Would you damn feminist please stfu? You now want a quota within a videogame? Within Art?
Michelangelo's David needs to have 1 boob and a half a vagina for it to be non-misogynistic. Saving Private Ryan would also be better if half the soldiers in WW2 would be female.
It has gotten so bad now that you cant ever just make a movie, game or book now a days. You always have to cater to the fucking PC police that will shout at you if there is no equal representation within in the characters. Not only men-women but also race based. Harry Potter is racist because there are no blacks in it... In fucking England!
Noticed how there are barely any Black cards in HS either? Yo, damn Niggas at Blizzard are all racist!
A non equal representation is NOT sexist/racist, no matter how much feminist claim it is. Nor is it a problem. If white people make stories about white people and black people about blacks then that is the norm and not racist. Tall guys seldomly write books about midgets.
Quotas in media are fucking bullshit. Quotas in the real world are also bullshit. For one feminists only want quotas in high paying jobs. I have not one demand a quota of 50% garbage collectors. Or assembly line workers. Or butchers. On the other hand a quota is the DEFINITION of sexism/racism. If you give someone work not based on his qualification but simply because she is a women or black then you are literally reducing a person down to her race and gender.
You are completely ignorant on most of these 'facts' you spout... it's pathetic.
David is a sculpture based on a person... that didn't have boobs or a vagina. Your point is null.
Saving Private Ryan was based on a real war... of which, outside infirmary workers, there were no female soldiers. Your point is null.
There are 1.2 million 'blacks' in the UK. Your point is null.
Anything else you want to add to you masochistic rant? Moron.
Thanks for calling out this bigot. With the way these losers swarm the forums, it's easy to forget that rational people do exist on the internet.
I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Apache” and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.
I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Apache” and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.
On a base level, I think gender equality is important. With that being said, I'll be the first to admit this becomes a much more complex issue to discuss when you're looking at these genders through the lens of artwork, or in this case, Hearthstone. The creators owe it to no one, not even their customers, to fit their product into any given mold, aside from, maybe, not being grossly offensive. (Which I acknowledge, also has its place. And no, I'm not accusing Hearthstone of having done anything offensive.) This includes racial representation, gender representation, age representation, etc.
However, this issue, whether we like it or not, is going to be discussed, debated, and brought up for a long time. It evokes a visceral response in some amount of the human population, and regardless of our personal positions on the matter, it deserves our attention. It's a topic of presidential debates, a staple of American news/media coverage, and it's beginning to pop up in smaller aspects of our everyday life, including the games we play. Multiple perspectives are argued, people feel strongly one way or another, and as we've made apparent by the very small sample size of responses you can read above, it makes people angry.
I'd argue, as a general rule of thumb: if it makes people angry, it's important.
I'll make them even more angry... The reason that people react like spoiled children when issues of unequal representation come up is that it challenges their privileged position. White guys aren't used to thinking of themselves as white guys. The like to think of themselves as ordinary people and view everyone else as some degree of deviation from the 'norm.' These questions make white guys into just another subcategory of the species. Freak out!! Pretend to be color-blind and egalitarian!! Say horrible shit in the process!!
PS You should change the wording in the poll to make it clear that you are talking about characters within the game. I assumed that you were asking about representation within the competitive hearthstone scene (probably an even bigger problem).
You do realize that we are talking about DRAGONS and OGRES here, do you? Wtf did I just read? This is by far the dumbest thread I have read in a long, long time. Keep that shit to tumbler where it belongs.
The consumer is 99% male most likely so I'd say there is too many females based on population . Also why is there no Asian characters? No black paladins huh? What the fuck why is there no transgender heroes? WHAT THE FUCK NO GAY HEROES?!?!?
I get it, question stuff, but kindly fuck off with these statements and questions.
Pulling statistics out of your ass is a great way to look like a complete idiot. Congratulations. Mission accomplished.
You do realize that we are talking about DRAGONS and OGRES here, do you? Wtf did I just read? This is by far the dumbest thread I have read in a long, long time. Keep that shit to tumbler where it belongs.
If this hasnt been said already, Hearthstone is a card GAME. Does it really matter if there is an underrepresentation of <insert race/gender/minority here>. As said before, Black paladins? I think not. If there is anything you should be angry about in regards to gender in a card game, is the over sensualisation of the female characters. I have always maintained that you can tell if a female character is drawn by a male ;)
The consumer is 99% male most likely so I'd say there is too many females based on population . Also why is there no Asian characters? No black paladins huh? What the fuck why is there no transgender heroes? WHAT THE FUCK NO GAY HEROES?!?!?
I get it, question stuff, but kindly fuck off with these statements and questions.
Pulling statistics out of your ass is a great way to look like a complete idiot. Congratulations. Mission accomplished.
As a matter of fact, female gamers represent 48% of the gaming population.
I'd be more inclined to care if it affected gameplay in the slightest, or if there was an obvious agenda (ie a clear bias towards making cards that overtly displayed women in a harmful way while portraying men in only good ways). I also can't take that spreadsheet seriously, it's so biased I kind of want to make my own just so there's actually a decent reference.
Should I complain that Metroid is sexist because I can't choose to play as a male character? Should I complain that the original Mario is sexist because there isn't a 'Maria', option?
I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Apache” and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.
If there is anything you should be angry about in regards to gender in a card game, is the over sensualisation of the female characters. I have always maintained that you can tell if a female character is drawn by a male ;)
Agreed. If you open the spreadsheet (I don't know if you did, or not) you'll see that the creator also broke down the average attack, health, and cost, as well as the spread of female minions across rarity.
I'm sure this will open a whole other can of worms, but for the most part, I think that Hearthstone does a fairly decent job of not over-sensualizing cards. There's Windfury Harpy (artist credit: "luke mancini") Aviana (artist credit: "velvet engine") Priestess of Elune (artist credit: "dan scott") and I'm sure a good handful of others. Even Gnomish Inventor (artist credit: "court jones") trudges through the snow laden with gear, shows a decent a mount of cleavage. For the most part though, a lot of the female minions, at least in my opinion, seem fairly inoffensive.
Here's the problem with all of the arguments that say that issues of representation simply don't matter because it's just a game: If there was truly no bias to be found, you would expect a roughly equal breakdown along gender/racial lines. This doesn't mean that it would have to exactly proportional. But with higher numbers of characters one should expect greater proportionality if the choices made during the creation process are made in a neutral fashion. Furthermore, if there is a gross imbalance, there really shouldn't be any objection to correcting that imbalance. After all, it's only a game, right? Finally, it might not affect you if the identity group that you belong to is regularly represented in a positive fashion. But if you belong to a group that is rarely represented and when you are represented you are shown in a negative light, then you might have a different opinion on the matter.
The artwork for Cult Master was also used for a card from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game called "Andarius The Damned." Andarius is male, according to the wiki.
Here's the problem with all of the arguments that say that issues of representation simply don't matter because it's just a game: If there was truly no bias to be found, you would expect a roughly equal breakdown along gender/racial lines. This doesn't mean that it would have to exactly proportional. But with higher numbers of characters one should expect greater proportionality if the choices made during the creation process are made in a neutral fashion. Furthermore, if there is a gross imbalance, there really shouldn't be any objection to correcting that imbalance. After all, it's only a game, right? Finally, it might not affect you if the identity group that you belong to is regularly represented in a positive fashion. But if you belong to a group that is rarely represented and when you are represented you are shown in a negative light, then you might have a different opinion on the matter.
Maybe they just didnt think about that while making the game. The people who make the game are more focused on making the game good rather than catering to your delicate sensibilities.
First, I didn't say that Hearthstone was particularly bad when it comes to representation. Second, how would making sure that the characters in a game are reasonably representative take away from making a good game in any way whatsoever? Third, screw you for your 'delicate sensibilities' line. You are an ass.
I recently introduced Hearthstone to a friend of mine, who, for the most part, has really enjoyed the game. I saw her earlier this week, and asked her if she was still playing. Her response was "yes, but..." and casually mentioned how she was a little turned off by the under representation of female characters in the game. This is something I have noticed as well, and had the idea of sitting down and calculating the percentage of male to female to gender-ambiguous/neutral minions that exist in hearthstone.
As it is, it turns out someone beat me to it. A quick Google search turned up this. I found it in the context of a reddit post (which is now locked, and archived) in which the original poster was criticized rather harshly for voicing their opinions on the matter. (Which, is another matter completely, and I won't get into it.)
I've only really glanced at this spreadsheet, and mostly focused on the totals, so I can't speak for the majority of this data, and I make no claims to it's accuracy, the methodology, or any decision making (ie, the thought process behind assigning each minion a gender) but from what I've seen so far, it appears to be pretty accurate.
I (and the friend whom I mentioned earlier) have our own opinions on why this data is important, and why it matters in the context of Hearthstone specifically, and I feel it's of significant value to discuss. (At least enough so to include it on the Hearthpwn forums, if for no other reason than this being the only Hearthstone related forums I actively post on.)
More than anything, I just wanted to get this information out there to anyone who hasn't already seen it, and (leaving my own personal opinions on the matter out of it) see how people feel about this fairly obvious imbalance.
worth for debate, certainly...
And another thing that somewhat baffled me is how blatantly steretypical the female gender is represented among heroes: The hot brunette and blonde chick, rubbing her boobs right in your face...
Of course that needs to be addressed, not only in Hearthstone, but in the gaming industry as a whole. It does not matter if the numbers in the table are not accurate: the differences are pretty big anyway. But, as you see, most of our forum fellows are happy guys in a guys' world, and they don't give a shit about anything related to equality, especially gender equality.
Seeing comments like yours gives me a little more faith in humanity. It is so discouraging to know that a comment thread such as this will be filled with a bunch of hateful comments without even having to look. I try to tell myself that it's just an internet problem but then I watch the news and see Donald Trump in the lead. The trolls are real. Ack!
Honestly, let's focus our attention on something that really matters. Sorry to put it our there, but sexism isn't a problem in Hearthstone. I think this should only be a topic worthy of discussion if one gender was HUGELY underrepresented. I can think of female cards off the top of my head (gadgetzan jouster, alex, kezan, holy champion). And you have to realise this game is based off WoW. Honestly, I really don't want to make gender representation an issue in Hearthstone, just enjoy the card game as it is.
Here's the problem with all of the arguments that say that issues of representation simply don't matter because it's just a game: If there was truly no bias to be found, you would expect a roughly equal breakdown along gender/racial lines. This doesn't mean that it would have to exactly proportional. But with higher numbers of characters one should expect greater proportionality if the choices made during the creation process are made in a neutral fashion. Furthermore, if there is a gross imbalance, there really shouldn't be any objection to correcting that imbalance. After all, it's only a game, right? Finally, it might not affect you if the identity group that you belong to is regularly represented in a positive fashion. But if you belong to a group that is rarely represented and when you are represented you are shown in a negative light, then you might have a different opinion on the matter.
Maybe they just didnt think about that while making the game. The people who make the game are more focused on making the game good rather than catering to your delicate sensibilities.
First, I didn't say that Hearthstone was particularly bad when it comes to representation. Second, how would making sure that the characters in a game are reasonably representative take away from making a good game in any way whatsoever? Third, screw you for your 'delicate sensibilities' line. You are an ass.
Well that is just hurtful. You should not have taken that as an insult as its just the way you are. Some people are in touch with their emotions and that is good! Dont be ashamed of that ever dude! I was stating that they were making a good game, and just figured it went without saying (because it was mentioned before) how they were basing the game off of WOW lore. They have 3 female heroes out of 12. That is 1/4 and thats not a bad start. And if there are alot of female character cards, Ysera, alexstrasa, weaponsmith, armorsmith, kezan mystic, justicar, shield maiden. Half of the deck i use 80% of the time (CW) is woman. So i mean thats probably why i havent noticed what you have, and felt like you were being sensitive.
Perhaps I reacted too soon. As I said previously, I didn't really notice a huge problem in Hearthstone itself (watching tournaments with almost all guys all the time is a different story). I play the same CW deck a lot so I also see a fairly balanced lineup. That said, I don't think I was completely off base given the context. Check out the comments from Human_Guy. The delicate sensibilities line was just like what one of those reactionary types would say. Whenever someone tries to defend racial or gender equality on the internet, they are instantly dog-piled by a bunch of people screaming about SJWs and White Knights.
The mere way how angry the most guys (?!) react to that pretty inoffensive thread that just tried to open up a discussion shows that there is an issue at stake: If it really wouldn't matter, why are you so eager at defending the visuals of the game that are pretty blatantly transporting 'male' dominance?! The far more logical response to the thread according to your own standards would be - "whatever, I don't care, make the game more diverse..."
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I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Apache” and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.
TL;DR : Go home, Tumblr.
Dab
You do realize that we are talking about DRAGONS and OGRES here, do you? Wtf did I just read? This is by far the dumbest thread I have read in a long, long time. Keep that shit to tumbler where it belongs.
If this hasnt been said already, Hearthstone is a card GAME. Does it really matter if there is an underrepresentation of <insert race/gender/minority here>. As said before, Black paladins? I think not. If there is anything you should be angry about in regards to gender in a card game, is the over sensualisation of the female characters. I have always maintained that you can tell if a female character is drawn by a male ;)
I'd be more inclined to care if it affected gameplay in the slightest, or if there was an obvious agenda (ie a clear bias towards making cards that overtly displayed women in a harmful way while portraying men in only good ways). I also can't take that spreadsheet seriously, it's so biased I kind of want to make my own just so there's actually a decent reference.
Should I complain that Metroid is sexist because I can't choose to play as a male character? Should I complain that the original Mario is sexist because there isn't a 'Maria', option?
You can find me here! Good luck everyone!
Here's the problem with all of the arguments that say that issues of representation simply don't matter because it's just a game: If there was truly no bias to be found, you would expect a roughly equal breakdown along gender/racial lines. This doesn't mean that it would have to exactly proportional. But with higher numbers of characters one should expect greater proportionality if the choices made during the creation process are made in a neutral fashion. Furthermore, if there is a gross imbalance, there really shouldn't be any objection to correcting that imbalance. After all, it's only a game, right? Finally, it might not affect you if the identity group that you belong to is regularly represented in a positive fashion. But if you belong to a group that is rarely represented and when you are represented you are shown in a negative light, then you might have a different opinion on the matter.
Seeing comments like yours gives me a little more faith in humanity. It is so discouraging to know that a comment thread such as this will be filled with a bunch of hateful comments without even having to look. I try to tell myself that it's just an internet problem but then I watch the news and see Donald Trump in the lead. The trolls are real. Ack!
Honestly, let's focus our attention on something that really matters. Sorry to put it our there, but sexism isn't a problem in Hearthstone. I think this should only be a topic worthy of discussion if one gender was HUGELY underrepresented. I can think of female cards off the top of my head (gadgetzan jouster, alex, kezan, holy champion). And you have to realise this game is based off WoW. Honestly, I really don't want to make gender representation an issue in Hearthstone, just enjoy the card game as it is.
Fuck cubelock
The mere way how angry the most guys (?!) react to that pretty inoffensive thread that just tried to open up a discussion shows that there is an issue at stake: If it really wouldn't matter, why are you so eager at defending the visuals of the game that are pretty blatantly transporting 'male' dominance?! The far more logical response to the thread according to your own standards would be - "whatever, I don't care, make the game more diverse..."