A new video from a conservative think tank called American Enterprise Institute featuring scholar Christina Hoff Sommers says that issues related to sexism and misogyny have been brought up mostly by pro-feminist tech writers and those sympathetic to them. Sommers has written several books critical of the current feminism movement including Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women and The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men.

Speaking recently at the XOXO Festival in Portland over the weekend, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games creator Anita Sarkeesian spoke out about the abuse and threats she has received in recent weeks. Sarkeesian said in her speech at the event (as detailed by the Verge) that many of the people that lob hate and threats at her and others online for their work do so because they believe they are being "noble."

The International Game Developers Association has thrown its support behind game developers who have been the target of harassment online over the last week or so on social media. Depression Quest developer Zoe Quinn, Polytron founder and Fez creator Phil Fish, and Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series creator Anita Sarkeesian were just some of the names mentioned by the IGDA.

Women as Background Decoration: Part 2, the latest video in the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series from Feminist Frequency and Anita Sarkeesian is online. The latest video continues to explore "sexualized female bodies often occupy a dual role as both sexual playthings and the perpetual victims of male violence," according to Sarkeesian's description on YouTube. Here's a little more on the latest episode from Feminist Frequency's YouTube channel:

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has been experiencing some pushback on Twitter this week after a consumer complained about the firm’s ‘sexist’ engraving rules. Justyn Hintze wrote a blog post explaining how Apple would not let her engrave the Alix Olson lyrics "I’ll give myself a lube job, shake my broomstick til my clit throbs" on her new iPad as it contained "inappropriate language."

Japanese game developer Idea Factory is altering the content of its upcoming PlayStation Vita card game Monster Monpiece for markets outside of Japan such as Europe and the United States. On hearing the news, some in the community said that Idea Factory was being heavy-handed in changing the game for release in North America.

Dustin Browder, who is the game director on Heroes of the Storm, has made a public apology for his seemingly terse comments during an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun about the sexualization of female characters in the upcoming online team brawler featuring popular Blizzard game characters.

The latest video in Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women video series explores Ms. Male characters. Called the "Smurfette Principle" by Sarkeesian, it is when developers create female counterparts with little or no difference based on strong male characters. The best example of this practice would be Ms. Pac Man, who - besides wearing a bow on her head - showed very little difference from her manly counterpart.

Here's more from the video description on YouTube:

Joshua Howard, the lead producer of Crytek's free-to-play first-person shooter Warface says that the development teams decision to add female soldier skins to the game with "unrealistic proportions and revealing uniforms," was the result of player feedback and represented a certain "cultural relativism."

Halo designer David Ellis thinks the Hideo Kojima-approved "sexy" design for the Metal Gear Sold 5 Quiet is "ridiculous," and says that the industry is full of what he calls "man babies." Earlier in the week Kojima said that he had directed designer Yoji Shinkawa to make the sniper character Quiet more "erotic" so that more people would cosplay her during the Tokyo Game Show later this month. Today during a press conference Q&A, Kojima told Polygon that he meant to say "sexy."

Apparently a Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain character is getting redesigned to be more "erotic" according what game director Hideo Kojima wrote in a series of tweets today. This, he believes, will make the character more appealing for cosplay.

Despite the fact that a fair number of its games take place in the modern day, the Call of Duty series has never included women as playable characters in its main multiplayer mode.  Hell, so far as I know, Tanya Pavelovna from the single player campaign of 2004's Call of Duty: Finest Hour is the only playable female character in the history of the entire series!

Until now, that is.

Does an abusive and abrasive community scare away game development talent? That depends on how far individuals in such a community are willing to go in order to express their disdain for what a game developer is doing. When members of a community think that it is acceptable to wish death or a sexual assault on someone, it has a very real affect on game developers - or anyone else in the public eye.

On this week's show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the latest Tropes v. Women video, the Boob Jam, Australia's plan to make all upcoming consoles region free, the Xbox One's ability to stay on for ten years, the new community-policed Xbox Live system, and a whole lot more. Download Episode 63 now: SuperPAC Episode 63 (1 hour, 13 minute) 56.7 MB.

This fall Fox will air a new show produced by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane called "Dads." If you haven't seen the barrage of commercials airing on Fox about the show, it's about two game developers played by Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi who have to deal with their fathers moving in with them. But critics who have seen an early screening of the upcoming show are saying it employs casual sexism and racism to tell much of its ill-received humor.

Boob Jam, a developer game jam inspired by journalist Jenn Frank, hopes to create games that take the focus away from breasts as sexual objects, and put it on the challenges (and importance) of women having them.

From Frank's tweet people began talking about breasts beyond jiggle physics and as sexual objects. This led to a novel idea: why not create a game jam that can explore breasts in a non-sexual way?

And so this Tumblr came to life proposing just that.

Apparently it is just fine and dandy with Twitter if you threaten to rape someone on its service. Feminist Frequency creator Anita Sarkeesian receives her fair share of vile threats on Twitter on a regular basis, but when she reports them to Twitter it doesn't seem to do anything about them. On her Twitter feed yesterday she noted that she reported several threatening tweets to Twitter and was awaiting a response. Today she received that response, which was a big surprise to anyone who read the example tweet she posted.

An erotic Japanese game that utilizes a phallic-shaped controller device now has Oculus Rift support to boot. The game is called Custom Maid 3D and it lets players create a maid that you can then commit various sexual acts on using a "Ju-C Air Support" controller. The controller is like a PlayStation Move controller that is also an interactive sexual aid for men. You get the general idea of what this game is really all about...

The United States Navy has commissioned Organic Motion to create a Kinect-enabled simulation game that addresses the issue of rape. Rape and sexual harassment have been a topic of heated debate in Washington this month as lawmakers such as New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (supported by republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky) seek to move the oversight of rape cases from the military to civilian courts. Mainly Gillibrand is seeking this solution because the U.S.

Harris O'Malley who is known better by his internet alter ego Doctor NerdLove (he gives love and sex advice to geeks) handed out stickers to poke fun at "fake geek girls." No doubt you have seen the fake dating sites featuring alleged gamers and geeks and the pictures featuring professional models dressed up as geeks to titillate men.

Filmmaker Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, who is best known for her documentary ("Wonder Women! The Untold Stories of American Superheroines") about strong women throughout history and championing  the empowerment of women, has made a new game called Wonder City.

The very first porn-related app for Google Glass has been banned by Google, along with any other applications that someone might think of in the future. The application created by software developer MiKandi called "Tits & Glass" allowed Google Glass users to record videos and take pictures of sexual partners and share them with other users of the app who could then rate them.

Update #2: The video is back up!

Update: the video has been removed temporarily by YouTube. Visiting the link provides the following message:

"This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube's Terms of Service. "

We'll have more on this as information becomes available, but clearly someone related to one of the many games highlighted in the video has made a copyright claim.

An office prank to replace a framed picture of a scantily-clad female Hawken character with a scantily clad male character in the office of the CEO of Hawken publisher Meteor Entertainment has a surprising result. The prank, detailed over at The Hawkeye Initiative, explains how some Meteor Entertainment employees decided to replace a picture of a female character with a male character.

GTFO, a documentary about sexism and harassment in the video games industry and within the gaming community has surpassed its funding goal of $20,000. With four more days to go, the documentary has managed to raise $23,829 from just 882 backers on Kickstarter. The documentary is being put together by New York-based filmmaker Shannon Sun-Higginson, who describes herself as a casual gamer.

Filmmaker Shannon Sun-Higginson has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a documentary on sexism and harassment in the video games industry called GTFO. The New York City-based filmmaker is looking to raise $20,000 to continue work on the film, with money going towards shooting expenses, travel costs, money to pay crew members, post-production expenses, licensing rights for any gaming footage or images appearing in the final film, and to create promotional materials.

While GDC may be over, the accusations continue to fly over the International Game Developers Association's GDC party which was brought to light last week in this report. Now the co-presenter of the party, YetiZen, is throwing a few elbows at the IGDA and the press.

Starbreeze Studios and publisher Sony Online Entertainment do not want to be associated with a video promoting a contest seeking "women" to star in a proposed movie based on the popular Payday game. The CEO of Starbreeze went out of his way to explain to Games Industry International this morning that the video featuring an office visit to the Overkill Software is not representative of the company's views. Some have called out the video featuring Top Model Sweden contestants Angner Sophie and Nina Strauss sexist in tone for its use of sexual language and jokes.

The controversial God of War: Ascension trophy "Bros before Hos" will be renamed to "Bros Before Foes" via a day-one update, according to a statement sent to Joystiq by developer Sony Santa Monica. The trophy caused a bit of a controversy last week when Adam Sessler and other complained about its sexist nature.