Borderlands 2: “Girlfriend mode” comment sparks outrage

@46 Wouldn’t be the first time.

@47 And overwhelmingly white.

Your complete obliviousness to and ignorance of social history is hilarious.

I guess women’s lib was just a bunch of whiny mothers on their periods, right?

@42 I feel the same way about anyone who follows a religion, but it goes to show how easily we are brainwashed in both cases, no?

@DSB come on man, comparing sentient beings to animals? Really? Nobody should be forced to do anything, which was exactly my point – we should all choose what we want to do.

Unless you think that having every single thing you read and see mould you into a specific role isn’t “forcing”, in which case, I give up on you.

There’s a reason why boys like guns and girls like dolls, it is NOT nature! It’s because that is what is hand fed to them throughout their life. What do you think they’d choose to do otherwise? Not everyone is strong willed enough to say “actually Dad, I prefer ballet over football” or “actually Mom, I don’t want to get married and have 3 kids, I want to be a biochemist”. That’s especially true in certain US states where it’s “make a nuclear family or gtfo!”

@39, A dolphin can’t do what a monkey can… What are you smoking you weird hairy Dane? I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but their not the same species… Whereas Human males and females are.

Plus the whole male/female gender role bollocks is just that, bollocks.

@52, erm animals are sentient too… And humans are animals…

@40 It’s just folly, Michael.

People need to believe that they’re so different from everything else on the planet, that they tend to forget about their inability to compensate for their all too natural weaknesses.

We’re an invasive species, we’re top of the food chain, to devastating effect, and if we’re so incredibly smart, then why do we have such a hard time finding any kind of balance?

If we have food, we eat ourselves to death. If someone has something we want, we’re likely to kill them for it, and if someone manages to project an illusion of superiority, we blindly follow. Where do you feel we stand out?

I just don’t buy it, even for a second. We’re not the omniscient Gods-on-earth. We’re just the monkeys with the nicest dens, the most awesome toys, and our pick of anything we want to kill on the planet, including eachother.

Being the most privileged and intelligent species, doesn’t mean you’re a genius.

@52 Well then, if we suppose that lions aren’t as smart, then why do they do the exact same thing we do?

If it’s forced on us to “behave like men and women”, then how do these stupid creatures manage to do the exact same to their young?

Either it implies some sort of organization and planning, or merely a balanced natural order. Which one is it?

@53 Fair point, it wasn’t meant to be literal. Just a more evocative example that everybody has a certain place, and that it isn’t something to be afraid of.

Women obviously have a unique ability to give birth, and we obviously have a unique ability to cum on their faces. Whoops. Misogyny faux pax!

… But we also have a unique ability to keep the den safe, just as women have a unique ability to nurture our young.

I think a dolphin would be fucked if he presumed himself so smart that he’d much rather be a monkey. I don’t really see him gaining a lot from that.

Imho, you should ban O’Conner for being a provocative dense person and Dsb for being a vulgar, flooding, perverted p… person.

Imho.

@DSB either you believe in a higher power that controls your life (poor thing) or what you are saying makes no sense at all (yes, even from a biological standpoint).

An animal acts based on its innate instincts modified by its previous experiences.

A human (who is also an animal, thanks) adds to that what its more developed brain can do: rational thought and its friend free will (you use them every day, your cat does not).

Back to the point, differences between male and female humans are largely cultural, and the only one that is a scientific biological fact (average strength) is not extremely relevant in the modern world.

#57 dont forget that man are the only animal that stumbles with the same rock twice, therefore sometimes we humans dont use rational thoughts that much, really animals use it a little bit more at least they remember well, we not so much, we keep doing the same mistakes over and over again.

And that “rational thoughts” at some extent, lead us to the point that the world cannot support us with food or water, we are reaching a bottle neck, while we are destroying the world natural resources, even though is our home, and the evolution in technology is for controling the human race by a few privilage people, while those that are being controlled live a very systematic designed way of life, in order to keep the well designed control, well i rather prefer being an animal at least wolves dont eat wolves, or destroy the earth, ignorance is bliss

@55 So… what then? Our capacity for higher cognitive thinking, independent thought, and free choice is just a big, fabricated myth that we invented for ourselves?

I never said we were geniuses. I simply said that pre-determined gender roles do not define us as a species, because of our unique ability to think outside of the box and *choose*.

@57 How do you figure? I haven’t attributed it to anything but the factors that you describe.

It would be easy to see nature as one “designed” system, but really it’s billions of systems, and they’ve all come about based on random chance, and just as many are likely to have failed in the meantime. I was just emphasizing some of the things that do repeat across those systems.

The human being may be capable of lot by using his head, but how far does that really go? How many people do you know who truly act in their own best interests most of the time? Do you honestly see that much rationality in how we work?

That’s really my only point. Impressive as the human mind may be, it’s quite obviously endowed with flaws that are very similar to those of our cats.

@59 No, that’s all fact. But the actual use of that is severely limited.

I’m saying that trying to think your way into being a girl, is folly. Whether you’re a girl or not, has nothing to do with cognition.

Did silkvg247 think her way into being lesbian? Sometimes, we just are what we are, and no matter how much thought we could put into changing it, it wouldn’t work.

I do think gender roles define us as a species. I fail to see how they don’t. For 100.000 years men have been warriors and women have been in charge of the camp.

Things have obviously opened up over the last 200 years in many cultures, and there have been several others before them that allowed for a lot of freedom, for both men and women (Christianity really fucked that up in Europe) so I don’t think those gender roles are as limited as some people would like to portray them.

Peeps do realise that Gender Roles are culturally enforced, not rigid genetic predestination right?

Nah, folks don’t realize gender equality is modern culturally stimulated.

Wow, these comments are clearly going nowhere fast. This isn’t about human nature or general human intelligence, it’s about a guy who’s a bit of a knob giving a game mechanic an offensive nickname.

Regardless of whether or not women are “bad at games” [which they're not btw. That's utter bollocks] recent studies by the ESA suggest that women currently make up 47% of gamers. Of course some will argue that such a study doesn’t differentiate between “casual” and “core” games but who gives a toss. It’s irrelevant. This is yet another example of the “boys club” mentality that’s damaging the industry and preventing it from growing and being taken more seriously. Regardless of whether or not we’re talking about casual or core, these kinds of comments are out-dated, offensive and ridiculous. They’re damaging their own brand and talking themselves out of a large slice of the market.

The straight male gamers who think that gaming is just for them need to realise that the landscape of gaming is changing. Get on board or gtfo.

All the people who’re forward thinking and, ya know… not arse-backwards, are the people who will hopefully, one day be in the development chairs making even more great games that embrace inclusivity, instead of making misguided, moronic comments that offend and bore.

@61 You don’t see any inherent biological factors that might direct women a certain way, like milky, life-sustaining breasts, fertile wombs, or a body structure that favors aestethics over function?

If it was their natural place to be a blank slate, then how come they can’t compete with us physically? Physical parity strikes me as a pretty important factor for someone who wants to claim equality.

Currently we can just choose to shove them in the dirt whenever they open their mouthes, like some cultures pretty much do already.

@62 No I think they do. Hence the desire to go back to the “Good old days”. Not sure when they were myself… The 70′s maybe?

@DSB I’ve always found your comments really intelligent on this site, but this just baffles me.

Just one example: “For 100.000 years men have been warriors and women have been in charge of the camp”

This is just plain wrong, we have zero evidence of how the division of labor (if any) was between gender in prehistoric times. As a matter of fact, division of labor is one of the criterias that define a civilisation (look it up in a dictionary), which makes if very much a cultural thing.

Anyway, now I know why I usually don’t get involved in these comment wars.

God, this getting so fucking boring. Same shit, different day.

@64, No I don’t. How we act and interact socially has been dictated through cultural evolution, not genetic evolution.

I’m working class, living in a modern western city. The way I see it, moms and dads both have jobs and both raise the family, both cook and clean, theirs no “I have a penis, only I work”.

Unless your Muslim. Those guys stick to a more traditional approach of woman stay home and breed. Which really just highlights that it’s a cultural choice to live that way.

If only anything you guys say would correlate with irl… Aside from you weirdos out there.

@66 Most evidence suggests that during the hunter-gatherer phase, men were dominant, hunting the bigger game, and conducting their wars, while women were active as both hunters and gatherers, but primarily either hunting smaller game, or acting as blockers.

That’s all circumstancial, but ultimately our limited brains don’t allow us to see the ultimate truth when we dig those things up, so we usually go whereever the assumption leads us.

It doesn’t define the division of labor, but it does suggest it, and personally I think the suggestion of that evidence is pretty consistent throughout our history.

If you can’t prove something, you have to go with what the evidence suggests, so where is the evidence suggesting that women were ever dominant in those initial societies? I just haven’t seen any.

They have been dominant in much later societies though, the vikings were known to allow women to rise in their power structures.

@DSB What evidence?

@60 Things have obviously opened up over the last 200 years in many cultures, and there have been several others before them that allowed for a lot of freedom, for both men and women so I don’t think those gender roles are as limited as some people would like to portray them.”

That was kinda the whole point, DSB. People don’t have to fit into those gender roles anymore. Society doesn’t expect it. Not as much as it used to, anyway.

@70 We’re not Neanderthals anymore. Those rules and roles no longer apply.

@71 You can look at a number of things, from human remains to cave paintings, to sculptures.

Look up venus figurines, for example. Some of the oldest complete human remains to have been found have had chips in their bones that could only have come from combat. And the hunters featured in cave paintings often have gargantuan balls between their legs.

@72 I don’t agree, I think it’s about dictating a different set of gender roles, more than setting anyone free.

They want to tell people how to raise their kids, they want to tell board of directors to hire more women executives, they want to tell Lego not to make their blocks pink, and I guess increasingly they want to revise history to be more politically correct according to our standards today.

It seems to me like a battle of supremacy, rather than a call for balance.

Wow the comment section of course isn’t about the article just a couple of sexist misogynist derail the thread. Successful troll is successful.

I don’t see the issue its just an internal name for a skill so what? People and their PC mindedness. FYI Borderlands was never PC.

‘It’s now very common to hear people say, “I’m rather offended by that”, as if that gives them certain rights. It’s no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. “I’m offended by that.” Well, so fucking what?’ —Stephen Fry

I would call this “Little Brother Mode” more than anything. It will give me an opportunity to play with my little brother so that he does not get frustrated and lets him actually contribute to our team.

I’m for it.

@75

Its not an actual mode or skill just something that a group of the developers called internally. You can call it whatever you want but thats not what it is called. The actual tree is called best friends forever.

Yup PB. Someone ‘referred’ to something in a slightly cheeky way. Cue the rage.

If we were talking finished product then I can understand a few panties being rustled. But we’re not.

All joking aside, if this “Girlfriend mode” doesn’t include the ability to make a sandwich on the skill tree it’s false advertising

Haha! Wow. Never expected this much entertainment out of a comment thread. Thank you all for showing up.

On topic, so what if it gets called a GF mode? It’s accurate. Skilled shooter players are overwhelmingly male. And many of those players will have wives or girlfriends who may want to see what it’s about, but they lack the hardcore skills. A mode for them makes sense to me.

There are better forums to discuss the sociology of gaming demographics. Not that I really care what gets typed in here.

It’s not about reality, it’s about how terrible you can possibly make it sound by reading way too much into it Cobra951

Most poignantly, it won’t be called girlfriend mode, that was just illustrative.

@78 Hahaha

@79 So it’s ok to pick on a minority (skilled female shooters)?

I actually wholeheartedly agree with the latest post by MoC… Back in the days you would be eaten alive or just forced out of your profession if you were inferior, nowadays you can post about videogames on an amateur site on the internet and make money..

You can also have a wife who works as a secretary and be a secretary yourself, and think that’s because genders are equal. I wonder what Mary Shelley would say on the subject?. Hmm, yeah Byron just probably got there due to silly cultural prejudicies../s

@81

I didn’t see it that way at all. For all we know he has a girlfriend who is a non-gamer or is not skilled at BL and so he named that tree “girlfriend mode”. If I was developing this game and I saw this skill tree I would have named it “wife mode”. DOes that mean I am a sexist or misogynist? No it doesn’t. People of course are going to read into stuff as if what he had said was meant that all women suck at shooting.

@silkvg247 You’re braver than I am trying to educate people who just won’t look at the other side of the coin (it is quite comfy being a male in male dominated society, why should they question anything?).

@82 No, but I can have a wife who works as a surgical technologist and see that she is just as capable (frankly more so) than many of the people she works with, regardless of their gender.

While I am capable of staying at home and raising our kids, despite the fact that, traditionally speaking, that was tought to be the role of the mother.

And the reality is that there are plenty of families with these kind of dynamic now, more and more as times goes back, and its considered completely normal.

Gender roles haven’t been relevant or quite some time now, and beyond certain obvious physical differences, have no reason to apply now.

@84 Indeed.

That doesn’t in any way, shape or form change the simple fact of reality that men are more capable at some things while females are naturally better at others. Nobody was preventing Frankenstein from beating Goethe or Byron.. the latter even was from the very same group of close friends. Nobody were stopping Marie Curie from becoming a chemist, were they?

By all means, if you want to live the dream of a genderless mutant, more power to you.

@86 “That doesn’t in any way, shape or form change the simple fact of reality that men are more capable at some things while females are naturally better at others.”

And intelligence isn’t one of them.

A man may be genetically capable of possessing more muscle, but there are still plenty of women out there that would be able to kick the ass of the average male.

” A man may be genetically capable of possessing more muscle, but there are still plenty of women out there that would be able to kick the ass of the average male.”. Wrong. Maybe you O’Connor, you’re soft. But the average man, no way Jose.

@88 I’m not talking about myself. I actually know what the inside of a gym looks like. I’m not entirely sure how you would know if I’m “soft” or not.

And if the people I see walking around the towns and cities each day are anything to go by, most men aren’t even close to reaching their gender’s peak of physical perfection. Not by a long shot.

Mind you, neither are most women. But physical “perfection” is a rather frivolous goal anyway.

Not intelligence as a word taken in isolation. Certain types of intelligent work.

Sophia Kovalevskaya would beat the shit out of anyone’s algebra from some random university, not so when you start recalling George Boole..

Who started this goddamn debate anyway ? Didn’t we had this same discussion a few days ago?
Also he just jokingly called it GF mode. What’s so wrong with it ?

@91 Yes we did.

Being a bunch of pretentious pseudo-intellectuals who try to apply video games to real life is kinda our thing around here. =P

Yikes, I better stay out of this one.

I can tell you my wife has some games that she dominates in, some she is average in, and some she stinks at. Kind of the same as everyone else I have gamed with.

I just wish I could keep up with her on Left4Dead, no joke. She saves my ass so much it ain’t funny.

Oh gamers.

So, I’m with Mr. Ireland on this one. Sort of. As I think we’re in complete accordance, and mostly because I can’t believe that some people can be so ignorant. Though there have been a vast majority of famous inventions and discoveries by ethnic minorities as well as women.

See, what it is is that this world is dominated by straight, white men, who’ve never had discrimination, who’re popularised, who’ve made themselves dominant. Unless you do your research, it’s easy to believe that most inventions were thanks to straight, white men.

You know what’s funny, though?

In the past century, we’ve proven how much that’s bullshit, and it makes one worry just how true the situation was with inventors of the past, whether those straight, white men actually came up with their ideas, or merely stole them. In fact, recent trends have shown that people of ethnicities which aren’t Caucasian and are women alike have been responsible for some fairly major discoveries.

In fact, most of the major discoveries. I follow science journals, and most of the Scientists who’re pushing fields forward these days aren’t Caucasian, and not all of them are men. Not by a long shot.

This is why I cast doubt upon history. There are times when it was likely that a person of a minor ethnicity or a woman wouldn’t have been permitted to be responsible for an invention or a discovery. But that’s changing, now. And we see that as it’s changing, white men are actually falling to the sidelines.

In fact, recent Scientific research trends have shown white men to be notably inferior.

The white man empire is a notion of utter fucking nonsense that’s almost been completely toppled, these days. And only small-minded, pig-headed little bigots actually try to hang onto it. If you’d stop dwelling centuries into the past and look at how things are now, you’ll find that he white man isn’t responsible for nearly the amount of discoveries or inventions that he used to be.

And the world is better for it.

As for the article at hand? That’s just a dickbag not watching his mouth. We’ve seen that a million times before. Sometimes I think that Randy’s group tries to generate controversy just for advertising.

Remember the Duke Nukem butt-slapping shit?

Yeeeeeeeeah.

@94 Indeed. It’s very interesting to see the shift in a lot of fields. Medicine especially, which right now is being absolutely dominated by people in eastern countries. It’s quite fascinating.

The old rules no longer apply. They haven’t for a very long time. One can only hope that continues, grows and evolves with time, until it simply no longer matters. I doubt that will ever happen, not utterly, but one can hope.

Metro PC man, I want to be a Metro PC man.

Metro PC man, I want to be a Metro PC man.

Hahaha freedoms_stain

I expected a longer post from TheWulf on this; ending in a paragraph extolling the virtues of Guild Wars 2.

@94: Just out of curiosity, do you have some examples?