Pixels
used to depict the buttocks of female characters in videogames are
being recycled into the general graphics pool, while butt pixels
belonging to male characters are going to waste.
This is
according to a new barrel-scraping report by Lilith's Roar – a
non-profit, social justice think tank, operating from a
self-described 'safe space for dangerous ideas', at a vegan coffee
shop, in San Francisco's Mission District.
Founder,
Helen Shapiro, explains:
“Our
analysis revealed that it is industry standard practice among
videogames developers to recycle the pixels used to depict female
buttocks, and for these pixels to be re-employed in the rendering of
backgrounds and objects, or even other characters.
“Conversely,
pixels used in the design of the buttocks of male characters, or in
the buttocks of those characters whose gender and preferred pronouns
are unknown, are only recycled by one developer: Running With
Scissors, and that is only so they can have a shotgun in Postal 2
called 'Sarah' that fires
butt pieces.
“It is
unbelievably sexist that, in 2016, you can have the fragments of a digitised
feminine derrière scattered across the screen like anal confetti,
while the digital male rear-end is treated as sacrosanct and
inviolable.”
According
to jobbing academics, operating in the fringe humanities and pseudo sciences,
the volume of recycled female butt pixels can have a marked effect on
the way both sexes experience a game:
Niles
Cromby is a graduate of STEM Infiltration Studies - a burgeoning
academic field, targeted at young people who lack the intelligence,
or the work ethic, to study STEM subjects, but who want to find
employment in this sector. Students are taught how to secure jobs by
manipulating diversity quotas, using slander and libel to induce
sackings and open up vacancies, and basic blackmail and intimidation
techniques. He says that he has seen witnessed first-hand the damage
caused by this gender disparity:
“Any
pixel that has been used to portray a character's butt enters a
bootylicious state that persists even after the digital ass has been
broken down for spare parts. When female butt pixels are re-used in
games their inherent bootyliciousness has a subconscious effect on
the libido of straight men, who enter a heightened state of sexual
arousal.
“This is
what accounts for the otherwise mystifying popularity of bus and
train simulators, which are often made of 100% recycled female butt
pixels. It also explains why Grampton to Skipton Railway Manager
2015 is a gateway for bi-curious women who are contemplating a
move to full-blown lesbianism.
“That
being said, the absence of recycled male butt pixels in games is
having a devastating impact on the heterosexual female gaming
community, who experience little to no sexual arousal, and are
dependent for their entertainment on other factors, such as the
game's storyline or playability.”
Pixel
recycling is considered an area of market growth, with the demand for
so-called junk pixels, harvested from older games, such as the
original Tomb Raider, being particularly high.
While junk
pixels are usually considered too large and blocky to be reused in
all but the shittiest of AAA titles, they are increasingly favoured
by cash-strapped indie game developers as a way of bringing down
costs.
According
to the list of ingredients in the recent indie smash, Sunset,
85% of the game consists of junk pixels. A digital butt
swabbing of random screens in Sunset, commissioned by MODE 5,
revealed as many as 67% of these pixels once formed the buttocks of
female characters, with an astonishing 91% of these butt pixels
harvested from early renderings of the Tomb Raider heroine, Lara
croft.
This does
not come as a surprise to refuse engineer, Martin Wallis, who played
Sunset in 2015:
“Actually
it explains a lot. I played through Sunset bored
out of my mind by the story, but with an erection like the Washington
Monument. I can honestly say that I have never been more sexually
attracted to a game.”
This is
not the only example of recycled female butt pixels inducing unwanted
sexual arousal in men. In November, 2015, the game developer,
Rockstar, revealed that Trevor Philips - a playable character in
their highly popular Grand Theft Auto 5 title, had been
rendered from 100% female butt pixels, and had caused many straight
male players to question their sexuality.
Among
these was Daniel Aimes – a former bank manager – who admits to
having fallen in love with Philips:
“I sat
down for dinner one evening and explained to my wife of eight years,
and our two young children, that I was sexually attracted to Trevor –
a character from GTA V, and that I was going to dedicate all of my
free time and money towards finding a way of making love to him. Now
it turns out that Trevor was coded from female butt pixels,
and I'm about as gay as Tom Cruise.”
Aimes
added:
“My wife
is still leaving me. It doesn't seem to matter how many videos I send to her of me playing GTA V, naked and flaccid.”
The
depiction of buttocks in videogames has been an enduring source of
tension ever since the early days of amusement arcades.
The first
known example of digitally-rendered buttocks occurred in the game
Asteroids, in which the triangular spaceship, controlled by the
player, displays two prongs at its widening rear-end, that are clearly
intended to be arse cheeks. Debate has raged as to the gender of the
spaceship. While the novellas and poetry collections, that comprise
the expanded Asteroids universe, depict asteroid mining as a
female-dominated sector of deep space industry, critics claims that
the majority of these books were written by womens' studies
graduates, who imposed their own gender bias onto the game.
An earlier
controversy occurred when the British tabloid, The Daily Mail
claimed that the attacking alien fleet in the game Space Invaders, who were thought to be conducting a bombing raid, prior to a ground
invasion, were in fact raining down corrosive feces on the earth.
This was denied by the game's creators who released detailed
xeno-biology reports that revealed the space invaders excreted their
bodily waste as an invisible gas that was non-toxic to humans, but
could cause temporary damage to the ozone layer.
In the
wake of the Lilith's Roar report, calls are growing for the industry
to address the gender disparity between the recycling of male and
female butt pixels, with social justice groups demanding that
stringent targets be set for games developers. Those on the opposing
side say that this is more easier said than done.
A
spokesperson for an AAA developer, who wished to remain nameless,
told MODE 5:
“The
buttocks of male characters in games are often strategically
concealed behind an un-tucked shirt, a cloak, or an armour flap,
making recycling of their arse pixels a difficult, protected and
often dangerous operation; one that is non-economic at this point in
time.
“That is
not to say that in the future, as butt pixel mining techniques
improve and the industry matures, we will not be able to access these
previously untapped reserves of graphics.”
Helen
Shapiro, of Lilith's Roar, thinks that we still have a long way to
go:
“We will
know that we are living in a gender-equal society when we see a Tomb
Raider game, where Lara Croft's backside is made from 100% recycled
male butt pixels. It's a long shot but, hey, a girl can dream.”
