Please don't go calling people racist, misogynists, or any combination therein. Don't start throwing around words like "white Knight" or SJW, these words are at this point used in a derogatory manner regarding this debate. You can discuss that these terms exist, but do not attribute them to any individual user or group of users on this website.
Try to have a serious discussion about the topic at hand without resorting to personal attacks and we will all be the better for it. Breaking this rule will result in an automatic temp ban the length of which will depend on the comment you make.
This thread started not so bad. It is getting worse. If you want to have this discussion on TL be respectful of your fellow users, we all live in the same house.
On October 15 2014 17:20 Frogstomp wrote: You've outlined the genesis of the controversy; however, I'd say it has since metastasized into a monster of its own. I would suggest reading through the following articles to get a better grip on the scandal, the people involved, and what has been happening more recently.
That being said, if gamergate was really about ethics, the main female targets wouldn't be going through what they are going through. Plenty of communities experience ethical debates or even scandals without those at the center of the debates being forced from their homes
Which isn't to say that there are legitimate ethical concerns in the gaming journalism industry. It's just that most of them don't involve gender or sexual favors. If you're interested in learning about some of those concerns, check out this:
I think the biggest issue here that's really being brought to light here is that bad/unethical journalism really has no repercussions. Accept favors, boost sales of a game, people disagree with your review, chalk it up to "subjectivity."
On October 15 2014 16:33 xM(Z wrote: after reading your post all i can think of is that female journalists/devs have an unfair advantage here. i mean, what are men supposed to do?; because i fail to see how offering handjobs would get them somewhere.
Well the rumor was that sexual favor from a female developer was offered to a male journalist in return for favourable reviews.
Remember this is all rumors. The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
I don't know what you mean by "unfair advantage." I see no advantage on either sides of the sex.
if a male dev would offer sexual favors to a male journalist, would he(allegedly) get an article about his work published?. the gaming industry is vastly male dominated (at least in numbers) so a woman would be spoiled for choices.
i don't think i can ever see this about right and wrong, moral or immoral. i see it as not fair/not equal at most and the side with less bargaining chips but more numbers lashes out because the competition is rigged.
So you feel there is an advantage females have in this industry? They are a minority, and do possess certain advantages because of their lack of presence, but its not to the point where every female game developer is whoring themselves out to gaming outlets across the internet.
And the rumors were proven false. Zoe Quinn did not trade sexual favors for praised reviews. At least that is what I found doing a google search.
the hypothetical of something will always outweigh the factual. get used to seeing this kind of smear more often as men+women=equal equation, gets more mainstreamed.
or, do you think male devs, prior to this, have never bribed male journalists to get articles published?; give me a break. they just can't compete with what a female has to offer.
Of course male devs bribed male journalists. Bribery seeps into any industry, especially when billions can be made on a videogame. Do you feel there is a difference when sexual favor is offered on the table? I don't.
are you a male? or, have you seen a male journalist?; or worse, a developer?. an offer like that would probably be the best thing he's had in his entire life. irl > morality
I am male, but not a journalist or developer. I am a content marketer. I write copy for companies that want to be found on the internet.
If a female offered me sex in exchange for something written on her company website, I would tell her that sex can't feed me and my wife.
Too me, the offer of money is more alluring than the offer of sex. But that is where we disagree.
I understand your perspective though. I just feel gamergate should take away the sexist part. Ignore all the accusations, and boil it down to journalism integerity.
On October 15 2014 16:33 xM(Z wrote: after reading your post all i can think of is that female journalists/devs have an unfair advantage here. i mean, what are men supposed to do?; because i fail to see how offering handjobs would get them somewhere.
Well the rumor was that sexual favor from a female developer was offered to a male journalist in return for favourable reviews.
Remember this is all rumors. The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
I don't know what you mean by "unfair advantage." I see no advantage on either sides of the sex.
if a male dev would offer sexual favors to a male journalist, would he(allegedly) get an article about his work published?. the gaming industry is vastly male dominated (at least in numbers) so a woman would be spoiled for choices.
i don't think i can ever see this about right and wrong, moral or immoral. i see it as not fair/not equal at most and the side with less bargaining chips but more numbers lashes out because the competition is rigged.
So you feel there is an advantage females have in this industry? They are a minority, and do possess certain advantages because of their lack of presence, but its not to the point where every female game developer is whoring themselves out to gaming outlets across the internet.
And the rumors were proven false. Zoe Quinn did not trade sexual favors for praised reviews. At least that is what I found doing a google search.
the hypothetical of something will always outweigh the factual. get used to seeing this kind of smear more often as men+women=equal equation, gets more mainstreamed.
or, do you think male devs, prior to this, have never bribed male journalists to get articles published?; give me a break. they just can't compete with what a female has to offer.
Of course male devs bribed male journalists. Bribery seeps into any industry, especially when billions can be made on a videogame. Do you feel there is a difference when sexual favor is offered on the table? I don't.
Either way its deplorable. If it is true that Zoe Quinn used sex as a bargaining chip, I would view her reputation through tarnished goggles, but no less if it was a monetary value instead of a one night stand.
I think he's arguing that if a chick offered you a little cash or a BJ to write an article most guys would take the BJ over the money, making sex a more powerful bargaining chip. Both are bribes and should be seen as such, but one has a more powerful draw to the average straight guy.
You could also argue if I'm trying to bribe a male journalist my options are cash or nothing where as a female could offer cash or sexual favors so they have more potential chips.
On October 15 2014 17:29 synapse wrote: I think the biggest issue here that's really being brought to light here is that bad/unethical journalism really has no repercussions. Accept favors, boost sales of a game, people disagree with your review, chalk it up to "subjectivity."
A valid point. I agree that it seems like many things in this world that are bad/unethical seem to have absolutely no repercussions and in some cases are lauded for god knows what reason. On the flip side some things that are absolutely meaningless are chastised and seen as bad or unethical for no reason at all.
On October 15 2014 17:29 synapse wrote: I think the biggest issue here that's really being brought to light here is that bad/unethical journalism really has no repercussions. Accept favors, boost sales of a game, people disagree with your review, chalk it up to "subjectivity."
Ah you bring up a great point! What are the repercussions of unethical journalism? I know that in other industries, it will essentially destroy reputations, and in business that is all you have.
You are correct, in this particular industry there is no repercussions at the moment.
On October 15 2014 16:33 xM(Z wrote: after reading your post all i can think of is that female journalists/devs have an unfair advantage here. i mean, what are men supposed to do?; because i fail to see how offering handjobs would get them somewhere.
Well the rumor was that sexual favor from a female developer was offered to a male journalist in return for favourable reviews.
Remember this is all rumors. The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
I don't know what you mean by "unfair advantage." I see no advantage on either sides of the sex.
if a male dev would offer sexual favors to a male journalist, would he(allegedly) get an article about his work published?. the gaming industry is vastly male dominated (at least in numbers) so a woman would be spoiled for choices.
i don't think i can ever see this about right and wrong, moral or immoral. i see it as not fair/not equal at most and the side with less bargaining chips but more numbers lashes out because the competition is rigged.
So you feel there is an advantage females have in this industry? They are a minority, and do possess certain advantages because of their lack of presence, but its not to the point where every female game developer is whoring themselves out to gaming outlets across the internet.
And the rumors were proven false. Zoe Quinn did not trade sexual favors for praised reviews. At least that is what I found doing a google search.
the hypothetical of something will always outweigh the factual. get used to seeing this kind of smear more often as men+women=equal equation, gets more mainstreamed.
or, do you think male devs, prior to this, have never bribed male journalists to get articles published?; give me a break. they just can't compete with what a female has to offer.
Of course male devs bribed male journalists. Bribery seeps into any industry, especially when billions can be made on a videogame. Do you feel there is a difference when sexual favor is offered on the table? I don't.
Either way its deplorable. If it is true that Zoe Quinn used sex as a bargaining chip, I would view her reputation through tarnished goggles, but no less if it was a monetary value instead of a one night stand.
I think he's arguing that if a chick offered you a little cash or a BJ to write an article most guys would take the BJ over the money, making sex a more powerful bargaining chip. Both are bribes and should be seen as such, but one has a more powerful draw to the average straight guy.
You could also argue if I'm trying to bribe a male journalist my options are cash or nothing where as a female could offer cash or sexual favors so they have more potential chips.
While that argument has some validity, I don't see sex as such a huge bargaining chip. Of course it has weight, but I have to disagree about how much.
On October 15 2014 16:33 xM(Z wrote: after reading your post all i can think of is that female journalists/devs have an unfair advantage here. i mean, what are men supposed to do?; because i fail to see how offering handjobs would get them somewhere.
Well the rumor was that sexual favor from a female developer was offered to a male journalist in return for favourable reviews.
Remember this is all rumors. The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
I don't know what you mean by "unfair advantage." I see no advantage on either sides of the sex.
if a male dev would offer sexual favors to a male journalist, would he(allegedly) get an article about his work published?. the gaming industry is vastly male dominated (at least in numbers) so a woman would be spoiled for choices.
i don't think i can ever see this about right and wrong, moral or immoral. i see it as not fair/not equal at most and the side with less bargaining chips but more numbers lashes out because the competition is rigged.
So you feel there is an advantage females have in this industry? They are a minority, and do possess certain advantages because of their lack of presence, but its not to the point where every female game developer is whoring themselves out to gaming outlets across the internet.
And the rumors were proven false. Zoe Quinn did not trade sexual favors for praised reviews. At least that is what I found doing a google search.
the hypothetical of something will always outweigh the factual. get used to seeing this kind of smear more often as men+women=equal equation, gets more mainstreamed.
or, do you think male devs, prior to this, have never bribed male journalists to get articles published?; give me a break. they just can't compete with what a female has to offer.
Of course male devs bribed male journalists. Bribery seeps into any industry, especially when billions can be made on a videogame. Do you feel there is a difference when sexual favor is offered on the table? I don't.
Either way its deplorable. If it is true that Zoe Quinn used sex as a bargaining chip, I would view her reputation through tarnished goggles, but no less if it was a monetary value instead of a one night stand.
I think he's arguing that if a chick offered you a little cash or a BJ to write an article most guys would take the BJ over the money, making sex a more powerful bargaining chip. Both are bribes and should be seen as such, but one has a more powerful draw to the average straight guy.
You could also argue if I'm trying to bribe a male journalist my options are cash or nothing where as a female could offer cash or sexual favors so they have more potential chips.
While that argument has some validity, I don't see sex as such a huge bargaining chip. Of course it has weight, but I have to disagree about how much.
Well for you maybe it has no weight. For many other males it has a ton of weight. Hell how many guys do you know who have been strung along by someone just for an unlikely outside chance at sex? It's pretty powerful, being the driving force behind nature and all.
On October 15 2014 16:56 OuchyDathurts wrote: I haven't followed things. I know of it. My basic understanding is girl makes unremarkable game, girl fucks journalists, girls game is suddenly the talk of the town on gaming sites. I think anyone will admit that's pretty messed up to get publicity through sexual favors, but it's nothing new. She doesn't deserve death threats, but if she did actually do that I see nothing wrong with it being exposed along with the journalists who received sexual favors for positive publicity of her game.
The bigger issue is gaming journalism as a whole. When you can blow a person/company literally or figuratively for a positive review journalistic integrity has gone out the window. It doesn't matter if its a hand job or the laughable reviews IGN is known for, none of it is objective honest reporting, which I'm fairly sure is the entire point of journalism.
The moral of the story is people need to quit with the bullshit. No advanced copies unless you give us a 9/10, I'll suck your dick for a good review, Anita Sarkeesian making outlandish claims about games/gamers. The BS has to stop, people need to be called out on their shit and own up to it instead of being professional victims. Get the people who are poison out. I don't really expect that to happen though so...
But threats don't help anything. I don't want people assuming just because I want whistles blown and people to be dragged through the mud and chastised for BS to imply that I'm cool with rape or death threats.
So you know about as much as I do, and have a similar perspective as mine.
I agree, we need the gaming outlets to be more honest, but this industry is still young. I am sure during cinema movies first inception, the critics were being paid to write "rave reviews" on nearly every movie. Paying news media for favourable articles is not new, and many industries do it. Hollywood probably still does it, but I have no proof just my hunch.
It just feels like it runs rampant in the gaming industry because its relatively young. The attention gaming has garnered in the last five years has grown exponentially. This leads to opportunistic people seeking an easy method to manipulate the media to attain a favourable brand.
Really all journalism disciplines have a problem right now. Everyone can have a blog and pretend to be a journalist without any of the morals or integrity necessary. You have "legitimate" news sources that are heavily slanted offering literally no objectivity at all. You have news sources just flat out making shit up. News sources putting out opinions disguised as facts. News sources that are purely click bait. So it's not exclusively a problem of gaming journalism.
Gaming journalism is relatively new. The people who read it tend to be on the younger savvier side of things. They tend to be younger, and current younger generations have this sort of "don't bullshit me" mentality. So maybe we call stuff out more, maybe we want some notion of "justice" more, I don't know. I don't think we're quite as inclined as older generations to just take shit sitting down from our news...hopefully. But this shit is rampant in all aspects of journalism, maybe it's just wishful thinking that we might push back in this one little regard. But it's a giant beast with many heads in all of journalism so I don't know that I can realistically see it going anywhere.
Unfortunately, you are correct about news media in general. We all know that the lofty goal of unbiased news is spewed by every major news outlet, but deep down there is a hidden agenda by someone with deep pockets.
I don't like your subdued tone in your comments though. Of course its rampant, but that doesn't mean we can give up.
On October 15 2014 16:33 xM(Z wrote: after reading your post all i can think of is that female journalists/devs have an unfair advantage here. i mean, what are men supposed to do?; because i fail to see how offering handjobs would get them somewhere.
Well the rumor was that sexual favor from a female developer was offered to a male journalist in return for favourable reviews.
Remember this is all rumors. The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
I don't know what you mean by "unfair advantage." I see no advantage on either sides of the sex.
if a male dev would offer sexual favors to a male journalist, would he(allegedly) get an article about his work published?. the gaming industry is vastly male dominated (at least in numbers) so a woman would be spoiled for choices.
i don't think i can ever see this about right and wrong, moral or immoral. i see it as not fair/not equal at most and the side with less bargaining chips but more numbers lashes out because the competition is rigged.
So you feel there is an advantage females have in this industry? They are a minority, and do possess certain advantages because of their lack of presence, but its not to the point where every female game developer is whoring themselves out to gaming outlets across the internet.
And the rumors were proven false. Zoe Quinn did not trade sexual favors for praised reviews. At least that is what I found doing a google search.
the hypothetical of something will always outweigh the factual. get used to seeing this kind of smear more often as men+women=equal equation, gets more mainstreamed.
or, do you think male devs, prior to this, have never bribed male journalists to get articles published?; give me a break. they just can't compete with what a female has to offer.
Of course male devs bribed male journalists. Bribery seeps into any industry, especially when billions can be made on a videogame. Do you feel there is a difference when sexual favor is offered on the table? I don't.
Either way its deplorable. If it is true that Zoe Quinn used sex as a bargaining chip, I would view her reputation through tarnished goggles, but no less if it was a monetary value instead of a one night stand.
I think he's arguing that if a chick offered you a little cash or a BJ to write an article most guys would take the BJ over the money, making sex a more powerful bargaining chip. Both are bribes and should be seen as such, but one has a more powerful draw to the average straight guy.
You could also argue if I'm trying to bribe a male journalist my options are cash or nothing where as a female could offer cash or sexual favors so they have more potential chips.
While that argument has some validity, I don't see sex as such a huge bargaining chip. Of course it has weight, but I have to disagree about how much.
Well for you maybe it has no weight. For many other males it has a ton of weight. Hell how many guys do you know who have been strung along by someone just for an unlikely outside chance at sex? It's pretty powerful, being the driving force behind nature and all.
You're right, I guess I can't completely ignore it. Its a shame though, that fellow males are easily swayed by the promise of promiscuity.
On October 15 2014 16:56 OuchyDathurts wrote: I haven't followed things. I know of it. My basic understanding is girl makes unremarkable game, girl fucks journalists, girls game is suddenly the talk of the town on gaming sites. I think anyone will admit that's pretty messed up to get publicity through sexual favors, but it's nothing new. She doesn't deserve death threats, but if she did actually do that I see nothing wrong with it being exposed along with the journalists who received sexual favors for positive publicity of her game.
The bigger issue is gaming journalism as a whole. When you can blow a person/company literally or figuratively for a positive review journalistic integrity has gone out the window. It doesn't matter if its a hand job or the laughable reviews IGN is known for, none of it is objective honest reporting, which I'm fairly sure is the entire point of journalism.
The moral of the story is people need to quit with the bullshit. No advanced copies unless you give us a 9/10, I'll suck your dick for a good review, Anita Sarkeesian making outlandish claims about games/gamers. The BS has to stop, people need to be called out on their shit and own up to it instead of being professional victims. Get the people who are poison out. I don't really expect that to happen though so...
But threats don't help anything. I don't want people assuming just because I want whistles blown and people to be dragged through the mud and chastised for BS to imply that I'm cool with rape or death threats.
So you know about as much as I do, and have a similar perspective as mine.
I agree, we need the gaming outlets to be more honest, but this industry is still young. I am sure during cinema movies first inception, the critics were being paid to write "rave reviews" on nearly every movie. Paying news media for favourable articles is not new, and many industries do it. Hollywood probably still does it, but I have no proof just my hunch.
It just feels like it runs rampant in the gaming industry because its relatively young. The attention gaming has garnered in the last five years has grown exponentially. This leads to opportunistic people seeking an easy method to manipulate the media to attain a favourable brand.
Really all journalism disciplines have a problem right now. Everyone can have a blog and pretend to be a journalist without any of the morals or integrity necessary. You have "legitimate" news sources that are heavily slanted offering literally no objectivity at all. You have news sources just flat out making shit up. News sources putting out opinions disguised as facts. News sources that are purely click bait. So it's not exclusively a problem of gaming journalism.
Gaming journalism is relatively new. The people who read it tend to be on the younger savvier side of things. They tend to be younger, and current younger generations have this sort of "don't bullshit me" mentality. So maybe we call stuff out more, maybe we want some notion of "justice" more, I don't know. I don't think we're quite as inclined as older generations to just take shit sitting down from our news...hopefully. But this shit is rampant in all aspects of journalism, maybe it's just wishful thinking that we might push back in this one little regard. But it's a giant beast with many heads in all of journalism so I don't know that I can realistically see it going anywhere.
Unfortunately, you are correct about news media in general. We all know that the lofty goal of unbiased news is spewed by every major news outlet, but deep down there is a hidden agenda by someone with deep pockets.
I don't like your subdued tone in your comments though. Of course its rampant, but that doesn't mean we can give up.
Meh, it's only gotten worse and worse. Used to be one news station was super ultra slanted, now everyone is playing the game and everyone can be their own "journalistic voice" shouting bullshit at anyone who will listen. Sure it could get better, but so far it's done the opposite. I guess there's always a rock bottom where there's no where to go but up lol. Call me a pessimist.
On October 15 2014 16:33 xM(Z wrote: after reading your post all i can think of is that female journalists/devs have an unfair advantage here. i mean, what are men supposed to do?; because i fail to see how offering handjobs would get them somewhere.
Well the rumor was that sexual favor from a female developer was offered to a male journalist in return for favourable reviews.
Remember this is all rumors. The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
I don't know what you mean by "unfair advantage." I see no advantage on either sides of the sex.
if a male dev would offer sexual favors to a male journalist, would he(allegedly) get an article about his work published?. the gaming industry is vastly male dominated (at least in numbers) so a woman would be spoiled for choices.
i don't think i can ever see this about right and wrong, moral or immoral. i see it as not fair/not equal at most and the side with less bargaining chips but more numbers lashes out because the competition is rigged.
So you feel there is an advantage females have in this industry? They are a minority, and do possess certain advantages because of their lack of presence, but its not to the point where every female game developer is whoring themselves out to gaming outlets across the internet.
And the rumors were proven false. Zoe Quinn did not trade sexual favors for praised reviews. At least that is what I found doing a google search.
the hypothetical of something will always outweigh the factual. get used to seeing this kind of smear more often as men+women=equal equation, gets more mainstreamed.
or, do you think male devs, prior to this, have never bribed male journalists to get articles published?; give me a break. they just can't compete with what a female has to offer.
Of course male devs bribed male journalists. Bribery seeps into any industry, especially when billions can be made on a videogame. Do you feel there is a difference when sexual favor is offered on the table? I don't.
are you a male? or, have you seen a male journalist?; or worse, a developer?. an offer like that would probably be the best thing he's had in his entire life. irl > morality
I am male, but not a journalist or developer. I am a content marketer. I write copy for companies that want to be found on the internet.
If a female offered me sex in exchange for something written on her company website, I would tell her that sex can't feed me and my wife.
Too me, the offer of money is more alluring than the offer of sex. But that is where we disagree.
I understand your perspective though. I just feel gamergate should take away the sexist part. Ignore all the accusations, and boil it down to journalism integerity.
agree, but i see that happening only when women and men will both have the same sex or everyone will be bisexual.
On October 15 2014 17:41 OuchyDathurts wrote: Meh, it's only gotten worse and worse. Used to be one news station was super ultra slanted, now everyone is playing the game and everyone can be their own "journalistic voice" shouting bullshit at anyone who will listen. Sure it could get better, but so far it's done the opposite. I guess there's always a rock bottom where there's no where to go but up lol. Call me a pessimist.
Well thank you for sharing your opinion. I accept your pessimism, and truly hope you start to see opportunities instead of roadblocks.
On October 15 2014 16:33 xM(Z wrote: after reading your post all i can think of is that female journalists/devs have an unfair advantage here. i mean, what are men supposed to do?; because i fail to see how offering handjobs would get them somewhere.
Well the rumor was that sexual favor from a female developer was offered to a male journalist in return for favourable reviews.
Remember this is all rumors. The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
I don't know what you mean by "unfair advantage." I see no advantage on either sides of the sex.
if a male dev would offer sexual favors to a male journalist, would he(allegedly) get an article about his work published?. the gaming industry is vastly male dominated (at least in numbers) so a woman would be spoiled for choices.
i don't think i can ever see this about right and wrong, moral or immoral. i see it as not fair/not equal at most and the side with less bargaining chips but more numbers lashes out because the competition is rigged.
So you feel there is an advantage females have in this industry? They are a minority, and do possess certain advantages because of their lack of presence, but its not to the point where every female game developer is whoring themselves out to gaming outlets across the internet.
And the rumors were proven false. Zoe Quinn did not trade sexual favors for praised reviews. At least that is what I found doing a google search.
the hypothetical of something will always outweigh the factual. get used to seeing this kind of smear more often as men+women=equal equation, gets more mainstreamed.
or, do you think male devs, prior to this, have never bribed male journalists to get articles published?; give me a break. they just can't compete with what a female has to offer.
Of course male devs bribed male journalists. Bribery seeps into any industry, especially when billions can be made on a videogame. Do you feel there is a difference when sexual favor is offered on the table? I don't.
are you a male? or, have you seen a male journalist?; or worse, a developer?. an offer like that would probably be the best thing he's had in his entire life. irl > morality
I am male, but not a journalist or developer. I am a content marketer. I write copy for companies that want to be found on the internet.
If a female offered me sex in exchange for something written on her company website, I would tell her that sex can't feed me and my wife.
Too me, the offer of money is more alluring than the offer of sex. But that is where we disagree.
I understand your perspective though. I just feel gamergate should take away the sexist part. Ignore all the accusations, and boil it down to journalism integerity.
agree, but i see that happening only when women and men will both have the same sex or everyone will be bisexual.
Well men and women will compete in the battle of the sexes for a long time, but I highly doubt everyone will be bisexual.
TL mods, thank you for not closing this thread. I will continue to post on this thread when I come across more information on this gamergate, and I truly hope to continue this discussion.
This is an important aspect of gaming, and even though SC2 is a small community, we are still part of the larger gaming community.
I hope anyone else that posts here respect the opinion of someone else. Respect is the only way to have meaningful discussions.
Your OP is biased so it won't get very far - if you want a discussion thread, you're supposed to list whatever information you can and talk about it, not form a picture of events in your mind and state them as fact to people who have not heard of the events before
This is GamerGate - 14 simultaneous articles from gaming sites, while at the same time saying "No there's no corruption or collusion", followed by a google document pointing out even more of the same. Anything else is a contorted mess. These are the journalism problems. Nothing else is relevant. It shouldn't matter your gender, orientation, creed, colour, whatever, I don't care. If you're a great journalist that posts enlightening, insightful, funny, clever articles on games then I salute you. If you don't, please remember that we love what we play.
The issue is the same as the issue with everything in this universe. Some people have turned up and screwed up the useful pleas with shitty and dangerous noise.
The response to this is the typical media response of demonising an entire group because some of the people in it are morons and are using that to further take the spotlight away from the issues the group want to talk about and instead to highlight the trouble some of them are causing.
A tweet on my feed this morning suggested stopping GamerGate "because harassment, death threats, sexism, conspiracy theories, shitty red arrows and bots do not equal progress".
This is true, but if this is the case we might as well shut down the entire internet, or, in fact the entirety of human existence.
As people on the internet we spend a lot of time fighting against this kind of tarring with the same brush that goes on. In fact, not just on the internet, EVERYWHERE.
To go into what people are going on about here - feminism. There are enough people that say all of feminism is shit because there are some women out there that want to #killallmen or simply hate men or whatever. But then we should remind ourselves that it's a small minority of people that feel that way and in reality equality is the goal.
The same with religions. We try not to brand an entire religion on its most extreme members. We try to remember that not all atheists are Richard Dawkins.
Back on the internet we fight for Net Neutrality because not all people pirate everything in sight. The internet is labelled by some as the scariest place in the universe for anyone under the age of 18 because there are predators and trolls everywhere and please monitor your kid 24/7 otherwise they'll be attacked as soon as they open their browser.
All throughout our time on the internet (and even on here sometimes) we fight against generalisations like those that have been leveled against the GamerGate lot. I would even guess that the media have hit on this one more not least because the people in GamerGate are holding the media themselves accountable and articles that suggest we all hate all women forever and have never seen the Sun do exactly what they need and shift the focus from then back onto the hateful minority in this group.
Some have suggested moving away from the GamerGate tag and starting something else to get what we're looking for back in the spotlight. I don't think it'll work. Anywhere the movement for better journalism goes, the spectre of the worst of the group will follow.
Even then, some element of buddying up of journalists and development studios is good. The closer they are the more exclusives and sneak peaks at games will happen, which can only be good for those excited by the content being created.
On October 15 2014 16:33 xM(Z wrote: after reading your post all i can think of is that female journalists/devs have an unfair advantage here. i mean, what are men supposed to do?; because i fail to see how offering handjobs would get them somewhere.
That's a damn joke, and you should know it. Females get far less respect in the business as it is, not to mention harassing and most likely less money, and you somehow make it sound like they have an unfair advantage since they can offer handjobs? Yessire, every female in the industry is a potential whore, and every male a potential customer. Geez.
On October 15 2014 18:23 Cyro wrote: Your OP is biased so it won't get very far - if you want a discussion thread, you're supposed to list whatever information you can and talk about it, not form a picture of events in your mind and state them as fact to people who have not heard of the events before
I haven't stated any facts, only asked people's opinion and if they have other sources I can learn from.
I would list information, but right now I am still in the process of absorbing articles offered by other posters and what I find in Google.
When I find more time, I will compile a list of articles I found to be most helpful in explaining Gamergate.
Of course I am biased, everyone is. Its our tendency to lean towards one side even before we learn all the facts. I am just trying to keep an open mind.
I don't know how far it will get, but the mods haven't closed it yet, so its at least going somewhere.
Will it get closed later, I don't know. However, please keep in mind my original title was "I didn't know what Gamer gate was until…" implying that the information I learned is still incomplete.
On October 15 2014 18:33 Geisterkarle wrote: The main trouble about GamerGate is, that two very different things are mixed together and people "clash" around it, what it is actually all about!
1. Journalism (in the gaming industry) 2. Sexism (in video games)
And we are only 2 pages in this thread and it already mixed! And we should definitely be clear what we are talking about!
What really set this all off was not "Zoe Quinn", but the connections she ended up highlighting.
This was an utter non-story to anyone until the Cover Up started. *That* is when everything blew up. I only heard about it some weeks later (it's been great comedy, really), but there's real meat to what has happened behind the scenes within the Gaming Industry.
Given we're now into the False-Flag & Spam-Bot stage of all of this, it's gotten REALLY funny.
Not to say there isn't a point: Don't threaten people on the Internet. Just don't then say that by calling all of the other people on the Internet hateful bigots because they don't agree with your stupid politics. That makes the Internet angry.
And an angry Internet is great fun for those of us that have actual work to do and need a break.
EPT
