Hi, podcast gang. I was listening to you last week and I felt compelled to respond to the discussion you had regarding the upcoming Tomb Raider game. I normally wouldn't do this, but I feel very strongly about the issues you raised and subsequently dismissed out of hand.

Susan seems to be forgetting that a game like Tomb Raider doesn't exist in a cultural vacuum. There are other forces at work here. Lara Croft has always existed as an idealized female written primarily for a male perspective. It's true that male characters experience violence. But historically, violence against males has not been sexualized the way violence against females have.

I'm nod "demanding that women be treated differently from men" as you guys put it in the podcast. In fact, I'd like to see women get better, more equal treatment. The trailer includes a moment where a bound Lara Croft is practically getting groped by one of the bad guys with the implication that he's going to have his way with her. Characters like Nathan Drake or Master Chief never have to worry about getting raped. Why should Lara Croft?

See, what I'm objecting to isn't the violence. I expect violence in games. Most women won't be trapped on an island and have to fight off wolves or drug-runners. Neither will most men! But 1 in 5 women in the USA will experience rape in their lifetime, compared to 1 in 71 men. That's what the CDC reported in their National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey in 2010. So if, like you say, women live with the threat of rape every day, WHY SHOULD THEY IN A VIDEOGAME? It doesn't make the game more "real", it's just exploiting a very real problem for the sake of titillation and controversy.

The fact that the game is written by a woman doesn't excuse the problem. Women can write bad, exploitative fiction about females just as well as men can. Stephanie Meyer's career is testament to that.

So why does Lara Croft need a scene where there's the threat of sexual assault? Furthermore, why does the trailer need to focus on THAT? There's a scene in Casino Royale where James Bond's testicles are whipped as torture. That never showed up in the trailer for Casino Royale, I'll tell you that much. I'm not saying that it SHOULD have, but why couldn't the producers of Tomb Raider focus on Lara-as-Agent rather than Lara-as-Victim, as they do for Bond? They could have done a very cool montage of Lara learning to survive, fighting off a pack of wolves with a hunting knife, and taking out the enemies guerrilla style. Instead they chose to focus on her vulnerability AS A WOMAN in the climax of the trailer. That speaks to me as symptomatic of a larger societal issue, one that we as consumers shouldn't dismiss.

Thank you for reading.

>Major quest lines consist of a series of objectives that take you from place to place, culminating in a boss battle. According to the devs, these are supposed to be possible-but-challenging solo, and easier in groups.

>Then there are Wanted/Bounty quests which consist of a single open boss battle, which are specifically balanced for groups.

>And finally, there are Alerts, which would probably be my favorite if there were enough people for them in the current beta.
>From a gameplay mechanics standpoint, Alerts work like this: When you reach the minimum required level, you receive a notification about some emergency in progress. From there, you hit the Alerts menu and join a queue. Once there are enough people queued up (4 to 8 depending on the Alert), you are automatically sent to the quest area where you have to work together to solve whatever crisis has arisen.
>And you don't have any say in who you end up grouped with, it's first-come first-serve.
>So basically, it's like an impromptu team-up between first responders at a disaster site. Lots of potential for fun once there are enough people playing.