as it is not know what gender the subject may have been identifying as at the time), it's more about their influence on the gaming industry. I've never played wasteland, but I have played a shit ton of fallout. I highly respect the makers of wasteland and backed their kickstarter project for the sequel.
I've met a few transgendered people, they all seemed like rather normal consistant people. Obviously there are some who are a bit gender queer, but I'm sure they're a minority.

I should rephrase that last part to "I'm not entirely sure who she is" I remeber Will Wright saying he dedicated the Sims to her, but I'm not sure why. I was quite young when she died.
Posted April 28, 2012
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Protoss: So what now, calling her a man but only after the operation?
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Psyringe: Why would you want to do that? Are you assuming that her regretting the surgery automatically means that she self-identified as male afterwards? That's not the case.

But, again, my point is not that using "he" would be wrong. My point is that in such cases the reality of the situation is more complex than our language was designed to handle, hence I disagree with your assessment that the article is "semantically wrong" by using the female pronoun.

Anyway. While this issue often comes up when Dani Bunten is discussed, it doesn't really honor her achievements as a game designer. Arguably, her gender identity problems kept her from becoming an even more influential designer, since she more or less retreated from the business during her transition, and never quite found a way back. Which is sad, because with her focus on multiplayer, she was probably one or two decades ahead of her time, and it would have been interesting to see what she could have achieved after the time finally caught up with her vision.
Yea, and then lung cancer killed her. :-(
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General discussion (archive)Dan Bunten(12 posts)(12 posts)
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