Analyzing Sexism In Video Games - Free Essay Example

From niche counter-culture to a multi-billion supergiant, the video game industry has been launched to the forefront of entertainment. With mainstream attention comes public scrutiny and video games have been at the epicenter of many debates. Previous debates have embroiled the industry, enduring the claims of games causing violence and attempted legislation; the rise of playing video games professionally has brought into question its legitimacy as a sport. When the GamerGate movement gained traction yet another slew of discussions began. The movements goal was to bring ethics to game journalism after rumours surfaced of a video games receiving overly positive reviews because of a relationship between the journalist and developer. Opponents attacked GamerGate for being a sexist movement that was targeting women within the hobby, attempting to force them out. Out of this hysteria came arguments about the sexist nature of video games, its players, and the industry. Within the scope of my argument, which acts in parallel to other discussions, is the representation of women in video games and perceived sexist portrayals. Video games fairly represent women within the medium, and while sexist portrayals exist they are neither harmful nor the full picture. Fifteen years ago, I started playing video games and have not stopped since. Watching the industry grow as I grew up with it, playing the original Xbox, playstation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, DS, PC, and Xbox One and a whole host of games that accompany these systems. My interest also expanded out into board games and tabletop RPGs, allowing me to meet and connect with more who share the same interests. In recent years, I have moved away from single-player games, holding out for ones that absolutely grab my attention and have transitioned to multiplayer games, competitive or co-op. Online play allows for a vast amount of player interaction and a unique experience separate from single-player games. I have enjoyed a great deal of time online within clans or climbing a competitive ranked leaderboard. A great tool of modern gaming is video streaming, which has allowed a great deal of people, myself included, to enjoy a wider array of games by watching content creators play them. My love for the hobby is not blind, as many a scandal has come from the industry and current business practices and weak releases have left me perturbed,however these motivate me, as I hope they motivates others, to change my purchase habits and to go further and join the industry. My hope is to leave an impression on the next generation, a love for games, and to lead change in the industry as a developer. Fair representation is a matter of proportions. The percentage of representation should mirror the percentage of participating members. According to the ESAs 2017 report, the video game market is near 50/50 as 41% of US gamers are women (7). These numbers show that it would be fair to expect half of characters to be female in order to represent the playerbase. The report is misleading as the ESA made no distinction between genre or platform and did not clarify what counted as being a gamer, or video game player. Mixing player bases removes the nuance associated with genres. PC/Console gaming is vastly different from mobile gaming and blurs the lines of how they are made, the way they play, player motivations behind play, and even the reputations they hold within the community, mobile gaming very often being looked down upon. It is as unreasonable to compare League of Legends to Call of Duty, a difference of genre, as it is to compare an Xbox player and their games to an iPhone user and their games, a difference in platform. The report is further disingenuous when it claims, woman age 18 and over [31%] represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population than boys under 18 [18%]. The breakdown of demographics is being unequally compared. Woman only represent such a lar ge portion because three age breakdowns were combined into a single bracket, it only stands to reason that the larger sample size would beat out the smaller, isolated one. Looked at on a one-to-one basis males under 18 make up the single largest demographic at 18% while females under 18 come in at a low 11% (7). The largest female demographic, woman over fifty, comes in third, at 13%, and even then is still tied with men over fifty (7). Games, and their players, can become so vastly different over minutia with individuals standing out amongst a crowd of clones that leaving out the macro of genres, platforms, and demographics is dishonest to the conversation. Looking into the nuance of the situation, while potentially overwhelming, paints a clearer picture. Nick Yee, co-founder and analytic lead at Quantic Foundry, painted such a picture in a survey that vetted gamers by their core-motivations, this survey was also one most likely to be found by people who identified as gamers and are invested in video games, and then had participants list their favorite games, breaking the information down by gender. Compared to the ESAs 4,000 participants, the Quantic survey took in 270,000, of which 18.5% was female, a staggering 49,050 respondents. In the methodology Yee explains that the gamers were asked to list up to nine of their favorite games and acknowledges that responses are limited to the favorite games listed by a gamerâ€Å"they are likely playing more games than they are able to list. This means that the percentages of the survey compare the genders of the people who mentioned a game in that genre, not that the numbers are compared to the entire population of the survey. The big takeaway from the article is that the gender gap across twenty-three genres, for female players, averages range from 2% to almost 70%. This is a 35-fold difference, and illustrates why an overall statistic for all gamers (ignoring genre) can be misleading and confusing(Yee). Fem ale players are just not playing certain genres in large numbers and the top three they are playing: Match 3 (69%), Family/Farm Sim (69%), and Casual Puzzle (42%), are not character driven or extremely conducive to storytelling. Furthermore, those genres are largely played on the mobile platform. On the flip side there are male dominated genres that also do not leave much room for character driven gameplay or storytelling: Sports (2%), Racing (6%), and Grand Strategy (7%) (Yee). Even within the genres the story is not so clear cut, outliers give interesting insight into how the data is playing out. Noticeable outliers are Dragon Age: Inquisition and Star Wars: The Old Republic with 48% and 29% compared to their genre averages of 26% and 16%, respectively (Yee). In fact, DA: Inquisition would come in third amongst the rankings of the other genre averages. So despite some genres having a mostly male audience, certain games are still attracting large amounts of female players, compa ratively. Alongside this there are games where story or characters, and gender for that matter, are less important that have a low female pick up rate. So what motivates a players choice, what drives them to become immersed into a certain experience or story? This is the beauty, the essence, of the medium. There is something for everyone who wishes to enjoy the hobby and they can pick and choose what fits for them, for video games: their genres, casts, and players, offer a diverse array of choices. With all these choices my opposition still wants to focus on portrayals of women that are treated in a harmfully sexualized and sexist manner. This is not the first time video games have caught flak for potentially creating an undesirable trait in a consumer, the first was violence. As many studies have long disproven, video games do not cause violence. Even the crime rates of the past thirty years show a downward trend of violent crimes, including forcible rape, across the board that has coincided with the growth of the video game market (Infoplease). While correlation does not equal causation, the argument at hand should have seen said crimes get worse while games became more prevalent. Outside of this view is sexual assaults as these are hard to accurately pinpoint statistics on, however the pattern likely falls within the framework previously displayed. Lack of social influence continues into societal perceptions and attitudes. Researchers of a longitudinal study for CyberPsychology, Behavior Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal on the effects of social networks, came to the conclusion that, there was no cross-sectional association between sexist attitudes and overall video game use for both men and women (Breuer, Johannes, et al 200). The paper does acknowledge that it is in contrast with studies that found sexist attitude links, but disregards those findings for reasons of short-term application and specific analysis. So yes, my opposition is co rrect that females are often extremely sexualized and have plenty of existing negative and sexist character arcs as Lara Strom and Michelle Zorrilla highlight in their articles. But with no tangible harm being caused by video games, no measurable negative outcomes, the issue turns into subjective feelings that have no ground to force change upon the industry. Subjectiveness and offense come down to a matter of perspective, as not everyone will view something in the same light. Strom complains in her article, a summary of gender research she read, about a binary of vixen or victim under which most female characters fall. This is a disingenuous breakdown of narrative storytelling as victim is a vague term; most, if not all, protagonists and antagonists and even secondary characters are victims as that is how conflict in a story is told, and conflict is what drives the plot. An often criticized stereotype is the Damsel in Distress, the epitome of playing the victim. Using Until Daw n as an example, a game I would describe as an interactive drama which holds a female audience of 37% (Yee), there is a cast of twelve characters of which half are female. All the female characters need rescuing at some point throughout the story, but these also all provide great opportunities for character growth and divergence. The failure of saving Hannah and Beth, Joshs sisters, leaves Josh emotionally unstable, setting him up to be the puppeteer of the nightmare which the games plot revolves around and leaves a grim discovery for the characters to discover later. Chris must choose to save either his crush, Ashley, or his friend Josh in a saw-esque death trap. A brush with death allows Chris and Ashley to mature as they share their true feelings for each other and sets Ashley up to later offer herself as a self-sacrifice to save Chris. Emily will constantly present herself as the smartest and most capable person around, but the weak facade quickly cracks when she is placed u nder extreme pressure and duress, demanding that others come to her aid. This can create an interesting and dynamic strain on the relationship between Emily and Matt leading to future discord within the group as events unfold. Even still are the stories of Sam and Jesse. Further complaints of female misrepresentation extend towards the sexualization of these characters. Michelle Zorilla, who holds a bachelor in Communication Theory and conducts video game research, explains in a compilation of research that [portrayals of] women were more sexy via physical build and attire clothing was more revealing [portion larger than men] were coded as naked often portrayed with large breasts. The observations at hand are demonstrably true. The questions I have for this conundrum are: is this inherently bad to do and what can be done about it? Is it wrong for a visual medium to use a visually pleasing aesthetic? What about the portion of female players that enjoy these depictions, even g oing as far to dress up as these characters for conventions. In western society, women have the agency to dress as they please. However, video game characters are lines of code on a computer that are told how to act, so what happens when developers are expressing this freedom of agency? In the case of the character Bayonetta, a highly sexualized female, who was designed by a female developers, what happens? My opposition has identified a pattern that holds true and deemed it a problem, but how should the problem be fixed? Voting with ones wallet is the best way to voice an opinion in a consumer market. Battlefield 5 is the most recent release in the Battlefield series; its opening launch week shows how this campaigns votes are shaping up. Leading up to the release, the developers and advertisements pushed hard on the fact the game would feature a strong female character on the frontlines, on top of standard marketing strategies. In his article, Tom Phillips, a games journalist fo r EuroGamer, explains [Battlefield 5] sold fewer than half the physical copies Battlefield 1, the previous entry in the series, did upon its launch. He continues on that possible explanations for such a drop could be found in either digital sales picking up the slack or that promised content has not been released yet, leaving buyers to hold out. Speculation can go even further. Other highly anticipated games were released so close to Battlefield 5s launch and there was also backlash to the political agenda that some gamers felt EA was pushing. My personal reason for not purchasing is that I try to avoid EA published games as I disagree with their predatory monetization schemes and releasing half-baked games. A game like this is a godsend for my opposition and should be receiving the support and attention that such a victory would generally attract. If 47 percent of gamers are female [and] arent playing games with hypersexualized representations of themselves then where is all the sales for Battlefield 5 (Strum)? Even assuming that half the gaming market is female, perhaps it is unjust to treat an arbitrarily similar group of people as a homogenous entity. Gamers are a diverse cast of individuals even within their own genre. I, for example, enjoyed Battlefield games in the past while not enjoying most Call of Duty titles despite them being the same genre. I implore my opposition, or anyone who wants change, to find those games they enjoy, the ones that are shining examples of their ideas, and share as much love and passion as they can for those games. Let everyone know about these games and show developers that that market is there, and no matter how big or small said market is, nurture it. Amongst my own game library, ranking in as some of my personal favorites and most played, are games like Darkest Dungeon, League of Legends, and Rainbow Six: Siege. These games range from indie, created by a small development team usually for a niche audience, all the way to a triple A game, large budget with a large team with the expectation to succeed in a mainstream market, respectively. The games at hand are overly representative for their genres. Darkest Dungeon is a survival roguelike with a 33% female cast compared to the genres 25% female player population (Yee). None of the characters are sexualized and offer a diverse cast of character tropes: Arbalest, the battle-hardened veteran, Hellion, the raging barbarian, Vestal, the divine healer, and a few more. About 35% of League of Legends characters are female, with the female player average for MOBAs, multiplayer online battle arenas, sitting at 10% (Yee). Yes, many of the characters are sexualized in some way or have a cosmetic option that will make them sexier. But for characters like Elise, Evelyn, and Ahri this defines their characters; tapping into age old stories of demons, vampires and sirens that prey upon temptation. For others that have a sexy appearance there is more to t heir stories that more deeply define them and others are not sexualized at all, like the stalwart solar knight, Leona. Tactical shooter Rainbow Six: Siege has operators hailing from all over the globe to fight terrorism, comparing the 36% of operators that are female to the female player average of 4% (Yee). Yet another game with no sexualization where each background rich character offers a unique playstyle. Repetition is key: choice matters. Both consumer and developer choice. An extremely vast array of games across a multitude of genres and all people need to do is find those special few. Whether mainstream, underground, or somewhere inbetween the right game exist, not that the cultural relevance of the game should matter for it is an experience for the individual to enjoy. Who knows, maybe if enough like-minded individuals show change, instead of forcing change, some developers will follow suite. Perhaps all that is needed is a fresh perspective on existing material. However the situation is handled I hope it is approached with a love of video games for video games sake.

The Intelligence Of The Cia Triad Network Security

Introduction Over the last few years the amount of security breaches that have been reported have had one factor that has been prevalent in majority of the attacks. That factor is the employee’s and how they are manipulated into giving the intruder/hacker exactly what they needed without realizing it. The use of social engineering in data breaches and fraud has been steadily increasing over the years. Confidentiality, integrity, and availability the three components of the CIA triad in network security can all be compromised by the risk of social engineering. Definition of Social Engineering Social engineering also known as people hacking is the art of utilizing human behavior to breach security without the victim even realizing that they have been manipulated. Social engineering can be further broken down to three methodologies. 1. Phishing - The sending of emails appearing to be from a reputable source with the goal of gaining personal information from the victim(s) 2. Vishing – This is the practice of getting information from the victim or attempting to Influence actions by the use of a telephone. 3. Impersonation – This is the practice of pretending to be another person with the goal of obtaining information or access to a person, company, or computer system. Categories of Social Engineering Social engineering attacks fall under to main categories:Show MoreRelatedEssay about Information and the CIA Triad1319 Words   |  6 PagesCIA Triad? Sounds like a secret organization doesn’t it? It almost feels like people are going to come to a screeching halt in your driveway, jump out and take you away, never to be seen again. Sounds very scary. Good thing for us that is not going to happen. Lets get to the point. Information is defined as raw data, which includes words, numbers, value etc. It includes analytical and Factual information. Security is defined as the prevention of intentional harm. 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Critique of The Birth of the Republic free essay sample

In his book, The Birth of the Republic, Edmund S. Morgan puts forth an account of the quarter century span, from 1763-1789, in which the American Republic was born. This work provides a detailed description of what historians call â€Å"The Revolutionary Era† in American history. Morgan seems to be making the argument that while the revolution may have begun for economic reasons, and that the founding fathers may have stood to gain financially from it, it eventually became about more than just money and economics. The revolution became about the fight for equality of all men. The first major point of his book is to put forth an analysis of the relationship between English Parliament and the new American colonies. Morgan goes into detail about how most of the new settlers in America were of English decent. He speaks of how many of them had pride in being English and felt a certain loyalty to their government back home. We will write a custom essay sample on Critique of The Birth of the Republic or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Because of their loyalty to Great Brittan, there was a very comfortable relationship between British Parliament and the new colonies at first. Morgan then point out how this comfortable relationship quickly dissolved due to excessive taxation on the American colonies. This excessive taxation was hard enough for the colonist to bear, but once they were denied equal representation in government the relationship between the homeland and new land quickly became agitated. Morgan puts for the details of specific laws and acts that were put into place to tax the colonies. He goes into great detail about a number of taxes and legislations that were put into place by English Parliament to tax the colonists and which were the catalyst for such early revolutionary groups like the Sons of Liberty. Morgan discusses the specifics and impacts of: The Sugar Act, The Stamp Act, The Declaratory Act, The Quartering Act, Townshend Act, The Boston Massacre, and the Coercive Act. Through analyzing these acts and events Morgan shows how with each there was an increasing disdain between Parliament and the colonies and that each was a step closer towards revolution. Morgan does not spend a great deal of time discussing the Revolution from a military perspective. Instead, he chronicles the revolution from a view of economic and socio-political freedom perspective. Morgan seems to be more interested in giving the history of the relations and differences in ideology that caused military action, and how they a shaped the US constitution in the after math of the revolution. Morgan spends a great deal of time discussing the Articles of Confederation and how these articles were the â€Å"pre-constitution†. He chronicles the process of how the Articles of Confederation came to be, and how they ultimately failed. He goes into much detail about how the battle over the Articles of Confederation was really a battle over power at the state level and power at the central government level. Morgan discusses how there if often a misconception of the 8 year span in which the United States was governed under the Articles of Confederation. He states that although many people and historians consider this period to be a â€Å"dark and doubtful time†, a re-examiniation of all that was accomplished during this time shows that it was not always so dark. Morgan claims that before the Articles of Confederation were adopted the country was ‘at war for its existence’ and that over the 8 year span the ‘war had been won, peace had been concluded on favorable terms, a post war depression had been weathered successfully, and both population and national income were increasing’. And that it was mainly out of a few failures (i. e. the threat to property rights) that a call for a more centralized government was made. The last blow to the Articles of Confederation as a successful solution came with such acts as Shay’s Rebellion in 1786. Morgan then goes into an analysis of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and of Charles Beard’s analysis of it in his 1913 book titled An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. It is here that Morgan discusses how the economic interests of those involved in the convention shaped the United States Constitution. However, Morgan takes issue with the idea that the framers of the constitution had selfish personal interests as Beard would have us believe. Morgan instead believes perhaps it was patriotism and public interest that was the main motive. This idea is expressed in his quote that â€Å"it is all but impossible to differentiate private selfishness from public spirit†. Morgan believed that the framers of the constitution were â€Å"certainly human, which is to say they were complex, unpredictable, paradoxical, compounded of rationality and irrationality, moved by selfishness and by altruism, by love and by hate and by anger – and by principle. †. Morgan concludes his book with chronicling some of the struggles and compromises that happened along the way toward adopting and ratifying a universal United States Constitution. The struggle over ratification came from the idea that it was not just a fixing or strengthening of the Articles of Confederation, but rather a whole new form of government. This whole new form of government allowed a much greater power to a centralized government. Morgan points out that even though there were differences in opinion between anti-federalists and federalists, these differences were not fundamental differences in principle. And this, the idea that both sides wanted an effective national government that would guard against tyranny, was ultimately the reason compromises were able to be made and the Constitution ultimately ratified. Edmund S. Morgan put together a very clear and concise history of the major events that lead toward the American Revolution. Morgan took great pains to explain and discuss every major event that took place in this 25 year period. I find most of the evidence that Morgan puts forth to be very convincing. It’s obvious this man did his research and had a great deal of knowledge on the subject. If his main goal was to provide a simple yet detailed analysis of how and why the American Revolution happened, then he certainly achieved that goal. The only part of his work that I take issue with is his opinions on the economic interests of the founding fathers. Morgan seems to be of the belief that personal economic interest was not the central force behind the creation of the US constitution. Morgan claims that although there was certainly some personal economic interest involved for the founding fathers, this was not the main aspect. I tend to disagree with this opinion. Having read other works that deal with the creation the US constitution, such as A Disquisition on Government by John Calhoun, An Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution by Charles Beard, and A Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn, I’ve become rather convinced that the United States Constitution was primarily an economic document and allows for considerable advantages to certain social and political classes. Much like Calhoun, I believe that man, although certainly a social animal with social feelings and interests, will always choose his own interests over social interests if given the power to do so. I believe the founding fathers were in a position and were give much power to create a Constitution that was in their personal best interests and I believe they did do this, and that in many cases the public interests were sacrificed to do so. Through his analysis of the economic background of each of the framers of the constitution, Beard showed us that every member of the constitutional committee stood to gain economically from the development of the United States Constitution. Again, with my assumptions about human nature, I find it hard to believe that men who stood so much to gain personally would have put their personal interests aside. I am not trying to claim that I know Morgan is wrong in his claim. All I am claiming is that I am of a different opinion than he. And the truth is, we will never know for sure what the interests were. All we can do is look at the body of evidence and form our own opinions on the motivating forces behind the creation and adoption of the United States Constitution. This debate aside, I think The Birth of the Republic is a remarkable work and provided a clear and concise history and analysis of the most critical period on American History. This book was enjoyable to read and should be a staple for any student of American History.