Skip to content
  • Home Home Home, current page.
  • Moments Moments Moments, current page.

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Language: English
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Bahasa Melayu
    • Català
    • Čeština
    • Dansk
    • Deutsch
    • English UK
    • Español
    • Filipino
    • Français
    • Hrvatski
    • Italiano
    • Magyar
    • Nederlands
    • Norsk
    • Polski
    • Português
    • Română
    • Slovenčina
    • Suomi
    • Svenska
    • Tiếng Việt
    • Türkçe
    • Ελληνικά
    • Български език
    • Русский
    • Српски
    • Українська мова
    • עִבְרִית
    • العربية
    • فارسی
    • मराठी
    • हिन्दी
    • বাংলা
    • ગુજરાતી
    • தமிழ்
    • ಕನ್ನಡ
    • ภาษาไทย
    • 한국어
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文
  • Have an account? Log in
    Have an account?
    · Forgot password?

    New to Twitter?
    Sign up
BootlegGirl's profile
Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.
Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.
Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.
@BootlegGirl

Tweets

Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.

@BootlegGirl

PhD, Texas A&M, 2015. Software worker. Data nerd. My views are my own and never represent any employer.

Winona, MN, USA
ellielockhart.github.io
Joined August 2013

Tweets

  • © 2021 Twitter
  • About
  • Help Center
  • Terms
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies
  • Ads info
Dismiss
Previous
Next

Go to a person's profile

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @

Promote this Tweet

Block

  • Tweet with a location

    You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

    Your lists

    Create a new list


    Under 100 characters, optional

    Privacy

    Copy link to Tweet

    Embed this Tweet

    Embed this Video

    Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Hmm, there was a problem reaching the server.

    By embedding Twitter content in your website or app, you are agreeing to the Twitter Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

    Preview

    Why you're seeing this ad

    Log in to Twitter

    · Forgot password?
    Don't have an account? Sign up »

    Sign up for Twitter

    Not on Twitter? Sign up, tune into the things you care about, and get updates as they happen.

    Sign up
    Have an account? Log in »

    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

    Country Code For customers of
    United States 40404 (any)
    Canada 21212 (any)
    United Kingdom 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2
    Brazil 40404 Nextel, TIM
    Haiti 40404 Digicel, Voila
    Ireland 51210 Vodafone, O2
    India 53000 Bharti Airtel, Videocon, Reliance
    Indonesia 89887 AXIS, 3, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata
    Italy 4880804 Wind
    3424486444 Vodafone
    » See SMS short codes for other countries

    Confirmation

     

    Welcome home!

    This timeline is where you’ll spend most of your time, getting instant updates about what matters to you.

    Tweets not working for you?

    Hover over the profile pic and click the Following button to unfollow any account.

    Say a lot with a little

    When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

    Spread the word

    The fastest way to share someone else’s Tweet with your followers is with a Retweet. Tap the icon to send it instantly.

    Join the conversation

    Add your thoughts about any Tweet with a Reply. Find a topic you’re passionate about, and jump right in.

    Learn the latest

    Get instant insight into what people are talking about now.

    Get more of what you love

    Follow more accounts to get instant updates about topics you care about.

    Find what's happening

    See the latest conversations about any topic instantly.

    Never miss a Moment

    Catch up instantly on the best stories happening as they unfold.

    Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

    OK, I seem to be un-rate-limited here, so I want to talk about some tweets I RTed earlier, by a gaming industry professional, about her experiences seeing playable female characters shot down within the video games industry. (thread)

    3:54 PM - 21 Jul 2020
    • 15 Likes
    • Fiona@no thoughts head empty Enkidum chelicerae Zoey 👻 Seth Edwards Katherine Jennings Kaworu from LA Django
    1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        I'm not personally friends with the person I RTed and so I don't want to QRT her and suggest I'm implying she'd agree with any particular take I have here, so - her tweets are just upthread.

        1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        What she basically said is exactly what I have been saying I suspect is true about video games: that women gamers (and by extension LGBT gamers, I believe marketers this bigoted and clueless absolutely lump the two together with stereotypes) are INTENTIONALLY framed as "casual"

        2 replies 0 retweets 20 likes
        Show this thread
      4. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        The story I RTed recounted working on what the poster described as a "gritty FPS" where nearly all female players surveyed and 80% of male players wanted to see a playable woman in the next game. It was unequivocally shot down bc the game couldn't be "a girl game."

        1 reply 0 retweets 17 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        That's just for *female player characters*. Not even getting into LGBT. I think it's important to note that she mentioned it was a gritty shooter. Not an offbeat platformer,not an adventure game, not a charming high budget indie,but a gritty shooter. That's where we're unwelcome

        1 reply 0 retweets 16 likes
        Show this thread
      6. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        We may be unwelcome in other places too, but definitely there. This story was stated to be from some time ago, but I truly do not believe a huge amount has changed.

        1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
        Show this thread
      7. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        So, to circle back around to why I find the ongoing media feeding frenzy on TLOU2, the absolute desperation to find a reason to hate the game, and the defense from the gaming left that the game is just too violent, upsetting and distasteful -it's that corroborating evidence there

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
        Show this thread
      8. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        If just getting a woman protagonist into a gritty shooter was off the table a few years ago, having two women protagonists, one of whom is a lesbian, in a generation-defining title is a HUGE shift. One of two things had to be possible for this to happen:

        1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
        Show this thread
      9. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        1) The industry moved forward, realized that since the audience was demanding more diversity, they should give in and do more diversity; or 2) the creatives at one particular studio with a phenomenal record for money making got to do basically whatever they wanted for one game

        1 reply 0 retweets 14 likes
        Show this thread
      10. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        I think TLOU2 is clearly a case of 2. Naughty Dog may have been wanting to foreground women and LGBT protagonists for a while, but they only got to do that after successfully making game after game with basically no duds in terms of financial success

        1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
        Show this thread
      11. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        Even with that in mind, their marketing department starting *four years ahead of release* - when *Barack Obama was still President,* for a sense of scale - sensitizing the poor manboys who play gritty shooters that they were going to have to be a girl, a gay girl, this time

        1 reply 0 retweets 14 likes
        Show this thread
      12. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        This marketing also included the active *lie* that the gritty manbro from the previous game would be a companion for a significant part of the game. These were likely preconditions of getting to do the game, *even with all of Naughty Dog's successes*

        1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
        Show this thread
      13. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        On top of this, I'm still not even sure they would have been allowed to pull it off if they hadn't essentially created a situation where narratively Ellie as the protagonist was the only way forward that made sense, *and* made her gay in a DLC when not much attention was paid

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
        Show this thread
      14. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        So if we have someone in the industry saying recently *even with overwhelming player support from men and women* for having a (presumably straight) female lead wasn't enough to make it happen, because of an industry desire to preserve gendered divides re: gritty shooters?

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
        Show this thread
      15. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        we should understand that as meaning that when we manage by what amounts to a miracle of sympathetic creatives who happened to have nearly unprecedented success and therefore creative freedom to get a LGBT, women-focused blockbuster gritty shooter, we cannot take that for granted

        1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
        Show this thread
      16. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        Let me elaborate further: 1) this is an issue that pertains, again, to "gritty shooters" more than other genres. It undoubtedly applies elsewhere, but, say, a T-rated superhero game or a psychadelic platformer would probably not face the same barriers

        1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
        Show this thread
      17. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        2) That means that we have to understand that TLOU2 being one of the grittier, darker, grimmer titles of its generation and also featuring the most diverse cast in terms of gender and sexuality is a feature, not a bug.

        1 reply 0 retweets 13 likes
        Show this thread
      18. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        Doing a happy game about a lesbian superhero who saves people in a morally upstanding world *would not have faced the same barriers* nor would it have challenged the same barriers or norms.

        1 reply 0 retweets 17 likes
        Show this thread
      19. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        TLOU2 is a paradigm shift because it says "women and LGBT people are an important part of the audience to, at least, this one major developer." and that developer believes that we are not more squicked than cishet men by brutal violence, moral compromise, and so on

        1 reply 0 retweets 19 likes
        Show this thread
      20. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        My fear throughout all of this has not been that women and LGBT people will disappear from AAA games altogether. We've been there for a while - in optional paths in the Bioware/Obsidian niche, in, again, offbeat games with an artsy vibe but AAA values, in high budget adventures

        1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
        Show this thread
      21. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        It's that we will forever be separated into that. And all of the folks saying "take heart! The sales bear you out, the corporations want money!" should, again, read the thread I RTed. They aren't purely or even primarily rational actors on this.

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
        Show this thread
      22. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        They are going to look for any excuse to not make gritty shooters that are also "girly gay games" or whatever. And the endless editorials about how TLOU2 is too violent, anti-dog, secretly Israeli propaganda, etc. are giving them the cover to keep LGBT ppl and women in subgenres

        1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
        Show this thread
      23. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        It is time for games journalists to realize that they need to step above their desire for games to somehow be "better" and accept that, as the sales of TLOU2 show, there is a MASSIVE audience of LGBT and female players who want exactly what the dudebros have always had.

        1 reply 1 retweet 12 likes
        Show this thread
      24. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        We don't want just The Sims. We don't just want RPG dating sims. We also want bloody action-adventure survival games with high production values. We aren't inherently more troubled than the dudebros by killing fictional video game people or by horror or moral ambiguity

        1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
        Show this thread
      25. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        We are actually gamers, and that means that we want in on the "hardcore games" that we've been playing all along, but not seeing ourselves in. Not all of us want that, but a huge number clearly do. But Naughty Dog is NOT the game industry. They, and their audience, got lucky.

        1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
        Show this thread
      26. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        For other developers and publishers to follow in TLOU2's wake, they are going to need to understand that LGBT and women gamers didn't buy TLOU2 in massive numbers in *spite* of its dark and intense themes, that those aren't cishet guy things

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
        Show this thread
      27. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        Because that's what they are going to want to do. They are going to want to say "clearly, these people are a market, and they want to be represented, but they would probably buy even more if we gave them AAA Stardew Valley."

        2 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
        Show this thread
      28. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        That is why "queers are healers," "we are better than this," and all the various whataboutism, gaslighting, and so on coming from major games press around The Last of Us Part II is dangerous to the future of representation in gaming. We aren't better than this. I'm not.

        1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
        Show this thread
      29. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        Approximately 2 million of us are not "better than" The Last of Us Part II, and we did not buy it just because the lead was a gay woman and we were willing to tolerate that icky male violence. We bought it because we wanted the cinematic action games cishet men have always had

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
        Show this thread
      30. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        If we allow ourselves to fall prey to vicious hot takes and attempting to prove our moral superiority over this game, I believe we may lose this fight forever. We will be forever segregated to (probably higher budget, better crafted) versions of The Sims, Stardew Valley, etc.

        1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
        Show this thread
      31. Dr. Ellie Lockhart. Republic serial villain.‏ @BootlegGirl 21 Jul 2020

        TLOU2 is the game that can break the gender segregation of the game industry but that can only happen if we stop the disingenous whining. /thread

        2 replies 1 retweet 9 likes
        Show this thread
      32. End of conversation

    Loading seems to be taking a while.

    Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.

      Promoted Tweet

      false

      • © 2021 Twitter
      • About
      • Help Center
      • Terms
      • Privacy policy
      • Cookies
      • Ads info