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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.
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On October 18 2014 12:21 Dunnobro wrote:Oh wow mercedes pulled advertising from all gawker sites: https://i.imgur.com/gLoJFYw.pngBully was forced to apologize in response to this, but now it comes out the editor in chief who gave him a raise subtly called a concerned parent autistic in an email about it, so i doubt they're out of the water.
It's obvious that the Gawker reporter was joking, but he should have known better. And the Publisher should have fired or suspended that guy immediately.
It's also funny that GamerGaters have been slandering SJW, but this is exactly the kind of knee-jerk, self-righteous, reactionary-activism that they are pretending to oppose.
Maybe Gawker should hire Alex Garfield as a consultant on how to deal with sponsors, stupid employees and melodrama.
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On October 18 2014 12:15 Defacer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 11:58 Ryuhou)aS( wrote:
So I've tried to just read everything without making any comments on this whole situation but I had a thought (or i guess it's more of a question). One big argument is that having a woman character as a "damsel in distress" objectifies women as sexual objects. I see this argument used over and over. What i don't see ever mentioned is the many many many games where you are constantly killing male "background" characters. Does this not objectify men as objects to kill?
Maybe I'm just confused but isn't that as equally bad (if not worse) ? Sarkeesian does address this. While there are killable male NPCs in games, they're not sexualized and they're not the only representation of male characters in the game. The game might be supported with male heroes, side characters with different roles and social statuses, etc. It's when the only female characters in a game are simply damsels, sex objects, or shrews that you start to think hey ... maybe this is getting overboard.
Worth noting that the "Damsel in Distress" and "Disposable Men" tropes are very historied, and have evolved greatly overtime.
Before Video Games, when movie content was strictly policed, there was something called the "Hays Code" which was a long list of extremely strict (and very conservative) rules that all movies playing in the US had to follow. Some of the rules were things like limited blood on screen, no kisses longer than 3 seconds, stuff like that.
Others disallowed the deaths of women on screen, or forced very strict conditions for the depictions (Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was a huge deal largely because he managed to skirt of violate many of these rules).
The end result was that if you wanted to kill a character, it was easier just to make him male, and any women in danger would probably be saved. And by the time the rules were relaxed, a lot of these storytelling elements were well established.
When video games were being made, most of them just followed the existing media tropes. Nintendo's first game, Donkey Kong, had you play a character climbing a building to save the girl (obviously a play on King Kong). And then that character became a plumber, got his own game, but still saved the Princess as a carry over from his origins. The original Zelda was basically just a riff on the old fairy tales, where the sword and shield wielding character charges into dungeons and saves the Princess.
And if you go even further back, long before media, there's always been an attitude of "save the women and children first", or an acceptance that the men were always the ones sent off to war. And that was mostly because women and children were the ones to carry on the familial legacy (a very big deal for most cultures, and only something that's disappearing recently), so if the women and children were safe, the men could die without their lineage ending.
There's actually a lot of fun stuff you can talk about regarding some of these tropes, and it's kind of annoying to have it simplified down to just "sexism is bad".
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On October 18 2014 12:18 Defacer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 12:13 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 18 2014 12:08 Defacer wrote:On October 18 2014 11:52 Dunnobro wrote:On October 18 2014 11:50 Defacer wrote:On October 18 2014 11:25 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 18 2014 11:21 Millitron wrote:On October 18 2014 10:28 levelping wrote:
I don't get why it's so hard to accept that gaming might have some sexism in it. I mean come on guys it's an industry built largely for teenage boys. There boob armour and gratitutious fan service everywhere. We all obviously love gaming. So recognising one of the limiting aspects of the genre isn't a bad thing. It's so we can improve. And we didint need gamer gate to tell us this. The issue is that the people clamoring for change aren't the ones who actually play videogames. And I mean real videogames, not solitaire or candy crush, please don't bring up that "study" that says 50% of gamers are female. Games are mostly made for young males, because they're the ones who will pay $60 for a new game. Young males like violence, sexy females, and being the classical hero. Saving the damsel in distress is a common trope in all media aimed at young males, and isn't really seen as a problem. But other media has works that target other demographics. Movies have romcoms, literature has romance novels, music has pop lovesongs. The thing is though, none of those other genres translate really into a videogame. Maybe a visual novel, but even calling those videogames is stretching it. I don't get why there's no huge shitstorm over action movies being targeted at young males, but there is a shitstorm over videogames being target at young males. Why can't the people upset with sexism just accept they are not the target audience of this or that videogame? Speaking of action movies...notice how Sony pulled in the female audience for X-Men? Did they do away with the skintight outfits on women, and get Mystique to dress more conservatively? Nope. Skintight suits for all, latex bodysuit for Rebecca Romijin, but most importantly Hugh Jackman with at least 5 shirtless scenes every movie. Exactly. I don't think women want asexual characters or 'SJW — the Game.' They just want games where female characters have actually agency and personalities. When the ONLY representation of a woman in a game is as a sex object, I think it's fair to say, hey, this game is kind of sexist. Or at the very least, pandering to dudes. Personally I'd wish instead of ignoring what men what or insulting them for it, they investigate overlap in what men and women what. I don't think the act of making an empowered, well-rounded female character, and appealing to men are as mutually exclusive as some seem to suggest. @Women don't like being pandered to: Uhh, actually in pretty much every other business women respond most positively to ads targeted towards them. Not sure where you're getting that idea. I believe it's just they need to be pandered to in a different way than just switching genders around from the male-advertising model. Fair enough. My bad. I was just imagining a game strictly in the triple-A realm, which would be so expensive it would have to appeal to men and women. But can I imagine 50 Shade of Grey — Erotic Sexy Text adventure? Yes. Actually someone should get on that. Well, have you seen the trailers for Final Fantasy 15? Purely male playable cast, all fitting the Japanese "Bishie" archetype (basically good-looking pretty boys). Maybe I wouldn't call it pandering, but I'd definitely consider it fanservice for females, done on a multimillion budget by a AAA developer. That's interesting. Do you think there are significant cultural difference been the Japanese and Western game cultures? There seems to be way more diversity in the Japan with the medium, similar to their views of manga and animation. Or am I stereotyping?
No, you're not stereotyping. There are a few theories as to this reason, and none of them support what the media is trying to do in the west with gaming. In fact, Anita and most of the gaming media really dislikes japan and Japanese game developers, (And Anime. Anita really hates anime) especially because they pretty much laugh at the west when they whine about the east's games.
Really this obsession with "Sexism" and "Racism" is a very western ideal, aside from that and a much better (but harder! damn near oppressive) school system there is this "Not my problem" mindset in their culture. It's both good and bad.
They also have a VERY free, maybe to some too free arts. Manga and Video games aren't really critiqued like they are here, people either like them or they don't. No demographic is too niche or too controversial really.
Honestly there was a fairly popular indie series called "Monster girl quest" which was like a puzzle game pretending to be an RPG that was actually a hentai game where if you lost the male protagonist got raped in a new imaginative way lol. Like bizarro world in regards to the "Sexism" of western games.
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On October 18 2014 12:53 WolfintheSheep wrote:
And if you go even further back, long before media, there's always been an attitude of "save the women and children first", or an acceptance that the men were always the ones sent off to war. And that was mostly because women and children were the ones to carry on the familial legacy (a very big deal for most cultures, and only something that's disappearing recently), so if the women and children were safe, the men could die without their lineage ending.
There's actually a lot of fun stuff you can talk about regarding some of these tropes, and it's kind of annoying to have it simplified down to just "sexism is bad".
I agree. It's something I'm trying to become more literate about. The idea of a damsel in distress isn't inherently sexist or bad. It's a common character goal or motivation in many Quest and Rag to Riches plots. And there's numerous examples in pop culture where 'the damsel' is one of the strongest and interesting characters in the movie. Star Wars and Indiana Jones comes to mind.
[quote edited to out of courtesy for other board members]
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A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not.
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On October 18 2014 13:01 Dunnobro wrote:
A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not.
Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved.
It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die.
The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is.
Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while.
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On October 18 2014 13:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 13:01 Dunnobro wrote:
A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not. Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved. It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die. The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is. Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while.
Certainly nothing wrong with it, I apologize if I misrepresented my point. But it -is- sexist.
-2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender.
It does somewhat promote that stereotype, but then again stereotypes aren't really evil either are they? I mean some women really do fit that stereotype, and thus are technically contributing to it and therefore sexist. But you can't fault them for it, and I don't think we should fault developers and fictional women for it either. Fault them for the problem in the game is brings up, like you said. Lazy story-telling (if present)
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Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what?
On October 18 2014 13:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 13:01 Dunnobro wrote:
A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not. Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved. It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die. The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is. Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while.
See this is the perfect examples here. If y'all so want for those two characters to have more "empowered influences" in the games, then why don't you go ahead, work through the ranks as a programmer/writer to steadily getting promoted to a high position enough to dictate the game's story writing team.
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Well hey let's be fair here, they are trying to do that! But look what happens, TFYC tries to get women into gaming and because LW didn't like the competition, or TFYC's structure... for some reason all of the sudden TFYC was getting ignored by all the pro-female gaming journalists, simply refusing to cover a group trying to get women into games.
You also have them attacking Bayonetta, Shantae, and the like. Both created by women, but they don't represent women how the media wants them to be. And THINKS women should want them.
I kind of feel like women are being oppressed by the ones claiming to help them. So I wouldn't mind helping them, especially if they end up making good games.
LMAOOOO: Reddit user shadowbanned for asking Julian Assange about reddit's censorship: http://i.imgur.com/zRYQGQf.jpg
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On October 18 2014 11:41 Xiphos wrote:
To ninazerg:
Same situation. Kickstarted a project, and didn't hold up the end of the bargain.
And try focusing on the article's lack of updates from her mirroring Sons of StarCraft.
A lack of updates is not necessarily indicative of a lack of progress. This just means the status of the project is unknown at this time. And for your information, I read the entire article, but to say this is another Sons of StarCraft, at this point, would be premature.
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On October 18 2014 13:24 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 11:41 Xiphos wrote:
To ninazerg:
Same situation. Kickstarted a project, and didn't hold up the end of the bargain.
And try focusing on the article's lack of updates from her mirroring Sons of StarCraft.
A lack of updates is not necessarily indicative of a lack of progress. This just means the status of the project is unknown at this time. And for your information, I read the entire article, but to say this is another Sons of StarCraft, at this point, would be premature.
Ah have you read my response to xDaunt from the same post? If not, I have further information below.
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On October 18 2014 13:38 Xiphos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 13:24 ninazerg wrote:On October 18 2014 11:41 Xiphos wrote:
To ninazerg:
Same situation. Kickstarted a project, and didn't hold up the end of the bargain.
And try focusing on the article's lack of updates from her mirroring Sons of StarCraft.
A lack of updates is not necessarily indicative of a lack of progress. This just means the status of the project is unknown at this time. And for your information, I read the entire article, but to say this is another Sons of StarCraft, at this point, would be premature. Ah have you read my response to xDaunt from the same post? If not, I have further information below.
What you described is definitely a breach of contract, though it probably does not qualify as fraud (don't ask why, it's a very complicated explanation). So yes, people who bought into the campaign probably could sue her unless Kickstarter sets up the agreements such that fundraisers are afforded extra legal protections.
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Kickstarter is a platformer that's fairly notorious for not delivering products. While I would definitely call out every person or company that doesn't live up to their obligations, it's not really something that's isolated to a small number of people.
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Moreover:
4. How Projects Work
Most of our Terms of Use explain your relationship with Kickstarter. This section is different — it explains the relationship between creators and backers of Kickstarter projects, and who’s responsible for what. This is what you’re agreeing to when you create or back a Kickstarter project.
Kickstarter provides a funding platform for creative projects. When a creator posts a project on Kickstarter, they’re inviting other people to form a contract with them. Anyone who backs a project is accepting the creator’s offer, and forming that contract.
Kickstarter is not a part of this contract — the contract is a direct legal agreement between creators and their backers. Here are the terms that govern that agreement:
When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers.
Throughout the process, creators owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life. At the same time, backers must understand that when they back a project, they’re helping to create something new — not ordering something that already exists. There may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the creator from being able to finish the project as promised.
If a creator is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers. A creator in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if:
they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned;
they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers;
they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised;
they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers; and
they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.
The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.
source: https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use
You always have had legal remedies against fraudulent project creators because Kickstarter created a contractual obligation upon the project creators towards their backers. The only catch is that Kickstarter itself won't do anything about breaches of that legally binding contract, they passed that off upon the backers.
Let's say a Kickstarter project raised $450,000.00, but the average backer contribution is $100.00. The aggregate amount raised is a pretty substantial amount of money, but the individual contribution is relatively low. If this project turned out to be fraudulent, the individual backer can absolutely go after the project creator in court.
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Canada13389 Posts
On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 13:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 18 2014 13:01 Dunnobro wrote:
A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not. Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved. It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die. The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is. Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while. See this is the perfect examples here. If y'all so want for those two characters to have more "empowered influences" in the games, then why don't you go ahead, work through the ranks as a programmer/writer to steadily getting promoted to a high position enough to dictate the game's story writing team.
I think you are oversimplifying the position women who want to make these games hold. Some of these ges do exist just not many and they happen less often due to some publishers believing they won't seel.
The story behind the game remember me is a perfect example of this. Getting it published and fully funded was difficult for the developer.
That being said you can't invalidate an argument by saying "just do it". Theres more to it than that sadly 
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On October 18 2014 12:52 Souone wrote:
I think the main takeaway I got from this whole thing is that people might not actually realize everyone can read their tweets.
There seems to be a huge untaped market for some common sense social media advising. Maybe make an app that reads peoples comments out loud before they post it, so they have a second chance to realize how stupid they are.
One of the great xkcd's was about that very thing.
+ Show Spoiler +
I agree people really lack common sense when it comes to facebook, twitter, and other social media. Once on the internet anyone and everyone can potentially access it.
I think if more people realized this, then we would have fewer of these great big internet debacles.
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On October 18 2014 14:22 NEOtheONE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 12:52 Souone wrote:
I think the main takeaway I got from this whole thing is that people might not actually realize everyone can read their tweets.
There seems to be a huge untaped market for some common sense social media advising. Maybe make an app that reads peoples comments out loud before they post it, so they have a second chance to realize how stupid they are. One of the great xkcd's was about that very thing. + Show Spoiler +I agree people really lack common sense when it comes to facebook, twitter, and other social media. Once on the internet anyone and everyone can potentially access it. I think if more people realized this, then we would have fewer of these great big internet debacles.
I don't think it's that people lack common sense on these social media's but that they just don't care. They feel like it won't ever be tied back to them irl b/c of the usual anonymity of the internet.
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On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2014 13:18 Xiphos wrote:Here is the main thing about women complaining about sexism in the gaming market: if you want there to be more games featuring all those "strong, embowered women that isn't depending on a man" characters, why don't y'all just make one? stop telling us that, you've got the tools, you've got the hardware, the programs to utilize in order to create that...you don't need us right? No you gotta start complaining instead of doing that. Which further slows down your progress of getting there. You are too lazy to actually put in the work or what? On October 18 2014 13:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 18 2014 13:01 Dunnobro wrote:
A damsel in distress is inherently sexist, technically. I think that's why it's important to view each situation to find out if it's good or not, rather than sexist or not. Wouldn't say inherently sexist. Nothing wrong with a female character that needs to be protected or saved. It's all the surrounding environment that makes it a problem. Like, if every female character is useless and can't help themselves, it's a bit of a narrative problem. Or if every male that gets captured can save himself. Or if every male that's captured is expected to just die. The amusing thing is that the Damsel in Distress trope is one that's the most frequently called-out within the story itself, or avoided or twisted in some form, namely because everyone is aware of it and how lazy a storytelling element it is. Even Princess Peach and Zelda, the two most well known examples in games, barely even qualify. With Peach its become a comedy element, and Zelda has been a proactive character for a long while. See this is the perfect examples here. If y'all so want for those two characters to have more "empowered influences" in the games, then why don't you go ahead, work through the ranks as a programmer/writer to steadily getting promoted to a high position enough to dictate the game's story writing team. I think you are oversimplifying the position women who want to make these games hold. Some of these ges do exist just not many and they happen less often due to some publishers believing they won't seel. The story behind the game remember me is a perfect example of this. Getting it published and fully funded was difficult for the developer. That being said you can't invalidate an argument by saying "just do it". Theres more to it than that sadly
Don't know man, why can't there be a woman Steve Job, Zuckerberg, Gates, Newel for females? When they first started, they were getting pushed by jocks. Why can't those women advocating do the same thing? Right now they don't even have any technical restrictions.
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Just read a great article on Adland about how this dragging of videogames' name through the mud in the mainstream media is only going to hurt the whole industry. And guess who's going to be left standing at the end of it all? You got that right, the hardcore gamers.
This shitstorm isn't going to help anyone; OK maybe it will further feminist agendas, but these game-journos? They're gonna get hurt, and hurt bad. Sarkeesian can always move to another medium, gaming is just another platform for her views. Really dislike that they are this short-sighted. They want to vidyas to be "more progressive" and argue that gaming has grown to encompass everyone (48% of all 'gamers' are women, right?) But with this huge mudslinging fest going on, that 48% is going to take a hit, fast and hard. Their arrogance that their way is the right way to further/progress the medium will be their own undoing.
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To anyone thinking this is about racism, sexism - whether you are for or against:
The real issue is that corporate journalism in gaming is corrupt.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/listen_to_yourself.png)
