Disqus - Latest Comments for BradOFarrell

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:24:04 -0000

I wasn't labeling animal crossing or wii fit as games that are *inherently* for girls. I'm a man and I bought and enjoyed both games. I was referencing the fact that they *appear* to have been purchased more often by girls than other games featured in Smash Brothers. I was calling them "girl(ish) games" as an after-the-fact description based on who bought them, with "(ish)" as a qualifier on that statement because it's based only on anecdotal information as there are no publicly available statistics.

When you write a blog post you have to choose which areas to focus on or else your post is going to be long and full of tangents. I was opting out of the discussion on gendered game design and/or marketing in this post and I was merely referencing the fact that, anecdotally, a lot of female gamers appear to have bought those particular games.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:16:35 -0000

Read this very carefully: The qualifier was to imply uncertainty. The uncertainty was towards my own assertion that those are "girl" characters or "girl" games. The uncertainty for the former being due to conjecture and the latter being due to incomplete statistical information. I am saying Animal Crossing is a game that girls appear to *purchase* more often than other games (though qualifying that statement by acknowledging I lack statistical information) - I am NOT saying that that game is inherently *for* girls. If you still do not realize that we are both saying the exact same thing then there's no reason to continue this conversation.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:16:18 -0000

"You should chill out about oppressive social structures especially if they don't affect you because they happen all the time and who cares" is a valid worldview only if you value being chill above all else.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:16:15 -0000

Look dude, I'm not going to have this conversation with you because it already happened here: http://kotaku.com/i-think-w... and we don't need to re-have it on an article that only references this incident in passing.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:57:32 -0000

It's been cliche advice to women who are forced to have sex for over a hundred years http://www.phrases.org.uk/m... The fact that you don't realize or care that your statements are harmful doesn't mean the blame suddenly falls on the party you are harming.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:53:28 -0000

I said "girl(ish)" which was a qualifier on my usage of the word "girl" in that spot, not the adjective "girlish" - sorry for the confusion. My other comment about it below (or above? how does it sort them.) I didn't intend to imply that animal crossing was a "girly" game, I was referencing the fact that a lot of girls buy it.

Re: the rape joke thing - I'm citing a commonly held interpretation of those events that I read about on kotaku. I didn't care to delve into it deeper because that's not what this post was about. And frankly I'm not as interested in microsoft or rape jokes as I'm interested in cool video
games.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:48:02 -0000

You might be right? I'm not sure. People have genders in Animal Crossing but it doesn't affect how they interact with each other. I'm not sure what to call that. But I like it.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:47:35 -0000

It's a rape joke at face value.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:36:47 -0000

I didn't say "girlish" I said "girl(ish)" - that was intentional. "Girlish" would imply "girly" but that's not what I meant.

I said "two girl(ish) characters" because only one is a girl and the other one MIGHT have an alternate female costume, but that's only conjecture. "Two girl(ish)" was meant to imply "1 girl and one character who might also have a girl counterpart as an optional costume but I'm not sure" not "two girly characters."

The reason I'd imagine the female AC character would be an option vs the female trainer is that they'd have the exact same character model and lack of voice and animations, it'd just be a different face, and there are only like 8 faces in Animal Crossing and generally like 8 costumes in Smash Brothers. That's maybe tenuous reasoning combined with wishful thinking, which is why I qualified the statement of "2 girl characters" with an "ish" because one of them might not actually be female. (Aside: The Pokemon Trainer character is based on Red who is canonically male.)

And "two girl(ish)" games was meant to imply "games that were purchased by girls at a higher rate than most games (re: the demographic information about AC mentioned above)" - I wasn't saying the games were inherently "girly" or "for girls" but referencing the fact that a lot of female humans bought Animal Crossing.

I get what you're saying though, about using the adjective "girly" to describe something like animal crossing. But that's not what I was doing. You misinterpreted a qualifier as an adjective.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:26:45 -0000

Saying "a character isn't sexualized, good" isn't sex-negative. Being "sexy" doesn't fit with Peach's character at all and making her "sexy" would be an out of character objectification. For example of what a "sexualized" Peach would look like, just google fan art of Peach. That's how any other company would handle her various costumes that she wears in sports games etc, but Nintendo almost never makes her "sexy."

Which isn't to say that it's inherently bad to render female characters as "sexy"... Samus Aran is always "sexy" but it makes sense for her character. She has a hard exterior and a feminine interior, both literally and figuratively. Her "maternal" qualities have always played a role in the Metroid story, and it's represented in her character design. It makes sense for Samus's character for her to look very sexual and womanly, but it doesn't make sense for Peach's character.

Peach is almost like a little girl who likes having tea parties, and Samus is more like an adult woman. At least, that's the read I get from those characters based on their context, voice acting, etc..

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 23:30:39 -0000

Holy shit, whoa.

Re: This year at E3 during the Xbox panel during a... - BradOFarrell

BradOFarrell — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 23:30:29 -0000

No? It was preceded by a jab at Microsoft. Sony's whole presentation was
"we're NOT doing what Microsoft did" and it was brilliant.

Re: Hey I discovered pretty much overnight I’m an ass man.

BradOFarrell — Sun, 02 May 2010 15:21:46 -0000

Hey me too. Man ass is hot.

Re: BradOFarrell Reblogs LOLCats

BradOFarrell — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:49:43 -0000

I don't see why not?

Re: A Thought Experiment

BradOFarrell — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:57:11 -0000

That's not a thought experiment, that's just poorly executed trolling. Shut the fuck up, Nick.

Re: BradOFarrell Reblogs LOLCats

BradOFarrell — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:38:25 -0000

I actually made it myself years ago for a video game wiki (to which I was pretty much the only editor, though not an admin) and they ended up not using, but I use it for everything. ALSO, I've been "meaning to fix it" for years. There's a logical error in it that drives me crazy. CAN YOU FIND IT?

(The two Tetris "L" blocks are actually the same block, rotated, not flipped. OOPS!)

Re: Best Roof Talk Ever: The mini-blog of Nick Divers and George Wasgatt

BradOFarrell — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:06:49 -0000

Yes it's so eeeerrrieee because the idea of subsidization didn't exist in the 90s!

Re: BradOFarrell Reblogs LOLCats

BradOFarrell — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 02:16:13 -0000

100 followers!

Re: Rocketboom Blog - Differences between diet and non-diet Pepsi due to...

BradOFarrell — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:21:42 -0000

You can hear someone change clothes or equip a tool in Animal Crossing: City Folk in the background at 1:17.

Re: jamiew's tumblr

BradOFarrell — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:48:43 -0000

Says more about Wikipedia than it does about birds.

Re: BradOFarrell Reblogs LOLCats

BradOFarrell — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 15:28:05 -0000

You're wrong. You're mistaking the potential for confidence to reach the point of self-delusion as meaning talent is a limitless well. Not everyone can be a great painter no matter how hard they try to learn to paint, their hands just can't do it. And as such, a lot of people happen to be unable to be a great anything, or at least, useful anything. You're mistakingly using the (realistically small) role that determination plays in skill to blame people for their own inherent inability.

Re: tedr*tumblr: Photo by my brother (Gotham22) of Haitian escape...

BradOFarrell — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:03:33 -0000

Size 13 plz.

Re: Rocketboom and Lisa Nova Join Forces

BradOFarrell — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:58:03 -0000

Congrats! Know Your Meme was always my favorite, that's why I subscribed.

Re: Rock Cookie Bottom

BradOFarrell — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:45:42 -0000

This is really convenient because whenever I watched you with the red overalls on I was always like "I'd like it better if he was naked!" Win-win!

Re: elspethjane

BradOFarrell — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:39:53 -0000

It was a running gag on Futurama. It was one of the prime time shows, all it was was Hyponotoad hypnotizing viewers into watching the show and turning in each week to get rehypnotized.