Gamergate and video game journalism - Page 4

It's obvious now that almost no one, other than the self-righteous Gamergate crusaders, are delusional enough to believe that Gamergate is about "journalistic ethics". That's just a cover, a scapegoat, to hide what is actually clearly an anti-feminism agenda. Even the mainstream media has caught on. It's a common, but completely unconvincing argument, that the anti-feminism agenda, the harassment and death threats against women is merely some fringe group, or that it's unrelated to Gamergate. What defines Gamergate? If I now tweet that: "tea is better than coffee #gamergate", does this mean that Gamergate is about the superiority of tea over coffee? Of course not, what defines Gamergate is the overarching themes and main topics of discussion by its supporters. And the overwhelming volume of tweets and posts about Gamergate, on Twitter and even on this forum is an anti-feminism agenda masquerading as a movement about "journalistic ethics". The discussion is almost entirely about attacking women and "SJWs".

It's also obvious why such a smokescreen is needed. If Gamergate portrayed itself as the anti-feminism agenda that it really is, it would be savaged. Instead they need to create a diversion, that being a movement for "journalistic ethics". But to keep up this phony pretense has stretched the bounds of credulity so far that it can only believed by the misinformed or the most naive Gamergate supporters who want more ethical games journalism while engaging in the most intense form of wishful thinking that Gamergate is a pure movement for exactly that. In reality, this is bullshit.

The evidence is overwhelming. Gamergate originated with a harassment campaign against Zoe Quinn who was alleged to have traded sex for a favorable review of her game. Leaving aside the fact that this review doesn't exist, it was Quinn who was harassed and received death threats, not any corrupt games journalists. This was followed by harassment and death threats against Anita Sarkeesian for her videos exposing sexist depictions of female characters in video games. Recently, Brianna Wu was also harassed and received death threats for mocking Gamergate. Rather than condemning these attacks, much of Gamergate is more concerned with concocting conspiracy theories that these attacks are faked and attempts at victim blaming by insisting that these women deserved it. Furthermore, Gamergate only discusses "journalistic ethics" insofar as it relates to feminism and attacking "SJWs". For example, there is no concern from Gamergate about journalistic ethics relating to trashy hype articles or giving positive reviews to advertisers. Is this a coincidence? No. It's perfectly transparent: such concerns about "journalistic ethics" doesn't advance their anti-feminism agenda, while selectively attacking journalists and women who they label as "SJWs" does. If Gamergate is about "journalistic ethics", then why aren't corrupt games journalists receiving serious death threats?

But not only is Gamergate hiding behind a phony lie about "journalistic ethics", it also consists of people who have absolutely no idea what they want. Consider the Gamergate campaign that targeted Intel to pull their advertising off Gamasutra for publishing an article from Leigh Alexander that attacked gaming culture. For a bunch of people who are so concerned with journalistic ethics, one would expect them to understand that the article reflects the opinion of the author, not the publisher. The New York Times, the most Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper, the paragon of journalistic excellence, published an article by Vladmir Putin on the Syrian War. By the nonsense logic of the Gamergate mob, this implies that the NYT supports Putin, despite the fact that Putin up to that point had actively assisted the Assad regime who used chemical weapons against its own people, bombed Georgia in 2008 and seized it's territory, and would later go on to annex Crimea and gift Ukrainian rebels with a missile that shot down MH17. So all advertisers should boycott the NYT for publishing this article from an imperialist who shares responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Assad regime? The absurdity of this argument shows that Gamergate, while pretending to care about journalistic ethics, doesn't understand the first thing about journalism. Therefore, Gamergate is also filled with literally clueless morons.

Source: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1577712-GamerGate-Corruption-in-Video-Game-Journalism-(Thread-Guidelines-in-OP)?p=30010721&viewfull=1#post30010721

On October 15 2014 19:45 paralleluniverse wrote:
The OP is misinformed about Gamergate.

I posted this on the MMO-Champion forum yesterday:

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.

On October 15 2014 19:23 SatedSC2 wrote:
We need to go back to playing games and let it die.

On October 15 2014 20:14 Gowerly wrote:
#GamerGate is this, #GamerGate is that.
Some people DO want journalistic reform. Some people enjoy doxxing other users and sending death threats.

On October 15 2014 20:23 kwizach wrote:

As usual, a great post by paralleluniverse. Thanks.


...and as usual, misogynistic rubbish by xM)Z.