This is the strange part of everything.

Why would you even want to have private nude pictures of your favorite celebrity? If you have more than three working brain cells, you know that in real life they look nothing like what you expect from movies, magazine covers and photoshops^H^H^Hshoots.

Maybe the real reason they're upset is not that they're naked, but a combination of "there's pictures of me that I didn't get paid for" and "people need to keep their false image of me, not understand that half of them look just as good as me when I'm without make-up, stylist and professional photographer".

If you had actually read that EULA that you signify agreement with, you would have noticed that it says they are not liable for errors, bugs or basically anything else. Just like any EULA ever written.

That's actually a really good reply.

In the immortal words of Tim Minchin:

You confuse politics with culture and society. Let's ignore the 50,000 smartphone games that are so simple you would have to stretch a lot of things far beyond breaking to find any culture in them, to the point where Pong was some kind of social statement. But even with all those games ignored and restricting ourselves to PC games, yes they very often reflect parts of our culture and society. Some intentionally, some not. It's not a surprise, given that culture influences on us as members of society, and thus leaves a mark in our creative pursuits, just like greek culture influenced greek art and literature and any famous american book of your choosing would've been very different had it been written by a chinese author in China, for example.

Politics, however, is not the same as culture.

Merriam-Webster says:

Basically, politics is an activity. Writing a novel or creating a computer game is not a politicial act unless you intentionally make it so. There is no such thing as "unconscious politics".

Second:

This worrying about reflection of culture in our creations is vastly overrated. It's the same nonsense as the claim that violent games turn people into killers. I can play a game set not in todays culture, but in a culture where women have almost no rights, a medieval or fantasy setting, and I won't come out of the game wishing to take any rights away from women in the real world. On the contrary, it may make me more sensitive to gender issues.

When I look at female characters in video games, I see them as characters. I laugh about their ridiculous fantasy armor. I look at their boobs and think "yeah, suuure". Just like I look at the men and think the same.

You make too many assumptions about people you don't know. I'm not for turning all women into sex objects. I do, however, understand that sex and viewing a member of the opposite sex in a sexual way is normal human behaviour. Also, you can have your Chipendales, if you want. Why would I scream anything, let alone murder? You can look at me as a sex object, if it makes you feel good. I'm sure enough of myself to not be bothered. Heck, I've been hit on by gay men. Yes, it's a bit uncomfortable, but not a big deal. Yes, I wouldn't like having that as a constant part of my life which is why I feel for attractive women in clubs and understand why they prefer to go with a small group.

But all of these are a small selection of social imperfections, and there are thousands more of them, some related to gender and some not, some to the disadvantage of women and some to the disadvantage of men.

True to some extent. But you ignore that this "male ideal" is not better or more comfortable. Many men do not enjoy the role that society puts them in, and they don't want to be strong and powerful and in control. Worse, other than women they can't complain about it, because the role doesn't allow it. Stereotypes and forced roles affect both genders, that's my point. And just because you may think that the male role is preferable doesn't mean that all men agree with you.
Also, some of the smartest and most successful women I know are very much ladies at the same time. Because they understand how real power works and that it has nothing to do with the size of your bizeps.

Learn to read. I made it very clear that if a woman can't get birth control or jobs or voting rights or other such basic human rights, I'll be on her side, no question.

But there's a point where justified demands turn into ridiculous bullshit. In my country, feminists have successfully crippled parts of our language, because language was "male dominated". So instead of "student" and "professor", we now have to stay "StudentInnen" and "ProfessorInnen" or some such abominations (there are worse, like "Student*innen" - which is not a spelling error).

Texts written in accordance to gender study rules are utterly unreadable. I'm not joking.

Now where exactly are we with women in video games? Somewhere inbetween. We've not reached "you're a psycho" nonsense-land, but we're not in the "you can't vote and always obey your husband" territory, either. It's rare that a game doesn't offer female characters, or puts them at a disadvantage. We're fighting over visuals here. Maybe this generation has forgotten that giving women equal rights was a real fight once, and put in relation to that, being worried about sexist visuals is kind of not really that big a deal.

Am I for less sexism? Yeah.
Do I think the boob size and ridiculous fantasy armor in games is worth fighting over? Nope. There are much more important fights to pick, still.

In this particular case, I don't know all the details, so I don't pass judgement.

But in more general terms, I've seen this "women in video games" topic for some years now. Here's what is having very, very little positive effect on women in video games: Feminist activists yelling for equality. Here's what does have a visible positive effect: Men and women quietly working on changing things and people complaining about specific problems to the responsible people, with suggestions on what to change.

Politics rarely actually improve anything. We realized that when it comes to Washington D.C. politics, why don't we realize it when it comes to office politics, genderism and other relatives?

Yes, I can. But in this, they are the in-your-face aggressors. I can't remember the last time some anti-feminist pushed his agenda on me.

No, I actually listen to people I disagree with. I've listend to right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, even to christian and islamic fundamentalists (though it's really difficult to do that for more than a few minutes).

I've listened to feminists. There are moderate ones and extreme ones. The more extreme ones are quite open in what they want, and it's not equality. They cover it thinly, but basically they say women were oppressed for centuries, now it's time to turn the tables. I have citations, but they're in my native language (german). Google "Alice Schwarzer", the by far most well-known german feminist (though according to her, it should probably be feministIn).

In which games? All the games I've played in recent years make all classes available to both genders.

Because that's the fucked-up stereotypes in our society. I don't like it, either. But claiming it's only unfair to women is even more fucked-up.

If you had tried to understand what I wrote, you'd have realized I am all for equal rights. I am not, by the way, for equal treatment - gender differences are real facts of the real world and require consideration. We need slightly different clothes, for example (where would you put your dick in a woman's panty?). Sports are segregated by gender for real biology reasons. There are psychological difference where science is not sure how much is education and how much is biology. The list goes on.

Frankly speaking, I don't care because it's not my problem. I want to relax, remember?

Yes, I can understand that as a father of a daughter (which the original story on this was about) I would be upset. And yes, I think it's stupid to include only male characters unless your story calls for it (Leisure Suit Larry games, for example). But again, it's not my problem. If you want to change it, I'll not stand in your way, but I see no reason to spend my time and energy supporting a cause that's not my problem.
You fail to see the difference between normal people with normal views and political activists who have an agenda behind everything they do. No, if one of my female friends brought that up, I'd relate to her and tell her to write the company an angry letter. Why should I tell her the bullshit nonsense that you bring up? But also, why should I campaign against problems that don't affect me?

Here's what really bothers me: It's a well known psychological fact that if you have people who are mostly on your side, but just not as engaged as you are, and you bother them too much, they will more likely oppose you then join your fight. Because nobody likes to be forced, not even into something they think is a good cause.
That is my problem with aggressive feminism and why I say keep your politics out of my entertainment. I'm all for equal rights, but I would like to punch feminazis in the face, except that I was taught not to hit women. Now I'm probably a chauvinistic swine because - omg - I don't treat men (which I would hit) and women (which I won't) not equal.

I can relate, in parts. To the anti-feminists, that is.

I'm sick and tired of getting feminism shoved down my throat absolutely everywhere. There's new laws, most companies have policies, our language is being policed for misunderstood "gender-equality" and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm in full support of women fighting actual oppression. If you can't vote just because you're female, I'm with you on that. If you can't drive a car because you're a female, I'm with you on that. If your boss tells you that short skirt is the appropriate dresscode, while he insists on long trousers for your male colleagues, I'm with you on that.
But the feminazis who insist that absolutely everything has to be exactly 50/50 male/female, then for all I care you can fuck off and die.
Also, let's be honest, many of the most vocal feminists quite publicly state that their goal is not 50/50, but female dominance.

Women in video games is one of the "soft topics". Yeah, it's ridiculous what armor female characters wear sometimes. But you're blind, deaf and stupid if you think it's a gender thing. Look at the male characters - they are all Schwarzeneggers, too. According to my female friends, I'm quite handsome, but most video game characters beat me hands down in both beauty and body shape. It's the same as in movies and magazines - we get idealized, unnaturally enhanced versions of humans.

Could video games improve their representation of women? Sure, they could. But the subject is by far not as simple and clear-cut as voting rights or such.

And frankly speaking, I play video games to relax and shut down. You could keep your politics out of my entertainment and work on improvements in the real world. You know, the one that matters.

Which basically means that Microsoft is selling a car without mirrors, brakes and seatbelts, but you have plenty of options buying one from a 3rd party. Provided you remember to do it...

They don't give a fuck about their own security, either.

You remember the scandal when it was revealed that the NSA had wiretapped the mobile phone of German government members? Well, it wasn't like the department responsible for the security of the government hadn't given them special encrypted phones, developed by a german company. It was that the stupid government idiots didn't use them because they were less convenient than their smartphones.

These people really don't understand security, at all.

They probably did think of children differently than many parents today. The word "helicopter mom" hadn't been invented yet, and not for lack of helicopters.

For many parts of history, children were not seen as cute little treasures, to be protected at all costs until the day they leave your house and you cry for three weeks. They were seen as dirty, loud little brats in desperate need of some discipline and teaching so they could finally become full human beings to help the family out with its business (whether that was a farm or a kingdom).

Of course people loved their children always, but the focus was on what they would become, not on "ooooh, looook at its eeeyyeees!!!".

Also, when half of the children never reaching adult age is the norm, your urge to protect them from everything is more realistic. It hurts like hell, but some of them die, that's just the way it is.

Yes, but the way to do so is to get a document signed by a court and give it to a human being who will then do what it orders, like unlock his phone and give it to you.

It is absolutely, 100% not possible to put a backdoor into a system without compromising the system. If it has a backdoor, the backdoor will be abused. If it is protected by a unique key, the key will be lost. If it is protected by encryption (key/certificate authentication), the signing certificate will be stolen or leaked (it would become the master-key target that every criminal in the sphere would be after, only a matter of time until one of them succeeds).

Yeah, it's a damn hard problem to solve. No surprise it's taken them 20 years to figure out that you could just put all of the files that belong to one application into a few folders exclusive to that application and then wipe them when the app is removed. Instead of, say, the absolute dumbest thing you can do, which is scattering them all over the place without keeping a record so you are absolutely guaranteed to never, ever, find them again.

No, it is the exact opposite.

Stickers and security awareness training and all this nonsense are attempts to put the responsibility on the user by telling him what to do, instead of handling the responsibility yourself by making sure that your product is safe.

As with all things, there is, of course, a limit. You cannot (with current technology) design a power drill so that it will work on a wall, but not on a hand. And if your user knows the master password that will destroy your company then he should be told to keep it secret. But you should also ask yourself if you really need such a gaping security hole or if you couldn't compartmentalise things better. Or if the power drill can be designed so that it only works if the user has both hands on the machine, to at least reduce risk.

Not friendly to disabled or old people.

However, one-way walkways are entirely possible. You could have moving stairs that only move in one direction - that way a user erroneously going the wrong way would definitely notice.

It's all about assuming that users make mistakes and changing your mindset from shaking your head and mumbling "stupid lusers" to "let's see how we can handle that..."

It's quite an interesting subject, and finding great solutions to these problems is a challenge to more than just math skills.