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Valtorious
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May 13 @ 1:16am
A Documented Review of the Anita Sarkeesian Controversy
A Documented Review of the Anita Sarkeesian Controversy

Disclaimer
This post was written to give people context for why the STS2 controversy exists, not to serve as a definitive argument against Sarkeesian or her work. The edit section below reflects corrections made based on feedback from this discussion. If you want to discuss Slay the Spire 2 itself, there are plenty of other posts for that. This discussion has run its course and further discussion of Gamergate, broader political arguments, or unrelated controversies is off topic. Please keep any remaining replies civil and on topic.


For those asking who Anita Sarkeesian is and why people are upset, here are the documented facts, along with my take.

Sarkeesian is a media critic who ran a nonprofit called Feminist Frequency. In 2012 she launched a Kickstarter called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, raising $158,922 from an original $6,000 goal. The series was promised as 5 videos deliverable by December 2012. It ran until 2017 and was never completed as originally promised.

Before anything else: I genuinely enjoy Slay the Spire 2. It has been in my daily rotation since launch and nothing about her consultant credit has changed the game itself. This post is not an invitation to review bomb or harass anyone. It is simply an attempt to give people accurate information about why the controversy exists.

Some will argue this controversy only exists because YouTubers and content creators are pushing it for views. That may be true for some people. But the documented issues with her work exist independently of whoever is currently talking about them. The fan art incident was documented and reported at the time it happened, years before the current controversy. The source of why you heard about something does not change whether the underlying facts are true.



1. She stated on camera she was not a gamer
In a 2010 lecture at Professor Melanie Klein's class, she said:

Originally posted by Anita Sarkeesian, 2010:
I'm not a fan of video games. I actually had to learn a lot about video games in the process of making this.

This is from the full lecture, originally uploaded on July 9, 2010, still available online. This quote was independently confirmed by Kotaku, not a source known for being hostile to her. See Edit section for important context corrections on this point.

2. The Hitman: Absolution misrepresentation
In her series she showed footage of killing female NPCs in Hitman: Absolution, framing it as the game encouraging or rewarding that behavior. The score penalty for killing civilians is visible on screen during her own footage. See Edit section for important context corrections on this point.

3. Fan art used without permission
Artist Tammy Smith discovered her Dragon's Lair fan art had been used in the Tropes vs. Women banner without credit, with her signature removed, after the project had raised over $150k. Sarkeesian apologized and removed the image, claiming the team mistook it for official art.



My opinion
I don't think what she believes is wrong enough to justify harassment or review bombing. That's never okay. Equal representation and feminism in gaming are real conversations worth having. But a conversation built on misleading evidence isn't advocacy, it's a one-sided argument dressed up as research. If you're going to make a serious case about a medium, you need to actually understand it and present the full picture.

Video games exist largely as an escape. People come to them to have fun and unwind. That doesn't mean they're above criticism, but that criticism needs to be honest and informed.

A note on the lack of transparency claim
Some in these discussions have argued that Mega Crit was not upfront about Sarkeesian's involvement in STS2. This is worth correcting. Her consultant credit was not hidden. It was publicly visible before launch and only became a major talking point after someone highlighted it and the discourse escalated from there. A game not being actively marketed around a consultant's involvement is not the same as concealment. Whether her specific expertise was the right fit for this project is a fair question, but saying they hid it is not an accurate characterization and should not be the basis for refund requests or review bombing.



Edit
This section exists to correct anything I stated inaccurately in the original post, or to add additional context as the discussion develops. I believe in updating the record when the evidence calls for it rather than leaving incorrect information standing.

Originally posted by Yian Yan:
Correctly pointed out that Point 1 is more nuanced than originally presented.
The same Kotaku article I cited as a source describes Sarkeesian showing a photo of herself playing Super Nintendo as a child, recounting efforts to get her parents to buy her a Game Boy, and buying a Super Nintendo in college. She described her relationship with gaming as complicated and explained she avoided the gamer label because she felt she had bought into the idea that you needed to play titles like GTA or Call of Duty to qualify. The quote is real and confirmed, but the fuller context complicates the narrative around it.

Originally posted by lil pickle:
Correctly pointed out that the quote itself was also being taken out of its immediate context.
After verifying against the full lecture transcript at timestamp 4:40 in the original Vimeo upload, the word "this" in the quote refers specifically to a short remix video she had just finished and was about to show the class, not the Tropes vs Women series which did not exist until 2012. I am retracting Point 1 as a standalone argument. The quote is genuine but the context does not support the conclusion I drew from it.

Originally posted by Ace Cheetah:
Correctly challenged the framing of Point 2.
After watching Sarkeesian's 2015 conference response directly, her argument was more nuanced than my post represented. She clarified that the NPCs in her footage were being pacified rather than killed, that the point system only tracks performance stats and does not affect mission completion, and that the penalty is negated by hiding bodies in containers the game itself provides. More significantly, she pointed out that there is an explicit in-game challenge that encourages knocking out a stripper and hiding her body as part of completing an objective, which supports her argument that the game actively builds these interactions into its design. My framing of the score penalty as the central issue was a misrepresentation of what her actual argument was. I am retracting the framing of Point 2 as presented. Point 3 regarding the fan art remains fully sourced and unaffected.



These are not rumors. Each point above is documented and sourced below.

References
Last edited by Valtorious; May 14 @ 11:33pm
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Showing 1-15 of 5,764 comments
thateclipse
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May 13 @ 1:19am 
Points for including sources.
#1
Valkyria
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May 13 @ 1:22am 
Just because she made a mistake about the hitman stuff doesn't invalidate her criticism and fight against sexism in video games and the community. I helped fight that same battle and the people who hate her are a large majority of the people who tried to push us out of gaming during gg.
#2
Valtorious
May 13 @ 1:25am 
Originally posted by Valkyria:
Just because she made a mistake about the hitman stuff doesn't invalidate her criticism and fight against sexism in video games and the community. I helped fight that same battle and the people who hate her are a large majority of the people who tried to push us out of gaming during gg.

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it!

You're right that one mistake doesn't invalidate everything. I said in my post that harassment was never okay and I meant it. But the Hitman example isn't just a mistake, it's a pattern that also shows up in the fan art situation and the uncredited footage. The issue isn't that she criticized sexism in games, it's that some of that criticism misrepresented the evidence. Those are separate things. You can believe representation in games matters and still hold the work to a basic standard of accuracy.
#3
phantom
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May 13 @ 1:31am 
The thing is that is hardly anything relative to other people. I have seen people with more points against them in one video than I have seen proven over days of people talking about Anita.

I do agree youtubers should be held accountable for misinformation. but countless youtubers have spread more misinformation than a single video with not even a fraction of this notoriety.

Like sure there is no doubt a lot of things she has done that I have not heard about. but with so many detractors I expect way more than this.
#4
Valtorious
May 13 @ 1:36am 
Originally posted by phantom:
The thing is that is hardly anything relative to other people. I have seen people with more points against them in one video than I have seen proven over days of people talking about Anita.

I do agree youtubers should be held accountable for misinformation. but countless youtubers have spread more misinformation than a single video with not even a fraction of this notoriety.

Like sure there is no doubt a lot of things she has done that I have not heard about. but with so many detractors I expect way more than this.

That's a fair point and I appreciate you engaging with it honestly. You're right that the documented and verifiable cases are limited in number. I deliberately kept the post to only what I could actually source, rather than repeating every claim that circulates about her online. A lot of what gets said goes way beyond what the evidence supports, and I didn't want to add to that.

The reason these specific points matter isn't the volume, it's what they reveal about the methodology behind a project that raised over $150k and influenced people in the industry. One misrepresented game, one uncredited artist, and a lecture where she said she wasn't a fan of the medium she was analyzing, all from her own work and her own words. That's not a massive list, but it's enough to raise legitimate questions about the foundation the work was built on.
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Zwei
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May 13 @ 1:36am 
Oh god, she's not gamer? How could she possibly talk about the representation of women without being a gamer?
#6
Valtorious
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May 13 @ 1:37am 
Originally posted by Zwei:
Oh god, she's not gamer? How could she possibly talk about the representation of women without being a gamer?

You don't have to be a gamer to have opinions on representation. But if you raise over $150k specifically to analyze game mechanics and design, then misrepresent how a game's scoring system works in your own footage, the question of familiarity with the medium becomes relevant. It's not about gatekeeping, it's about whether the analysis is accurate.
#7
Valkyria
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May 13 @ 1:51am 
Originally posted by Valtorious:
Originally posted by Zwei:
Oh god, she's not gamer? How could she possibly talk about the representation of women without being a gamer?

You don't have to be a gamer to have opinions on representation. But if you raise over $150k specifically to analyze game mechanics and design, then misrepresent how a game's scoring system works in your own footage, the question of familiarity with the medium becomes relevant. It's not about gatekeeping, it's about whether the analysis is accurate.

There is no denying that Gate Keeping isn't real. I face sexual harassment daily in video game lobbies, insults, asked what I'm doing on a video game and not doing housework. So much other nonsense. There's a large chunk of men who think women ruined video games and can't realize they grew out of video games. People who think a good video game hasn't released in 15 years and are stuck chasing their childhood nostalgia.
#8
Valtorious
May 13 @ 1:53am 
Originally posted by Valkyria:
Originally posted by Valtorious:

You don't have to be a gamer to have opinions on representation. But if you raise over $150k specifically to analyze game mechanics and design, then misrepresent how a game's scoring system works in your own footage, the question of familiarity with the medium becomes relevant. It's not about gatekeeping, it's about whether the analysis is accurate.

There is no denying that Gate Keeping isn't real. I face sexual harassment daily in video game lobbies, insults, asked what I'm doing on a video game and not doing housework. So much other nonsense. There's a large chunk of men who think women ruined video games and can't realize they grew out of video games. People who think a good video game hasn't released in 15 years and are stuck chasing their childhood nostalgia.

That harassment is real and it's not okay. I've experienced it too as a woman who plays games. Nothing in my post is meant to dismiss that or suggest women don't belong in gaming spaces. The issues I raised with Sarkeesian's work are specifically about methodology and accuracy, not about whether sexism in gaming is worth discussing, because it clearly is. Those are two separate conversations and I think it's important not to let one get used to shut down the other.
#9
phantom
May 13 @ 1:53am 
To clarify I hate the movement she has helped push. and I agree I have read enough that I firmly dislike her.

It is just that it is not enough I heavily despire her. I have seen random Twitter uses who easily fulfill all the things given aside that they are not famous.

Also it is not just quantity. For instance I have not seen quotes that say she outright thinks games should be censored. Well someone could say her ideology leans towards that. what does that compare to examples of people who intentionally mistranslated manga to insert politics?
#10
Valtorious
May 13 @ 1:55am 
Originally posted by phantom:
To clarify I hate the movement she has helped push. and I agree I have read enough that I firmly dislike her.

It is just that it is not enough I heavily despire her. I have seen random Twitter uses who easily fulfill all the things given aside that they are not famous.

Also it is not just quantity. For instance I have not seen quotes that say she outright thinks games should be censored. Well someone could say her ideology leans towards that. what does that compare to examples of people who intentionally mistranslated manga to insert politics?

That's a fair distinction and I appreciate the clarification. You're right that compared to some of the more egregious examples out there, like deliberate mistranslations or outright fabrications, what's documented here is more about poor methodology than malicious intent. I kept the post limited to what I could actually verify with sources, which is why it looks thin compared to the full picture people have built up over the years. I'd rather cite three solid things than repeat ten unverified ones.
#11
Rahg Roswellson
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May 13 @ 1:57am 
Originally posted by Zwei:
Oh god, she's not gamer? How could she possibly talk about the representation of women without being a gamer?

Your reasoning is far too simplistic and limited.

Perhaps it's because there's something called marketing and defining your target audience... and that this target audience has absolutely no similar expectations to a feminist.

Are the numerous failures and repeated studio closures really worth listening to a woman who doesn't like video games and just wants to see her propaganda forced into them?
All while getting handsomely paid for her consulting fees, all of them are just opportunists.

It's the same in the film industry; Kathleen Kennedy completely destroyed a franchise that had generated billions for decades, purely out of ideology.

Was it worth it?
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Valkyria
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May 13 @ 1:58am 
Originally posted by Rahg Roswellson:
Originally posted by Zwei:
Oh god, she's not gamer? How could she possibly talk about the representation of women without being a gamer?

Your reasoning is far too simplistic and limited.

Perhaps it's because there's something called marketing and defining your target audience... and that this target audience has absolutely no similar expectations to a feminist.

Are the numerous failures and repeated studio closures really worth listening to a woman who doesn't like video games and just wants to see her propaganda forced into them?
All while getting handsomely paid for her consulting fees, all of them are just opportunists.

It's the same in the film industry; Kathleen Kennedy completely destroyed a franchise that had generated billions for decades, purely out of ideology.

Was it worth it?

We feminists are nothing like Kathleen Kennedy lol.
#13
Bruise Wayne
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May 13 @ 2:00am 
I don't consider myself a gamer, but I play a lot of video games.

Just because someone doesn't self identify as something doesn't mean they have NO experience with it. I have 270+ hours already in STS2 alone. Not to mention countless other games I've played and mastered like Bloodborne etc.

I feel like regardless of not being a 'gamer', I'm still qualified to comment on video games because I've been playing them since I was like 10 yrs old. Maybe younger. :P

Just because she doesn't call herself a gamer I sincerely doubt that means she's never played video games before in her life, which is what a lot of people are trying to make that out to be. :P
#14
Valtorious
May 13 @ 2:00am 
Originally posted by Valkyria:
Originally posted by Rahg Roswellson:

Your reasoning is far too simplistic and limited.

Perhaps it's because there's something called marketing and defining your target audience... and that this target audience has absolutely no similar expectations to a feminist.

Are the numerous failures and repeated studio closures really worth listening to a woman who doesn't like video games and just wants to see her propaganda forced into them?
All while getting handsomely paid for her consulting fees, all of them are just opportunists.

It's the same in the film industry; Kathleen Kennedy completely destroyed a franchise that had generated billions for decades, purely out of ideology.

Was it worth it?

We feminists are nothing like Kathleen Kennedy lol.

Not Kathleen Kennedy :sob:
#15
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Date Posted: May 13 @ 1:16am
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